I am now in Puerto Williams, Isla Navarino. We are leaving today and from now on no internet contact, just glaciers fjords and storms. I hope all is well and when I can I will post more photos on Flickr - by the way this is the link, without having to sign in you can just look at the photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44544772@N03/
News to come in 2-4 weeks! now to the high seas!!!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Backcountry to the sea.
I just climbed a mountain in the snowy cold Ushuaian backcountry. We hiked in, bushwacked through a valley and above the tree line and skirted our way around the scree of a mountain, camping high up near a lake. The next day we awoke in the dark and after a hat breakfast we began the ascent. Up up up the snowy scree and rubble to where we thought we could access the peak - but a cliff got in our way, close to the summit so we had to give it up and climb the mountain next door. Bizzarre clear skies, white mountains all around, a ton of adrenaline as some of this should have been climbing but with such loose rock its impossible to put protection in... so we had to be very careful. Last night we came back, tired, wet and muddy, showered and had a big potluck at the clubhouse with all the french and italian sailors. Today we are finally leaving for the sea, the ocean voyage, with a quick stop in Puerto Williams (Chilean customs). More news to come, bon voyage a tous!!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Voyage
This will be short. Ushuaia, the most southern city in the world, is beautiful, surrounded by mountains, built on the slope of the base of snowy peaks, it has a sheltered harbour on the Beagle Canal and in the distance across the channel the Dientes de Navarino loom large and to the right the massive Darwin range towers in the distance.
I will be back in June to teach cross country skiing with the Club Andino and do some randonee/backcountry skiing in the mountains as well as perhaps some iceclimbing and light mountaineering if I´m lucky... but first...
I am going to crew on a 40ft sailing yacht, owned and captained by an Australian man who has been sailing, solo and crewed in every corner of the world for the past 9 years. We are heading to Puerto Montt, the same route as the Navimag ferry, through massive fjords, past untouched, and indeed unseen glaciers, deserted bays in the rain, wind, snow... i have no idea what it will be like, I cannot even imagine, but at the end I will post a big blog!
This, for me is a dream, an opportunity of a lifetime and a peice of what is becoming a perfect puzzle of a chapter of my life! I am now hanging around Ushuaia, buying gear (rain stuff and rubber boots, thick socks... - as there is a lot of waiting in the cold storm stay weather) and buying books for all the down time.
The voyage will last, with many days for exploration and storm stays (waiting for better weather, because in these thousands of islands and narrow passages you cannot sail in very bad weather nor at night, so progress is very slow) - including all this it could take almost 3 months maximum to arrive in Puerto Montt. I will likely hop off in one of the few ports along the way (really there are about three populated ports on the rout before Chiloe) with a total of 3weeks to a month and a half on the boat.
More news to come.
I will be back in June to teach cross country skiing with the Club Andino and do some randonee/backcountry skiing in the mountains as well as perhaps some iceclimbing and light mountaineering if I´m lucky... but first...
I am going to crew on a 40ft sailing yacht, owned and captained by an Australian man who has been sailing, solo and crewed in every corner of the world for the past 9 years. We are heading to Puerto Montt, the same route as the Navimag ferry, through massive fjords, past untouched, and indeed unseen glaciers, deserted bays in the rain, wind, snow... i have no idea what it will be like, I cannot even imagine, but at the end I will post a big blog!
This, for me is a dream, an opportunity of a lifetime and a peice of what is becoming a perfect puzzle of a chapter of my life! I am now hanging around Ushuaia, buying gear (rain stuff and rubber boots, thick socks... - as there is a lot of waiting in the cold storm stay weather) and buying books for all the down time.
The voyage will last, with many days for exploration and storm stays (waiting for better weather, because in these thousands of islands and narrow passages you cannot sail in very bad weather nor at night, so progress is very slow) - including all this it could take almost 3 months maximum to arrive in Puerto Montt. I will likely hop off in one of the few ports along the way (really there are about three populated ports on the rout before Chiloe) with a total of 3weeks to a month and a half on the boat.
More news to come.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Trekking log: Torres del Paines
The Crazies
After much negociating and I think a valid attempt at penetrating further into the park, I gave up. Without a guide or a packraft, Glaciar Tyndall and Geike are virtually inaccesible...a guide offered me half price (you have to pay for a boat, horses, permission to be on private land..) at 200,000 pesos - about$400 - thats the sort of clownery we are dealing with!!!
Anyway after paying an arm and a leg to get into the park, get the shuttle bus and take the ferry to the start of the trek I met a freindly Swede named Henrik. We were going to the same place and we were both going quite fast. So we hiked the 15 km up to Campamento Guarda, pas the Glaciar Grey Camp (where you have to pay!) We set up our stuff and then we continued with just food and water another 6km up the trail. This section wound up and down the rocky shore of tLago Grey along and above the glacier. I ran this section and consequently got some pretty funny looks fro uninitiated tourists!!! Henrik ran part of it too and what we saw was spectacualar. Everything is so whit that the littl black rock of the moutnains in the distance that does appear, does so lika a mirage in the sun, it looks like smoke. The massive blue white glacier went as far as the eye could see, feeding into the Campo d Hielo Sur (aside from the poles the largest section of continental ice in the world! The white peaks and the misty clouds surround. As we went up, the glacier infront of us, we saw and heard a massive chunk of ice the size of a house or perhaps larger, break off and splash into the lake, slow motion! Day 1 27km
On the way down the next day we there were chunks of ice, iceburgs, floating surreal blue in the grey water, against the dark clouds and the deep gren forest...The rest of the day was rather uneventful, again we just went very fast, doing 22km or so before 2pm. Then we set up at Campamento Italiano (where there is a mouse problem!!) and we ran up tthe Valle Frances.Fom there we ascended to Campamento Britanico and the lookout in the heart of the valley. We said we´d meet up at Britanico as I was running and Henrik was not. I ran past the burning fall colours, up, up the steep rock, past the massive Cerro Paine, little talked about but massive and impressive, big blue glaciers hanging off its jet black and jagged faces. The clouds were high so everything was visible; past the thick permanent snow that pads the glaciers and peaks I arrived at Britanico and i sat down to grab a handful of GORP. I waited probably 10 minutes befor a) starting to get cold andb) starting to get a bit worried as to the whereabouts of Henrik. I didn´t let myself worry though but as I was getting clold I started to head up to the mirador (lookout). Just as I left I saw three people we had both passed on the way up so I asked them if they had seen Henrik... no they said, only when he passed them with me... Ok now I started to worry. I ran down instead, winding through the rocky and muddy singletrack through twisted trees, about 15 minutes before I arrived at a river crossing where the trail was not overtly obvious... there I saw Henrik - even in that moment he was lost. He had got the the river crossing, not seen the trail, seen an alternate one that went up the riverbed and taken that for 20minutes. When he realized that it was not the trail he started to come down to look for the proper one but said he had passed this point already and not seen the trail... lucky he didn´t turn out a statistic!!!
So we both headed up to the mirador, a decision I am glad I mad. On the right and behind are the bicoloured cuernos (horns) tan coloured granite topped with jagged mudstone and dipped in snowy frost. To the left a huge black mountain and one of the frosted Torres followed by a line of jagged snoy super crisp peaks in front and below this ring of rock and ice a belt of fiery fall colours lighting up the valley. All the peaks looked like they had been put in the freezer. Misty snowy frosted and crisp! In the valley you are absolutely surrounded by rock walls that flow into one and other - multicoloured and gigantic. Its almost a full circle as if you are in the embrace of God Herself. Day 2 29.3km
Today was spposed to be short, only 21 km but with the fatigue of the other days it was the hardest. This side is like a highway in April - I cannot imagine what high season in Jan-Feb is like - suffocating I imagine! Some Americans, Brian and Emily, had a frisbee so we played on a rock/mud plateau under the shadow of rocky faces and a smiling glacier... now dinner. Day 3 21km, tired as shit!
4am wakeup call from the Americans. I pack up my sleeping bag, mat, warm clothes, stove and breakfast and am walking by 430am. I could see Emily and Brian´s headlamps ahead of me as I laboured up the steep trail. I caught them after ten minutes and as our headlamps are made for seeing around the campsite and not seeing far ahead we lost the trail. (On coming down I have no idea how because it was very well marked and extremely well travelled...but alas.) We scrambled up the rocky loose morrain to a point probably 150m above the glacial lake that sits at the foot of the Torres. It started to rain as I took out my sleeping bag to get ready for breakfast and sunrise at the Torres...oops didn´t think of that! They made coffee, I made some killer oatmeal and we watched the sunrise and the massive obelisks of rock! Unfortunately due to cloud cover we didn´t get the show of colours you see in photos, but beautiful nonetheless. We were the only ones up there. Indeed, on our way down, in the light we saw, at the foot of the lake about 20 people who hadn´t lost their way - I think it was better that way though we had it all to ourselves ina matter of speech. We came down, I said goodbye to my companion, Henrik drank so mate with the americans and we headed out toward Campamento Japones. We walked an hour by the winding grey glacial river , past the forest and changign leaves, sometimes skirting the river within inhes and others climbing the scree morain for views of the valley. We said goodby at Japones and they turned back. Now I was by myself. I began my run/hike up further into the forest, then above the forest, scrambling over rocks on the bed of a stream. Then I crossed a riverbed of sedimentary bedrock that was steep steep. With the water and the rain that was now gently falling I would have been a splat on a rock without my hiking poles! I wound my way around and up the base of the huge mouintain, past the colours, the black charcoal coloured rocks , the granite, into the misty Valle del silencio...
Solitude
All this sound; it is the fault of the rocks, that break the silence in every way. For the water that falls from the silent blue glaciers wouldn´t make a sound were it not for the rock that it drills and slaps and flows over, tumbling to an invisible river that rushes below. The wind would be silent too were it not for the towers of granite that stood thousands of years of ice that now whistle and the wind that howls through cracks and past million year old edges; and my feet, were it not for the remnants of endless rock slides would flow silently in the air... but instead they upset the stones that line this pat, wrapping around the mountain between colous and clouds that sit in this dead valley. Ia m alone in this valley. I run, scramble, walk, with care, make my way deep into its heart, around the back of the torres. Only climbers come here and its not climbing season so I am alone with the rock and ice, the clouds and the wind and I feel wonderfully tiny and insigvificant, that black dot that drags itself about the earth, but just a dot, as I sit snacking, in my foul-weather gear on a massive granite boulder.
I run down, heart racing, adrenaline pumping, endorphins flowing through my veins, making sounds sharper, colours clearer, and making the rain the clouds the countless glaciers and incomprehensible rock formations more beautiful... and I a alone.
On my way down I met two people coming up...my whole human body was broken. The aloneness that I felt, the beautiful solitude so rare in this park of 200,000 visitors each year, was shattered not by presence, but by my knowledge of human presence (of course they did nothing to bother me, just said hi and passed). My solitude smashed, like a bottle on the balck rocks under the glowing manderin canopy.
I scramble down the riverbed and into the windy mud/sand pack narrow singletrack where I fly, navigating some hairpin turns using trees to slingshot myself around the bend by grabbing it as I go. The river is crisp sounding, flowing over the rocks and everything is on fire. I love Patagonia. This night I cook by myself under the shadow of the Torres. The next day I walk out under a raining and then completely revealing sky. And that is it.
After much negociating and I think a valid attempt at penetrating further into the park, I gave up. Without a guide or a packraft, Glaciar Tyndall and Geike are virtually inaccesible...a guide offered me half price (you have to pay for a boat, horses, permission to be on private land..) at 200,000 pesos - about$400 - thats the sort of clownery we are dealing with!!!
Anyway after paying an arm and a leg to get into the park, get the shuttle bus and take the ferry to the start of the trek I met a freindly Swede named Henrik. We were going to the same place and we were both going quite fast. So we hiked the 15 km up to Campamento Guarda, pas the Glaciar Grey Camp (where you have to pay!) We set up our stuff and then we continued with just food and water another 6km up the trail. This section wound up and down the rocky shore of tLago Grey along and above the glacier. I ran this section and consequently got some pretty funny looks fro uninitiated tourists!!! Henrik ran part of it too and what we saw was spectacualar. Everything is so whit that the littl black rock of the moutnains in the distance that does appear, does so lika a mirage in the sun, it looks like smoke. The massive blue white glacier went as far as the eye could see, feeding into the Campo d Hielo Sur (aside from the poles the largest section of continental ice in the world! The white peaks and the misty clouds surround. As we went up, the glacier infront of us, we saw and heard a massive chunk of ice the size of a house or perhaps larger, break off and splash into the lake, slow motion! Day 1 27km
On the way down the next day we there were chunks of ice, iceburgs, floating surreal blue in the grey water, against the dark clouds and the deep gren forest...The rest of the day was rather uneventful, again we just went very fast, doing 22km or so before 2pm. Then we set up at Campamento Italiano (where there is a mouse problem!!) and we ran up tthe Valle Frances.Fom there we ascended to Campamento Britanico and the lookout in the heart of the valley. We said we´d meet up at Britanico as I was running and Henrik was not. I ran past the burning fall colours, up, up the steep rock, past the massive Cerro Paine, little talked about but massive and impressive, big blue glaciers hanging off its jet black and jagged faces. The clouds were high so everything was visible; past the thick permanent snow that pads the glaciers and peaks I arrived at Britanico and i sat down to grab a handful of GORP. I waited probably 10 minutes befor a) starting to get cold andb) starting to get a bit worried as to the whereabouts of Henrik. I didn´t let myself worry though but as I was getting clold I started to head up to the mirador (lookout). Just as I left I saw three people we had both passed on the way up so I asked them if they had seen Henrik... no they said, only when he passed them with me... Ok now I started to worry. I ran down instead, winding through the rocky and muddy singletrack through twisted trees, about 15 minutes before I arrived at a river crossing where the trail was not overtly obvious... there I saw Henrik - even in that moment he was lost. He had got the the river crossing, not seen the trail, seen an alternate one that went up the riverbed and taken that for 20minutes. When he realized that it was not the trail he started to come down to look for the proper one but said he had passed this point already and not seen the trail... lucky he didn´t turn out a statistic!!!
So we both headed up to the mirador, a decision I am glad I mad. On the right and behind are the bicoloured cuernos (horns) tan coloured granite topped with jagged mudstone and dipped in snowy frost. To the left a huge black mountain and one of the frosted Torres followed by a line of jagged snoy super crisp peaks in front and below this ring of rock and ice a belt of fiery fall colours lighting up the valley. All the peaks looked like they had been put in the freezer. Misty snowy frosted and crisp! In the valley you are absolutely surrounded by rock walls that flow into one and other - multicoloured and gigantic. Its almost a full circle as if you are in the embrace of God Herself. Day 2 29.3km
Today was spposed to be short, only 21 km but with the fatigue of the other days it was the hardest. This side is like a highway in April - I cannot imagine what high season in Jan-Feb is like - suffocating I imagine! Some Americans, Brian and Emily, had a frisbee so we played on a rock/mud plateau under the shadow of rocky faces and a smiling glacier... now dinner. Day 3 21km, tired as shit!
4am wakeup call from the Americans. I pack up my sleeping bag, mat, warm clothes, stove and breakfast and am walking by 430am. I could see Emily and Brian´s headlamps ahead of me as I laboured up the steep trail. I caught them after ten minutes and as our headlamps are made for seeing around the campsite and not seeing far ahead we lost the trail. (On coming down I have no idea how because it was very well marked and extremely well travelled...but alas.) We scrambled up the rocky loose morrain to a point probably 150m above the glacial lake that sits at the foot of the Torres. It started to rain as I took out my sleeping bag to get ready for breakfast and sunrise at the Torres...oops didn´t think of that! They made coffee, I made some killer oatmeal and we watched the sunrise and the massive obelisks of rock! Unfortunately due to cloud cover we didn´t get the show of colours you see in photos, but beautiful nonetheless. We were the only ones up there. Indeed, on our way down, in the light we saw, at the foot of the lake about 20 people who hadn´t lost their way - I think it was better that way though we had it all to ourselves ina matter of speech. We came down, I said goodbye to my companion, Henrik drank so mate with the americans and we headed out toward Campamento Japones. We walked an hour by the winding grey glacial river , past the forest and changign leaves, sometimes skirting the river within inhes and others climbing the scree morain for views of the valley. We said goodby at Japones and they turned back. Now I was by myself. I began my run/hike up further into the forest, then above the forest, scrambling over rocks on the bed of a stream. Then I crossed a riverbed of sedimentary bedrock that was steep steep. With the water and the rain that was now gently falling I would have been a splat on a rock without my hiking poles! I wound my way around and up the base of the huge mouintain, past the colours, the black charcoal coloured rocks , the granite, into the misty Valle del silencio...
Solitude
All this sound; it is the fault of the rocks, that break the silence in every way. For the water that falls from the silent blue glaciers wouldn´t make a sound were it not for the rock that it drills and slaps and flows over, tumbling to an invisible river that rushes below. The wind would be silent too were it not for the towers of granite that stood thousands of years of ice that now whistle and the wind that howls through cracks and past million year old edges; and my feet, were it not for the remnants of endless rock slides would flow silently in the air... but instead they upset the stones that line this pat, wrapping around the mountain between colous and clouds that sit in this dead valley. Ia m alone in this valley. I run, scramble, walk, with care, make my way deep into its heart, around the back of the torres. Only climbers come here and its not climbing season so I am alone with the rock and ice, the clouds and the wind and I feel wonderfully tiny and insigvificant, that black dot that drags itself about the earth, but just a dot, as I sit snacking, in my foul-weather gear on a massive granite boulder.
I run down, heart racing, adrenaline pumping, endorphins flowing through my veins, making sounds sharper, colours clearer, and making the rain the clouds the countless glaciers and incomprehensible rock formations more beautiful... and I a alone.
On my way down I met two people coming up...my whole human body was broken. The aloneness that I felt, the beautiful solitude so rare in this park of 200,000 visitors each year, was shattered not by presence, but by my knowledge of human presence (of course they did nothing to bother me, just said hi and passed). My solitude smashed, like a bottle on the balck rocks under the glowing manderin canopy.
I scramble down the riverbed and into the windy mud/sand pack narrow singletrack where I fly, navigating some hairpin turns using trees to slingshot myself around the bend by grabbing it as I go. The river is crisp sounding, flowing over the rocks and everything is on fire. I love Patagonia. This night I cook by myself under the shadow of the Torres. The next day I walk out under a raining and then completely revealing sky. And that is it.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Footnote to crossing the border
As I had mentioned, I crossed the border on foot at the end of March from Chile Chico to Los Antiguos (Arg.) Everything that I own was on my back and the sun shone down from the blue sky and the crazy wind blew in my face. I began to sing to myself La Frontera by Lhasa de Sela. I heard it once on CBC at work and I know no other music by Lhasa but this is a spooky beautiful song. I will post the lyrics if I can find them, and my own (albeit amature) translation. I can´t explain my reasons for travelling and the feeling that you know you have to go, even though you love, better than this song:
Hoy vuelvo a la frontera
Otra vez he de atravesar
Es el viento que me manda
Que me empuja a la frontera
Y que borra el camino
Que detras desaparece
Today I return to the border
Once again I must cross
It is the wind that sends me there,
That pushes me toward the border
And that erases my path
That behind me disappears
Me arrastro bajo el cielo
Y las nubes del invierno
Es el viento que las manda
Y no hay nadie que las pare
A veces combate despiadado
A veces baile
Y a veces...nada
I drag myself under the sky
And the winter clouds
It is the wind that sends them
And nobody in the world can stop them(clouds)
At times it fights mercilessly (the wind)
At times it dances
And at times... it does nothing
Hoy cruzo la frontera
Bajo el cielo
Bajo el cielo
Es el viento que me manda
Bajo el cielo de acero
Soy el punto negro que anda
A las orillas de la suerte
Today I cross the border
Under the sky
Under the sky
It is the wind that sends me
Under the steely sky
I am the black dot that moves
On the shores of fate
Excuse the horrible translation but... that will have to do. Although my english version is not half as poetic one gets the idea and I must say that as I crossed the border this song and everything it means colonized my body and my mind and my spirit and I felt close to its heart.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Firsts (and some new unedited poetry)
Soundtrack
The Weird Sisters
Lhasa
Bob Dylan... still
Coldplay
Pink Floyd
I arrived in Chile Chico after what I thought was a tu7multuous ferry ride 2 1/2 hours accross Gereal Carrera. In the open part 5 or 6 foot waves threw spray around, enough that water dripped in the van door! Jarek and I bought groceries, petrol, tried to phone a guy who was said to have gone down the river Jeinimeni but couldn´t locate him...
Maria at tha ample hospedaje mad us a big lunch and we chatted and relaxed for an hour or so. Then we started surveying. at 4:30 we left the Land cruiser and after scrambling up and down impossibly steep sandy pampa and negotiating nearcliffs and rocky riverbed we arrived back at the vehicle at 9pm in the dark, with one headlamp and a gps to guide us.
Next day I wait while Jarek sorts out his life, all his stuff. He essentially travels with everything he owns in his vehicle - paragliding, pacrafting trekking... for months. So at 1pm we finally get going and after parking the vehicle and having a quick lunch we continue surveying. For 7 hours we survey and at the end we have surveyed 20 km in total. We walk back to the vehicle but the last 3 km we hitch a ride in an estancia owners truck. Red and green cliffs drop down to the river far below, cleaving the dry pampa in two, Argentina on one side and Chile on the other. River below, with bizarre cliffs of mud and almost-sedimentary rock and to the left mars-like protrusions of red rock from the eery green pasture. And above, shadowy lenticular clouds sit like looming pacific tornados. And the wind is howling.
At times, as we slid down impossibly steep sandy banks I was reminded of my childhood at our grandparents cottage when Maura Stephan Monica and I would slide down the sandy banks off the dirt road from the cottage - they seemed so big then and it didn´t matter that we got so dirty.
We camped by the river and the next day set out at 11:30 to finish surveying, as the rest of the river runs right along the road, within one kilometer. This part we surveyed much more easily and by 5pm we reached Lago Jeinimeni in the park, among the red and green and rusty mountains. The road into the park would be absolutely impossible without a massive 4*4 vehicle - we cross rivers and its like a mountain not a road.
I had never been in a packraft so we ran the first 4-5 km of the river that evening to get me used to the feeling - the level was very low so we were hitting our asses on rocks alot especially so high up the river where no rivers have joined yet. As we sat by the fire drying our stuff two trucks pulled up full of American and Argentine fisherman. They turned out to be suuper nice and they ended up shuttling us back after day two. They found us on the dark road under the patagonian moon on the dark pampa, wet and tired after 8 hours of paddling down half the river. We bumbed our way down between the cliffs and scooted through canyons. As we passed more and more confluences, the water got bigger and bigger - more fun less bumping asses. After this day, I had sunstroke, a sore shoulder and was beat tired. We listened to Bob Dylan (at my request) in the truck with Taylor and Pedro under the dark sky on a black road winding through the immense pampa. There may have been one moment where we were all secretly singing "...and how does it feel to be onyour own..."
We ate in silence under the shadow of the dark mountains and we went to bed. The next day, after lots of laughter and some warm goodbyes we left, hitting the water where we had taken out the day before, at the late hour of2pm. A little 13 year old boy from the estancia where we parked the vehicle came down to watch us wet up and set out. Long day. Bigger water. Not as bumpy because of the bigger volume but sometimes a bit scary. I) had some close calls, got pinned on some boulders and filled with water but never flipped. Even at one point got pinned, filled with water and spun around backwards in some big stuff, but i recovered and got to shore via an eddy and emptied out!
Once the canyon opened up into an ample river valley things were more fun, it was like being at a water park!The last ten km was less turbulent. We reached the bridge just before the river empties into Lago General Carrera and we packed up at dark and hiked the 8km into town, wet, tired, with all our gear! At 200m from the hospedaje two vehicles pulled over... the fisherman!!! bad timing though it would have been better if we didn´t have to walk the 8 km! As we traversed the final 4 km into town invisible dogs barked and growled at us prompting us to pick up sticks and stones for security. One even appeard under the cloud and the pitch black and the one flickering street lamp to bark and menace in person at the queer sight that we were... but we were fine and arrived for a warm shower a huge meal and a comfortable bed!
The next morning I bought lunch and we left the hospedaje to hitch back to the car... who should go by us not 100m from the hostel but the fisherman going to fish for another hour before their return to Coihaique. We jumped in the back of the pickup with three dogs, two coolers and a ton of fishing gear and went halfway, before they decided they didn´t have time to fish and had to drop us. We walked 8km and then got a ride the last three or so to the car, ate and came back.
In the end it was the first time I had ever packrafted! We were the first people, as far as we know, to go down the Jeinimeni from ist source at Lago Jeinimeni all the way to the mouth at General Carrera. 60km of pure class III which is not hard but there were essentially no breaks so it was right tiring! Its not as crazy as it sounds but its probably alot more fun than it sounds! A BLAST!! and lots of great scenery and people as well as some really cold water and some intense surveying!
Yesterday I walked across the Chilean/Argentine border, only getting a ride the last three kilometers to Los Antiguos where I got a bus to Rio Gallegos and from there to Puerto Natales. I have begun the pilgrimage that 150,000 eco-blind tourists do each year. I am in the goretex mecca of south america and I will soon be in one of the most famous national parks in South America, Torres del Paine. Hopefully i can locate the beaten track, and get off it!!!
As I walked in the heat of the pampa I sang Lhasa de Sela´s "La Fronter" (The Border) in my head - a beautful song - look it up on Youtube!!!
Poetry.
A question for the wind
I ask the wind about those white bones
That scatter the sandy ground, and about
The sun that beats the neverending pampa
Till it goes red and green and mars-like;
I ask the wind about this canyon,
That cleaves deep into the green plateau
And about these forgotten sheep, mummified
And parched by the cracking heat and a red sunset
Creeping to the cliffs and falling down the mud;
I ask the wind about the golden grasses,
Sparkling each morning with dew like delicate eyelashes
Until they dry and become mirrors to the sun,
Tufts exploding from the sand and the low thistles;
I ask the wind about the permanent wind
And to all this it howls; it whispers; it coos
And it cries; it even screams sometimes in the rocks
But it never answers me
The Antioasis*
There is nothing out ther:
An endless string of white towers
And a universe of parched tufts of grass
All shades of burnt, where except for fence posts
That run the endless sleepy road, direction does not exist
Under a baby blue, a steel-speckled sky
Oh, and the rusting skulls of sheep
Forgoitten on the plateau unable to hid from the sun,
And the rotting carcasses of cars dead of old age,
A spot on the universe, a spot on this exhausted land.
* * *
When there is nothing everything is garbage
Because everything pollutes nothingness.
There there is a petroleum antioasis in the flat plateau
When lines of poplars and pines like weeds
Are the only break in the rusted corrugated metal
And sloppy red hollow bricks,
When a disorganized mess of rusty oil barrells
And containers mar the incomprehensibly human
Grid on a star gazing pampa and old toothless men
Bored, even of the bottle and burnt from the long sun
Pace 20m sections of stupid perfect sidewalk
Between bricks and garbage and a coke bottle
And when this antioasis is ringed and cordoned
By inhabited enclaves of junk and barbed wire
Where remnants of millions of plastic bags cling to its teeth
And suffocate this place so all you can do is
Watch the shimmering lights move slowly out like ants
To smaller oases on the infinite flat,
When all there is to wait for in the day is
The swirling dust, and a few dollars, you just
Numbly stare at the ass in front of you, even if its not
Beautiful - or a better thing would be to look for a street
At the right moment, that runs east-west
And watch the sunset in colours (the only colours out here)
And the rising paper moon - A real oasis
In the human zoo
*The antioiasis is not counterculture. It is just a metaphor - the worthless pollutes the priceless.
Rio Gallegos
Even with my caffeine vertigo
When I stumble like an uncertain sea
Over the highway bridge, the overpass
With the balance of a drunkard,
Even my wavering legs can see its flat and stretches
As far as the (yes) the I can see,
And the long morning sun casts my shadow forever on the pavement,
I can´t see the end of this Galician waterway
That seems to stretch north to North into
A gamut of dzzying directions that spin the board
Underneath old rolling cars and poplar trees and the fresh crisp sunrise air
The Weird Sisters
Lhasa
Bob Dylan... still
Coldplay
Pink Floyd
I arrived in Chile Chico after what I thought was a tu7multuous ferry ride 2 1/2 hours accross Gereal Carrera. In the open part 5 or 6 foot waves threw spray around, enough that water dripped in the van door! Jarek and I bought groceries, petrol, tried to phone a guy who was said to have gone down the river Jeinimeni but couldn´t locate him...
Maria at tha ample hospedaje mad us a big lunch and we chatted and relaxed for an hour or so. Then we started surveying. at 4:30 we left the Land cruiser and after scrambling up and down impossibly steep sandy pampa and negotiating nearcliffs and rocky riverbed we arrived back at the vehicle at 9pm in the dark, with one headlamp and a gps to guide us.
Next day I wait while Jarek sorts out his life, all his stuff. He essentially travels with everything he owns in his vehicle - paragliding, pacrafting trekking... for months. So at 1pm we finally get going and after parking the vehicle and having a quick lunch we continue surveying. For 7 hours we survey and at the end we have surveyed 20 km in total. We walk back to the vehicle but the last 3 km we hitch a ride in an estancia owners truck. Red and green cliffs drop down to the river far below, cleaving the dry pampa in two, Argentina on one side and Chile on the other. River below, with bizarre cliffs of mud and almost-sedimentary rock and to the left mars-like protrusions of red rock from the eery green pasture. And above, shadowy lenticular clouds sit like looming pacific tornados. And the wind is howling.
At times, as we slid down impossibly steep sandy banks I was reminded of my childhood at our grandparents cottage when Maura Stephan Monica and I would slide down the sandy banks off the dirt road from the cottage - they seemed so big then and it didn´t matter that we got so dirty.
We camped by the river and the next day set out at 11:30 to finish surveying, as the rest of the river runs right along the road, within one kilometer. This part we surveyed much more easily and by 5pm we reached Lago Jeinimeni in the park, among the red and green and rusty mountains. The road into the park would be absolutely impossible without a massive 4*4 vehicle - we cross rivers and its like a mountain not a road.
I had never been in a packraft so we ran the first 4-5 km of the river that evening to get me used to the feeling - the level was very low so we were hitting our asses on rocks alot especially so high up the river where no rivers have joined yet. As we sat by the fire drying our stuff two trucks pulled up full of American and Argentine fisherman. They turned out to be suuper nice and they ended up shuttling us back after day two. They found us on the dark road under the patagonian moon on the dark pampa, wet and tired after 8 hours of paddling down half the river. We bumbed our way down between the cliffs and scooted through canyons. As we passed more and more confluences, the water got bigger and bigger - more fun less bumping asses. After this day, I had sunstroke, a sore shoulder and was beat tired. We listened to Bob Dylan (at my request) in the truck with Taylor and Pedro under the dark sky on a black road winding through the immense pampa. There may have been one moment where we were all secretly singing "...and how does it feel to be onyour own..."
We ate in silence under the shadow of the dark mountains and we went to bed. The next day, after lots of laughter and some warm goodbyes we left, hitting the water where we had taken out the day before, at the late hour of2pm. A little 13 year old boy from the estancia where we parked the vehicle came down to watch us wet up and set out. Long day. Bigger water. Not as bumpy because of the bigger volume but sometimes a bit scary. I) had some close calls, got pinned on some boulders and filled with water but never flipped. Even at one point got pinned, filled with water and spun around backwards in some big stuff, but i recovered and got to shore via an eddy and emptied out!
Once the canyon opened up into an ample river valley things were more fun, it was like being at a water park!The last ten km was less turbulent. We reached the bridge just before the river empties into Lago General Carrera and we packed up at dark and hiked the 8km into town, wet, tired, with all our gear! At 200m from the hospedaje two vehicles pulled over... the fisherman!!! bad timing though it would have been better if we didn´t have to walk the 8 km! As we traversed the final 4 km into town invisible dogs barked and growled at us prompting us to pick up sticks and stones for security. One even appeard under the cloud and the pitch black and the one flickering street lamp to bark and menace in person at the queer sight that we were... but we were fine and arrived for a warm shower a huge meal and a comfortable bed!
The next morning I bought lunch and we left the hospedaje to hitch back to the car... who should go by us not 100m from the hostel but the fisherman going to fish for another hour before their return to Coihaique. We jumped in the back of the pickup with three dogs, two coolers and a ton of fishing gear and went halfway, before they decided they didn´t have time to fish and had to drop us. We walked 8km and then got a ride the last three or so to the car, ate and came back.
In the end it was the first time I had ever packrafted! We were the first people, as far as we know, to go down the Jeinimeni from ist source at Lago Jeinimeni all the way to the mouth at General Carrera. 60km of pure class III which is not hard but there were essentially no breaks so it was right tiring! Its not as crazy as it sounds but its probably alot more fun than it sounds! A BLAST!! and lots of great scenery and people as well as some really cold water and some intense surveying!
Yesterday I walked across the Chilean/Argentine border, only getting a ride the last three kilometers to Los Antiguos where I got a bus to Rio Gallegos and from there to Puerto Natales. I have begun the pilgrimage that 150,000 eco-blind tourists do each year. I am in the goretex mecca of south america and I will soon be in one of the most famous national parks in South America, Torres del Paine. Hopefully i can locate the beaten track, and get off it!!!
As I walked in the heat of the pampa I sang Lhasa de Sela´s "La Fronter" (The Border) in my head - a beautful song - look it up on Youtube!!!
Poetry.
A question for the wind
I ask the wind about those white bones
That scatter the sandy ground, and about
The sun that beats the neverending pampa
Till it goes red and green and mars-like;
I ask the wind about this canyon,
That cleaves deep into the green plateau
And about these forgotten sheep, mummified
And parched by the cracking heat and a red sunset
Creeping to the cliffs and falling down the mud;
I ask the wind about the golden grasses,
Sparkling each morning with dew like delicate eyelashes
Until they dry and become mirrors to the sun,
Tufts exploding from the sand and the low thistles;
I ask the wind about the permanent wind
And to all this it howls; it whispers; it coos
And it cries; it even screams sometimes in the rocks
But it never answers me
The Antioasis*
There is nothing out ther:
An endless string of white towers
And a universe of parched tufts of grass
All shades of burnt, where except for fence posts
That run the endless sleepy road, direction does not exist
Under a baby blue, a steel-speckled sky
Oh, and the rusting skulls of sheep
Forgoitten on the plateau unable to hid from the sun,
And the rotting carcasses of cars dead of old age,
A spot on the universe, a spot on this exhausted land.
* * *
When there is nothing everything is garbage
Because everything pollutes nothingness.
There there is a petroleum antioasis in the flat plateau
When lines of poplars and pines like weeds
Are the only break in the rusted corrugated metal
And sloppy red hollow bricks,
When a disorganized mess of rusty oil barrells
And containers mar the incomprehensibly human
Grid on a star gazing pampa and old toothless men
Bored, even of the bottle and burnt from the long sun
Pace 20m sections of stupid perfect sidewalk
Between bricks and garbage and a coke bottle
And when this antioasis is ringed and cordoned
By inhabited enclaves of junk and barbed wire
Where remnants of millions of plastic bags cling to its teeth
And suffocate this place so all you can do is
Watch the shimmering lights move slowly out like ants
To smaller oases on the infinite flat,
When all there is to wait for in the day is
The swirling dust, and a few dollars, you just
Numbly stare at the ass in front of you, even if its not
Beautiful - or a better thing would be to look for a street
At the right moment, that runs east-west
And watch the sunset in colours (the only colours out here)
And the rising paper moon - A real oasis
In the human zoo
*The antioiasis is not counterculture. It is just a metaphor - the worthless pollutes the priceless.
Rio Gallegos
Even with my caffeine vertigo
When I stumble like an uncertain sea
Over the highway bridge, the overpass
With the balance of a drunkard,
Even my wavering legs can see its flat and stretches
As far as the (yes) the I can see,
And the long morning sun casts my shadow forever on the pavement,
I can´t see the end of this Galician waterway
That seems to stretch north to North into
A gamut of dzzying directions that spin the board
Underneath old rolling cars and poplar trees and the fresh crisp sunrise air
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Trekking log - March 17 to 20 paraphrased.
We left our extra gear, what we did not need for the trek, unguarded in the driveway of the hostel we had stayed at in Coihaique...Patagonia Hostel, run by an amazing German couple. (the man spent 2 months on the northern icefield of patagonia and has decided that GoreTex is shit - his two month expedition which saw more than 6 meters of snowfall and at times winds of 300km per hour used no goretex at all - just light plastic waterproofs - he says goretex is for taking your dog for a walk - or I suppose for colder conditions - but pure wet... plastic is the way to go!!) With our gear we left a note saying we would return in 4-5days. After 3 stops to by high energy, light weight food we walke out of town and hitched the 95 Km to the trailhead in a pickup driven by a young couple who themselves had hitchhiked almost 1000km to Coihaique and only there had rented the pickup for better access to the area. We were dropped off in the middle of the highway, at the trailhead with a light rain. They wished us good luck and continued south. The first day was uneventful and untechnical - it was long, following a 4*4 trail, cows, 4 or 5 river crossings, mud, forest, rain and a few moments of confusion as to where the trail continued.
Day two when Olivia and I awoke we both contemplated seriously (and embarrassingly) turning back. It had rained all night and everything was wet. When you looked outside you could see nothing, just fog and clouds and the quiet green and black of the trees. We thought it would be all pain and no gain so we decided to leave the tent with our stuff in it and just take the necessaries for a day hike. 20 minutes into the hike the clouds parted to allow us a view from the riverbed of towering mountains of red and black, their peaks blanketed with snow, and the snowy red pass at 1300m that we were to cross. We changed our minds. We turned back, packed everything up and left at 11am - late. We climbed in the lenga forest until the trees ended giving way to rough big scree. the trail was marked by piles of rocks. Tough going in the rain, fog, and increasing cold. We reached the snowy pass and trudged further up craggy cavy crumbly peaks closed us in on two sides and clouds infront and behind... We stopped to eat at the top but a thick cloud began to close us in so we had to move. Descending the meltoff stream that at times ran underneath the permanent snow, we navigated down an extremely steep section of loose rocks. Finally stopping to eat we were greeted and welcomed by a sudden parting of clouds. Across from us, almost directly a massive glacier revealed itself. Blue, black, white. Sun shone off its surfaces and the shimmering water that flowed down the steep craggy rocks that gripped the glacier. Black clouds with a blue glacier and fiery white water on rock. Then below us, something I have never seen, with the rain that suddenly began to pound down, a brilliant rainbow - all is a gift!
At the end of the day Olivia fell in the river so we finished quickly and spent the rest of the day/night in the tent as the rain continued.
Day 3 we awoke to what we thought was a blue sky...not so! It began to rain as we started the hardest day of the trek, up, up, up through lenga forest again and into a rocky section. We met an israeli couple and did a small hike up to a sudden vista of spiky spires, a hanging glacier that melted away to aquamarine pools in the black rocks a few hundred metres directly below our feet. We came down and had to cross another river, this time it was my turn for a soaker... only two hours into the day!!! Again we climbed big rocks, scree, up, up, up over and around a turquoise lagoon. Across from us was yet another glacier, clinging apparently precariously from the rock face and flowing in cascades down to the lake below. To the right we could se clouds that whisped mysteriously and vaguely about the black spires of Cerro Castillo (literally Mount Castle) curling up the faces of the silouetted moutain sides and swirling through the massive river valley. Far far below you could see the snaking silvery river we had traced as well as the snowy 1300m pass from yesterday. Everything appeared and disappeared in moments. We climbed up straight past the huge glacier covered in snow on our way to over 1600m, chased by an ominous cloud, wet snow and strong wind. Rocks were getting slippery. Over the pass and into the flat section at 1600m, a sudden silence acosted our ears, indeed our beings. No rushing rivers running from the glaciers to fall on rock and water, no wind no snow, no rivers, no rumbling of avalanches... a deafening silence when all you can hear is the earie (sp?) sound of your breath heaving and your heart pounding. Past the precipice of black rocks, of red rocks, purple rocks, rusty rocks, green rocks, past our martian horizon black clouds. And to the right a stone spire pearcing the same clouds that covered and discovered it. As suddenly as the silence came it was cracked by a ferocious wind and an immediate cold. We had to go. We started the impossibly long (we couldn´t have known it then) descent of loose rock almost straight down the face at more than 45degrees. Then into a river bed with walls of earth on either side. Some dangerous, precipitous forays into the forest, more steep rock. More than anything it was mentally and emotionally exhausting because more than two hours before we reached a campable sight, we thought we were "almost there". There was one moment on the face of this rubbly mountainside that a cloud closed us in... this is a very earie feeling because you cannot tell where you are, there are no points of reference. All you see is fog/cloud and the rocks directly beneath your feet. Nothing else... up the mountain a few metres grey cloud, down the mountain and along the face ten metres of rocks and then pure fog.
The saving grace you might say was that the sun did accompany us the last few hours and dried wood enough so that after half an hour of trying we were able to start a fire. We hung up all our wet clothes and sleeping bags and boots even the tent fly to dry. At night the stars were amazing so we went to the nearby riverbed with our sleeping bags and just lay there infinitessimally (sp?) small.
Day four was uneventful. After a halfhour confusion of direction in which we almost went back up the mountain by another trail (our map was shit) we descended down the side of a canyon and into the Rio Ibañez valley where the trail meets another 4*4 trail of about 6km that brought us back to Villa Cerro Castillo on the Carretera Austral. In the middle of the road, outside the restaurant where we ate some wonderful sandwiches (this restaurant is two buses put together, painted with the colours of the rainbow and attended by a sunny woman named Sole.) In the middle of the Carretera Austral, lending creadence to the fact that not only is this road almost deserted but we are in offseason, was a dog, sleeping! In the restaurant we met a man, don´t know his name. He asked us where we were from... Canada and France we said. What part of Canada? Ottawa. NO??!! I lived there two years! and then he recited his address. He went to Brookfield highschool and then Rideau Highschool!!! He said ottawa and Canada were the best places he´d ever been!!!! Coincidences are crazy. In the middle of offseason in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Patagonia, in south of South america, a man whose father worked at the Chilean Embassy in Canada and went to a highschool that I played soccer against!!!! BIZARRE!
WE finished our sandwiches and hit the road, hoping to get back to Coihaique. The rain started. Up the road a pickup pulled over and four people got out and were watching us for a time. Then they whistled and motioned for us to come so we grabbed our bags and went over... who was it? None other than Felipe and Lorena, the couple that had dropped us off at the trailhead. It was like seeing old friends!!! A smile broke onto my dirty and tired face! we got in and they drove us to Rio Blanco, chatting joking, and even sleeping (not them, just me!) , where we almost immediatly got another ride with some builders right to the street where the hostel sits! We were welcomed with smiles and chatter, and tea and beautiful beds!!!
Now I´m waiting for Jarek to do some backcountry stuff in some unknown, relatively unvisited and remote national parks here in the south, weather permitting!!! WOOHOO PATAGONIA!!!
Thats it from me and you can see photos of ice climbing, glacier stuff and a few inadequate photos of the Cerro Castillo trek.
Until next time
Ciao
Day two when Olivia and I awoke we both contemplated seriously (and embarrassingly) turning back. It had rained all night and everything was wet. When you looked outside you could see nothing, just fog and clouds and the quiet green and black of the trees. We thought it would be all pain and no gain so we decided to leave the tent with our stuff in it and just take the necessaries for a day hike. 20 minutes into the hike the clouds parted to allow us a view from the riverbed of towering mountains of red and black, their peaks blanketed with snow, and the snowy red pass at 1300m that we were to cross. We changed our minds. We turned back, packed everything up and left at 11am - late. We climbed in the lenga forest until the trees ended giving way to rough big scree. the trail was marked by piles of rocks. Tough going in the rain, fog, and increasing cold. We reached the snowy pass and trudged further up craggy cavy crumbly peaks closed us in on two sides and clouds infront and behind... We stopped to eat at the top but a thick cloud began to close us in so we had to move. Descending the meltoff stream that at times ran underneath the permanent snow, we navigated down an extremely steep section of loose rocks. Finally stopping to eat we were greeted and welcomed by a sudden parting of clouds. Across from us, almost directly a massive glacier revealed itself. Blue, black, white. Sun shone off its surfaces and the shimmering water that flowed down the steep craggy rocks that gripped the glacier. Black clouds with a blue glacier and fiery white water on rock. Then below us, something I have never seen, with the rain that suddenly began to pound down, a brilliant rainbow - all is a gift!
At the end of the day Olivia fell in the river so we finished quickly and spent the rest of the day/night in the tent as the rain continued.
Day 3 we awoke to what we thought was a blue sky...not so! It began to rain as we started the hardest day of the trek, up, up, up through lenga forest again and into a rocky section. We met an israeli couple and did a small hike up to a sudden vista of spiky spires, a hanging glacier that melted away to aquamarine pools in the black rocks a few hundred metres directly below our feet. We came down and had to cross another river, this time it was my turn for a soaker... only two hours into the day!!! Again we climbed big rocks, scree, up, up, up over and around a turquoise lagoon. Across from us was yet another glacier, clinging apparently precariously from the rock face and flowing in cascades down to the lake below. To the right we could se clouds that whisped mysteriously and vaguely about the black spires of Cerro Castillo (literally Mount Castle) curling up the faces of the silouetted moutain sides and swirling through the massive river valley. Far far below you could see the snaking silvery river we had traced as well as the snowy 1300m pass from yesterday. Everything appeared and disappeared in moments. We climbed up straight past the huge glacier covered in snow on our way to over 1600m, chased by an ominous cloud, wet snow and strong wind. Rocks were getting slippery. Over the pass and into the flat section at 1600m, a sudden silence acosted our ears, indeed our beings. No rushing rivers running from the glaciers to fall on rock and water, no wind no snow, no rivers, no rumbling of avalanches... a deafening silence when all you can hear is the earie (sp?) sound of your breath heaving and your heart pounding. Past the precipice of black rocks, of red rocks, purple rocks, rusty rocks, green rocks, past our martian horizon black clouds. And to the right a stone spire pearcing the same clouds that covered and discovered it. As suddenly as the silence came it was cracked by a ferocious wind and an immediate cold. We had to go. We started the impossibly long (we couldn´t have known it then) descent of loose rock almost straight down the face at more than 45degrees. Then into a river bed with walls of earth on either side. Some dangerous, precipitous forays into the forest, more steep rock. More than anything it was mentally and emotionally exhausting because more than two hours before we reached a campable sight, we thought we were "almost there". There was one moment on the face of this rubbly mountainside that a cloud closed us in... this is a very earie feeling because you cannot tell where you are, there are no points of reference. All you see is fog/cloud and the rocks directly beneath your feet. Nothing else... up the mountain a few metres grey cloud, down the mountain and along the face ten metres of rocks and then pure fog.
The saving grace you might say was that the sun did accompany us the last few hours and dried wood enough so that after half an hour of trying we were able to start a fire. We hung up all our wet clothes and sleeping bags and boots even the tent fly to dry. At night the stars were amazing so we went to the nearby riverbed with our sleeping bags and just lay there infinitessimally (sp?) small.
Day four was uneventful. After a halfhour confusion of direction in which we almost went back up the mountain by another trail (our map was shit) we descended down the side of a canyon and into the Rio Ibañez valley where the trail meets another 4*4 trail of about 6km that brought us back to Villa Cerro Castillo on the Carretera Austral. In the middle of the road, outside the restaurant where we ate some wonderful sandwiches (this restaurant is two buses put together, painted with the colours of the rainbow and attended by a sunny woman named Sole.) In the middle of the Carretera Austral, lending creadence to the fact that not only is this road almost deserted but we are in offseason, was a dog, sleeping! In the restaurant we met a man, don´t know his name. He asked us where we were from... Canada and France we said. What part of Canada? Ottawa. NO??!! I lived there two years! and then he recited his address. He went to Brookfield highschool and then Rideau Highschool!!! He said ottawa and Canada were the best places he´d ever been!!!! Coincidences are crazy. In the middle of offseason in the middle of nowhere in the middle of Patagonia, in south of South america, a man whose father worked at the Chilean Embassy in Canada and went to a highschool that I played soccer against!!!! BIZARRE!
WE finished our sandwiches and hit the road, hoping to get back to Coihaique. The rain started. Up the road a pickup pulled over and four people got out and were watching us for a time. Then they whistled and motioned for us to come so we grabbed our bags and went over... who was it? None other than Felipe and Lorena, the couple that had dropped us off at the trailhead. It was like seeing old friends!!! A smile broke onto my dirty and tired face! we got in and they drove us to Rio Blanco, chatting joking, and even sleeping (not them, just me!) , where we almost immediatly got another ride with some builders right to the street where the hostel sits! We were welcomed with smiles and chatter, and tea and beautiful beds!!!
Now I´m waiting for Jarek to do some backcountry stuff in some unknown, relatively unvisited and remote national parks here in the south, weather permitting!!! WOOHOO PATAGONIA!!!
Thats it from me and you can see photos of ice climbing, glacier stuff and a few inadequate photos of the Cerro Castillo trek.
Until next time
Ciao
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