Pascua River

The Pascua River is a river located in the Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region of Chile. In spite of being a short river, its drainage basin is the seventh-largest in the country due to the great size of the O'Higgins/San Martín Lake, its source. The Pascua River was discovered in 1898 by the German Hans Steffen, during the exploration of the area near Christmas time (Pascua means Easter but is frequently used to describe Christmas in Chilean Spanish, thus explaining the origin of its name). The river has its source in the northern part of the north-west arm of the lake O'Higgins in the form of a small stream, in an area surrounded by steep-sided mountains that reach over 1,000 meters with glaciers spilling down to the lake or to the river. The river flows quickly forming rapids until it creates a cascade in the place where it falls into the Chico Lake. After leaving this lake, the river forms a new cascade and rushes furiously, preventing any type of navigation on its waters. Then the river is joined by the "Quiroz River" from the left, whose origin is the glacier of the same name, increasing its width in a valley of about 10 kilometers wide, which allows the development of large meanders and some marshy and peaty zones. After 62 km, the Pascua River ends in a wide delta that empties into the Baker Channel, previously having rushed in a last area of rapids. Due to

Flows through: Chile.

River data from Wikidata (CC0); lengths normalised to a common unit.