A lot to catch up on ...

Since I haven´t posted in about two weeks, we´ll try a story by pictures, since it´s much easier for me to remember things with a visual aid.


Here´s the last camp that I reported about in the middle of Valle Guanaco, more specifically where Mack, Justin, and I tented for the week. Pretty nice spot, out of the wind and rain.

The following weekend, we did a short day hike up a peak called Tamangito (I believe I mentioned this in the last post, so I won´t elaborate too much). We had a great view at the top in all directions.

Two weeks ago, we headed out to a new camp much closer to the Argentinian border. It was actually a pretty ridiculous place. We spent our nights in an actual house with running water and a bathroom, and for that matter, a kitchen (with the normal, but slightly nicer, wood stove). Unfortunately, the work there was much more difficult than the fence pulling that we had previously encountered. This time, the fence had 7 or 8 wires going across, 2 being barbed, and many of the wires were so old that the plants had grown well over them (note that all the plants here suck). We also had far fewer people working in the group that week, about half what we were used to, so progress came very slowly. Fortunately (and unfortunately), I spent one day in Cochrane taking care of bus and plane tickets, as well as food and money for our future travel plans. While the work was horrible that day (i.e. through dense forest), Mack and Justin were lucky enough to spot a pygmy owl in the woods and get some really great shots from probably 10 feet or so away. Very mad that I wasn´t there.

After four days or so working, we took a day off and did a quick day hike to Lago Chico, which was about 2 or 3 hours to the south and was supposed to have a great view of the larger Lago Cochrane. The weather turned sour quickly after leaving and by lunchtime, it was raining quite hard. We decided to eat and turn around. Naturally, by the time we got back, the weather was great, so we sat down before we got back, build a rock wall to stop the wind, and had a few beers. Here´s the new ad for Cristal:

This is why we take out the barbed wire first (it´s the topmost wire on most fences):

Justin, Mack, and I after a hard day at work inside the kitchen of our ridiculous house enjoying sopapillas (bread fried in animal fat, mmmm):

Now we get to the epic part. Yesterday, we returned from a long five day hike up north briefly into Jeinimeni National Reserve. The trip consisted of three easy steps. Days one and two going north through a valley housing Río Los Aviles, day three going east in Valle Hermoso, and days four and five going down a valley housing Ríos San Antonio and La Leona.



Day one: So starts the journey into the valley. There was a old sheep and guacho path that was there (or at least supposed to be there) which we followed a good deal of the way. We actually started the day with a river crossing in really cold, rainy conditions, so we got a pretty slow start. After getting into the valley, we realized that we had to ascend a few hundred meters to get to a more hikable area following the path. Here´s a view from the top looking back into the Valle Chacabucco (Los Aviles on the right):

Once we got to the top, walking was pretty easy going for a while, despite the somewhat uphill climb. Oh, and I forgot to mention that we were all carrying about 50 pound packs, which made the hike significantly more difficult (food weighs a lot, and we eat more than the average person). We hiked through some plains-esque areas and topped out over a hill to this view (there was also a really incredible red mountain on the left, and you don´t get the scale of how big this valley is in a small photo):

Walking up and through the valley:


We vastly underestimated how long the hike would take, and with heavy packs, we didn´t quite make it to the first site where we were supposed to camp which happened to be a puesto, an old guacho residence. Too bad. Ended up camping on the riverside so that we could make a fire and easily access water. Also underestimated the amount of food that we had, which severely affected our moods until the fourth day when we were sure that we could gorge on more food without being negatively affected later in the trip.

The next morning, we woke up to the tent being completely frozen over. We also didn´t get any sunlight until about 11 since the valley is north-south. The sun makes a huge difference in how warm you are at any given time, the air is most always cold. Anyways, we headed from our camp mostly up a dried up riverbed until the end of the day. We booked it, trying to make up for the time that we had lost the previous day from our lack of disciplined hiking.

After passing through a bunch of dense forest, we came across and slowly walked over a huge boulder field through to another forest ...

And finally ended up in our destination, Valle Hermoso. The sun was just setting by the time we arrived, so here is basically the only shot we had time to take before needing to cook dinner and set up camp.

Day three. Walked most of the day over dry riverbeds in Valle Hermoso. No signs of much life, and certainly no paths to be seen. Pretty drab day overall. Once we reached a large lake called Lago Verde (it was quite green), we had one hell of a time going up and then down a 300 meter pass between two mountains to get around the lake. A view looking back at the valley:

Near the pass next to Lago Verde:

A view of Lago Verde and Valle Hermoso at the top of the pass:

After descending from the pass, we walked on another dry riverbed for the rest of the day to reach another lake.

Mack and Justin had thought that we were headed for a puesto for the night, so after a really long day of hiking over rough terrain, we de-panted and took the plunge into a relatively high river (Justin actually sacrificed himself first, pretty cold crossing the river three times). We couldn´t find the puesto anywhere, so instead set up camp next to another river that we crossed the next day.

Day four. Got up early and made really good time since there were a ton of great paths along the Rio San Antonio. At this point, we were still headed slighly uphill, as the river drained into the lake from which we had come. We crossed the river about 20 or 30 times that day (thank god for the Keens):

Most of the day was spent in either forest or areas where the river had caused all the trees in the surrounding area to die:

We finally reached our destination, a smaller green lake but pressed on as we had made really great progress that morning. We also started to eat more food, which raised our spirits considerably.

Day five. Woke up really early because we needed to be at the bottom of the Valle Chacbucco for a pickup at 7 pm and we didn´t want to be late. Río La Leona is actually owned by a small farmer, so most of the land this day was relatively uninteresting, plus it was pretty dark when we made the vast majority of our progress. You probably can´t tell in the picture below, but the shaded area at the bottom is where the sun has not hit yet, and the ground there is frozen solid.

Farmland.

At the end of the hike (yeah!). A view all the way into Argentina to the west.

So it´s late and I´m tired, this post is done for now. But to let you know how tired I really am, I have been sitting around all day today resting my weary muscles and got completely fatigued afer doing abs, situps, and walking up a little hill to look at the progress on the Thompkins´ house. Sad. Good prep for Chaltén and Torres del Paine. Until next time ...

Acres o´ Thistles

Hey all! Finally back to base camp when no one is using the computer (traffic is high when we first get back, so I usually wait). So the last week, we were at this absolutely spectacular location in the middle of Valle Guanaco, one of the smaller valleys off the side of the larger valley, Valle Chacabuco. Below is a small view of what we could see from camp.

Most of our work the past week was removing several acres of thistles, which are those really prickley tall weeds with small purple flowers. It takes double gloves to not get them in your hands when removing them from the ground. On our second day at the camp, it finally stopped raining (it had rained for about a week prior) and we made some solid progress on the field in the next few days. For the most part, we used large, heavy metal rods to dig the roots out of the ground and then pull them out at the bottom.

The first day we arrived, when it was still a bit rainy, Mack, Justin, and I went for a short hike up a very cool looking valley that had been eroded for quite a bit of time by the river running through it (Rio Furioso, obvious english cognate). In order to get there, we had to cross a relatively fast moving river, but got across dry and happy. This turned out to be a great move --it poured the following day and the river rose a good foot or two, so we would not have easily crossed again during our time there. The hike itself was more exploratory than destination based, so we unfortunately got kinda stuck in the valley and had to climb out through some pretty thick vegatation. We arrived on top of one of a variety of very flat plateaus that are a result of successive glaciations and resultant lakes that formed (crazy thing is that when the glaciers moved from the campo de hielo norte east into the valley, it changed the drainage pattern of the entire valley so that water drained east instead of west through Argentina into the Atlantic, creating a large and presently nonexistant lake in the valley we work in. We heard a talk from a few British scientists that are collecting core samples in the Chacabuco Valley last night).

After work, there were a few days when we went out to catch rainbow trout in one of the nearby streams. Mack and Justin were much more successful than I, but two nights we had fresh fish for dinner, which was an amazing addition to the meal. I also learned how to kill, gut, and cook fish, which will be a useful skill in any future hiking.

Here´s a picture of the three of us at sunset after a bit of fishing.

That was pretty much our week´s work. Yesterday, on our day off, we went on a longer six hour hike to a great peak with a 360 view of the area. I don´t have any pictures that aren´t of the RAW variety, so I can´t post them now, but I can assure you that it was truly spectacular.

¡Fótos!

Quick photo captions ...

Mack, Justin, and I went on a hike the second day I arrived on a nearby mountain. Two shots from that:

Guanacos (the local deer):


Another quick day hike to a lake with flamingos (we didn´t see them):

More photos to come, I have to conciously set my camera to RAW+jpeg to get them on here since just RAW won´t upload.

I am a calorie machine (Or, my standards of cleanliness have been drastically lowered)

So yesterday we arrived back at the base camp, or estancia, after my first week of work. So where to begin ...

I suppose I never really described the base camp itself, especially since I now know it a bit better. Among the ten or so buildings, there is a ¨cafeteria,¨ a gymnasium, a newer building for the large investors, and a building being built that will hold the visitors´center in the future park. The remaining buildings are those that belong to the people that live here, including many families such as Christian and Paula, the couple that deals with most of the estancia´s finances and organization, and their kids. One of the deals that was struck when the estancia was sold to the Thompkins (i.e. the owners of Patagonia and North Face) was that the gauchos would continue to have jobs for as long as they pleased. Thus, the volunteers end up working with a lot of the guachos that would otherwise be herding sheep and cattle around the valley, which is incredibly nice because you get an intimate feel for how much they are connected to the land with which they work and also because they know a good deal of English which makes learning Spanish easier. One of the gauchos, Rene, works with us constantly in the field and is a great cook. During the winters, he also is one of the main puma trackers -- the guachos take care to track as many pumas as possible at a time in the park using relatively old methods of radio telemetry (which is a fancy word for taking out a huge antenna and listening to the frequency of beeps coming from a certain direction). They recently recieved a bunch of GPS collars, which will greatly aid their ability to track the pumas, as well as look at the range each puma needs to survive in the park. The base camp also holds about a dozen horses that are used during the winters.

So yeah, the work outside of the base camp is actually quite fun. First and foremost, it´s just great to be outside in what has been beautiful weather day in and day out. Though the weather is quite unpredictable, the temperature ranges during the day from the 60s to 80s and at night from the 30s to 50s (last night I could see my breath when I went to sleep, so it can get quite cold). We´ve only had a few short bouts of rain during the day, and otherwise, it´s been very very sunny (the Tilley hat is getting a lot of use). The wind can also pose a challenge at certain points in time, especially when putting up and taking down tents, though we haven´t had any gale force winds (yet).

In a typical day, we usually get up around 830 or 900, or whenever our tents heat up to the point of being unbearable to sleep in any longer, and have a quick breakfast. The meal usually consists of some sort of cereal (Apple O´s or oatmeal) with dried milk and bread. Afterwards, we head out into the field, where the intial trek depends on how much fence we were able to roll up the previous day. For example, our first day we started about 5 meters from the tents, but by the last day, we probably hiked about an hour to get to where we stopped working the day earlier. From then on, we roll fences by taking out the big stakes that are driven multiple feet into the ground using large metal rods with which we gain leverage, taking out nails that hold the fence to posts, cut up any stray wire that we accumulate into large red bags, and roll fence into piles and take it to the nearest road for pickup. The work itself is quite physically demanding, but at least right now, we have enough people so that we can switch up jobs during the day. For lunch, we typically do bread with avocado, tuna fish, fruit, cucumber, and some cookies for pudding (British for dessert). Sometime between 4 and 6, we head back to camp, cook, talk, relax, and get to sleep around 11 or 12. One of the really great things about being here is that it´s light from around 8 am to 10 pm, I don´t think I can stress how unbelieveably nice it is.

Foodwise, I can say that as a group of 20ish, we probably eat enough for 35 or 40 people. The other day we cooked about 8 or 9 pounds of dry rice and lentils and ate all of it without a problem. To give you an idea of how we eat, at least for the younger males, we basically try to stuff in as many calories as possible into a given meal. Pasta with cheese? No, cheese with pasta, and maybe some cream yogurt as well, with some more cheese on top. Bread? No, bread with honey, peanut butter, dulche de leche, and sugar. We each easily eat enough for two grown people.

In terms of cleanliness, after a week of not taking a shower, which is by far the longest stretch I have ever had, it´s not nearly as bad as it seems, though my standards have been lowered. Fortunately, we were at least able to take a dip in two lakes that we encountered on warm days, and even though the water was freezing, we probably smelled at least a little bit better.

Outside of work, we do spend a good deal of time talking around the fire, as well as playing a variety of games. The brits have 6 dice with which we play a dice game (too difficult to explain here, but it´s quite fun), and while I´ve taught people how to play euchre, I´ve also learned how to play pitch, crazy eights, and a Swiss version of Uno with regular cards. Before bed, I´m trying to finish a book of Frost poems so I can get on to Paradise Lost. I also listen to some sort of classical music while trying to fall asleep, but I usually find myself about an hour later listening to something completely different.

Anyways, that´s all for now. Things here are great, especially with our crew including people from all around the world. If I forgot anything, I´ll be sure to post it next time I have Internet access. I´ll try to add some pictures to this post later.

Introductions and Prickly Things

The internet is painfully slow here, so I will post some pictures next time. I tried earlier today, but it was going to take more than 45 min to post 5 pictures. I gave up.

In other news, the food here is actually quite delicious. The meals are very hearty, i.e. consisting of grains (pasta, beans, rice, potato), protein (almost always lamb), and juice. So far I´ve been pleasantly surprised, much better than the rice and beans that most Central Americans eat, but we´ll see what happens when we go out into the field tomorrow. Mack and Justin have said that the food is good, though poorly spaced out during the day (breakfast at 830, lunch at 1230, dinner at 730, at least at the base camp).

The base camp itself consists of probably about 10 houses, plus a couple larger buildings such as the Thompkins´ house overlooking part of the valley, a yet-to-be-finished visitors center, a gymnasium that has very old pool, foosball, and ping-pong tables, and a lodge for guests (except only ones that have donated over $1 million to the park, so that makes for a small group).

My spanish is slowly improving, though it takes a good deal of effort to think through spanish phrases, hopefully they´ll come to me a bit more easily in the next few weeks. It´s really nice to be one of the only gringos that can speak to the small Spanish speaking population at the camp.

Mack and Justin are doing well. Mack went out this afternoon for a three hour or so horse ride around the valley while Justin and I checked email, worked on blogs, and want for a short hike. Unfortunately, the hike took a turn for the worst when we realized we were in the middle of a swamp, though we quickly got out and hiked along a ridge with a nicer view. This morning, a larger group of us went out to a small lake to the east where we were hoping to see flamingos, but we hadn´t realized that we needed to go the far side of the lake to see them -- next time.

Things here are really prickly. The most ubiquitous animal by far is the guanaco (a cute deer relative, pictures are coming), and I assume the grasses and other plants here have evolved such that they deter any potential herbivores. Justin, Mack, and I went on a decently long hike yesterday, and up at the higher elevations, we encountered a lot of prickly hitchhiker type seeds that got all over my pants and keenes (naturally, they forgot to tell me that these seeds might be a problem). We didn´t quite make it to the top of this very high ridge, but apparently there isn´t much of a view in the other direction because there are simply another set of mountains to hike up.

Be back in a week! Hopefully without too much ¨sabor¨ -- see either of the other two blogs.

First Impressions

I made it! After 50+ hours of travel, I arrived earlier today at la conservaciòn patagonica. A bit about the trip itself, first.

I flew from Chicago to Mexico City to Santiago, and then after discussing options for flights out of Santiago with Sky and LAN decided to fly out that day at noon to Coyhaique. I arrived in Balmaceda (the airport near Coyhaique) and took a van crammed with about 15 other people to the town. The surrounding area was absolutely stunning. Huge grassy, windswept valleys filled with cattle, sheep, and horses that seem utterly content with their lives. And then there are snow capped mountain peaks that seem to rise out of nowhere. The geological events that must have occurred here are crazy. I have a couple pictures, but probably won´t post them until tomorrow at the soonest.

Coyhaique as a town is nice, mostly because it´s not too touristy (yet). The spanish that I remember have proven to be invaluable. I honestly have little to no idea as to how Mack and Justin even made it to the park without knowing the language. I was dropped off at a hospedaje, a house where people rent out rooms for travelers (don´t worry mom, they´re safe). The lady that I stayed with was really nice, had a son and daughter and was just incredibly hospitable. I went into town for a bit, made a bus reservation, and had dinner (beef empanadas and a beer). Sadly, I was absolutely exhausted from all the travel, so passed out in my bed at the hospedaje at around 10 and slept til 8.

The bus left at 9:30 from Coyhaique headed to Cochrane. I have never seem such beautiful sights. It´s honestly worth just coming down here to rent a car and go drive for a couple days. My sense of scale is just completely shattered at this point. The valleys here are so grand, and the mountains are like out of a fairy tale. The one time I took out my camera, I got a lot of looks, so I quickly put it away. At about 5, I arrived at the conservación and have met a bunch of nice people, Christian from Santiago, Jerry from East Troy, WI (small world), and Colin from Berkeley, as well as a few more Chileans whose names I´m forgetting (it´s much more difficult to have a substantive conversation with them). Anyways, it´s just incredibly pretty and the people are great. Mack and Justin are getting back tomorrow from some fence work in the southern forest, so I´ll get to see them hopefully around lunch since they´re 40 km away.

That´s all for now, hopefully I´ll have time to put up some pictures tomorrow.

Bucks

Apparently, the backyard is full of life these days. The weather in Wisconsin has been abysmal, at best, the past week or two. For two days, the high didn't even reach 0 degrees. During the nights, lows with the wind chill got down to 40 below. It was cold.

I had been hoping to snowshoe around some golf courses with my pack to get ready for the trip so that (1) I had worn in my shoes and (2) I was semi-used to carrying a pack. Since I hadn't bought a pair of hiking shoes since 10th grade (and because they just didn't fit anymore), the new ones were a godsend. However, they've taken a bit of time to break in, and I'm not even sure I've completely gotten used to them. I also took the time to actually pack my bag the other day. With a few things excluded, and without stuff that I'll put in a daypack as a carry-on, it's only about 35-40 pounds, which is way better than I had imagined. Anyways, after discussing the trip with Mack and how he'd been preparing, I've been on the treadmill every other day for an average of an hour and a half walking with the boots and pack. On the plus side, I get to watch an entire movie each time (so far, Wanted, Hellboy 2, Clockwork Orange, and We Were Soldiers, none of which I would recommend).

Other than this, I've been doing a lot of reading, a little cooking, getting small items together for the trip, doing stuff around the house for the rents, some photography now and again, ... not really sure how I spend all of my time. Oh, and I sleep a lot. I also have two more interviews to get to this week, so those will be small but time consuming trips.

There's been a lot of activity lately in the backyard, not entirely sure why. We've seen a bunch of coyotes, deer, rabbits, etc. And it's been really, really cold. But, more to the point, here are two bucks that were outside, the shots were taken from inside so they're not spectacular. A 7 and a 10 point buck, respectively (if I counted correctly):

Mack just arrived in Santiago two days ago and seems to be having a blast. Justin leaves today. Yikes.