"It was a blue sky Chilean day for the 2013 Palguin events... Chile’s Rio Palguin is South America’s most run steep creek for good reason. The Middle and Salto Palguin sections attract top pro-kayakers and wannabe huckers to fantastic clean drops at all-you-can eat heights. A series of class V rapids keep the huckstars challenged."

"The events began with the Giant Slalom Women’s division. Great Britain’s and PKH guest Natty Cordon with broken foot crutched her way down the canyon as fellow Brit Tony Becker carried her kayak. Natty would notch a clean first heat run while her United States competition Jessie Rice would miss the hard to make second gate taking a 50 second penalty. After Cordon crutched her way out of the canyon exhausted she decided to stick with her clean first run and the pressure would be on Rice to clean her lines. Rice did clean her lines to win the giant slalom and Cordon would finish her day with a silver and later the 70 foot drop of her life....

...Congrats Natty for being a badass and having great lines."

The following morning, the 'jet lag' was so bad that many of us were very tired, had sore heads and couldn't seem to walk in a straight line. Thankfully, we managed to get all (or most) of the larger out of our systems relatively quickly and were ready to hit some stouts!

We spent the next couple of weeks boofing big on some epic rivers, going deep on the 70 footer on the Middle Palguin, rubbing shoulders with the big boys, consuming many beverages and preparing ourselves for the carnage of the Pucon River Fest.

Following the start of the fest, a big night at 'Beanies and Bikinis', and some questionable behaviour by some of the group, it was time to race!

The pressure was on as I was out of the gates first, but I placed a time of 2 minutes 20 seconds which put me second place in the ladies competition, and more importantly, second place in the British competition!

This was my first attempt at slalom, but won't be my last... as long as I can find other races with waterfalls in the middle.

After the race it was time to head for home but I know I will be back. Thank you so much to Team Chile for all of your boat carrying (or boat bitching as it's affectionately know) and to Pucon Kayak Hostel for an epic adventure... I will be back...