Cochamo Valley

A few weeks ago I headed out for a solo trek through Cochamo Valley. Only a few hours from Puerto Varas, it has been hailed as the new Yosemite, a climber's mecca perched above a damp, dark rainforest alongside the Cochamo River, whose hues range from clear to teal. To get there, you have to wade through mud, cross a river on a slippery trunk and brush the brambles from your shins. With a pack, it takes around five hours to reach a new refugio with a panorama of granite peaks. From there, trails sprout to waterfalls, granite walls and peaks. Goodbye world.

It's honestly excellent. The raw materials were always here, but the boon is about the setup, dreamed up by Daniel and Silvina. Climbers, they have been coming to the valley and camping for ten years. The refugio they've built caters to every need: fresh pizzas, spacious bunks and porches. A handmade map points out the trails and travel times. A website gives detailed directions on how to arrive. In this part of the world, this degree of service is true luxury. Prices are fair (8.000 pesos/US$16 for a dorm bed, 6.000/US$12 for a pizza).

The only part of the experience they can't soften is the transit, which requires some fortitude, good balance and the instincts of a golden retriever (without rubber boots, gaiters are a must here). Near the end, it's probably best to reach the Cochamo River crossing (created with skinny planks and a pulley) before dark. But by all means, don't miss it. Plan on at least three days to enjoy the upper valley. Don't forget your headlamp, a sleeping bag is useful for the refugio (theirs are thin) and cash for the baked goods better than anything available in town.

Refugio Cochamo is now closed for the season, but December comes sooner than you think.

Hot off the Press: Trekking in the Patagonian Andes

With the southern summer nearly here, there's a new version of a classic South American hiking guide. Trekking in the Patagonian Andes was a beast and a ball to research. Yet it would have been impossible without ample help from local guides, mountaineers and good friends who came down to sweat and trudge the trails.

Many thanks and gratitude to those who made it happen!

Body by Torres

6 days, 101 kilometers
You have to believe in your own willpower. And cute nicknames. At least that's how Christian did it.

A self-described "office boy," my friend actually works within Torres del Paine National Park, chained to a desk and a radio. So he sprang straight out of his swivel chair to join us on the circuit. The object? Weight loss. He said he was tired of being the solo guanaco macho .

(guanacos, a camelid common to this latitude, travel in female packs, choosing one male to safeguard them. The unluckies get cast out together, like B-league fraternities)...

At the trailhead he pulled out his backpack--a 35 liter pack. I shook my head and looked to the 90 liter bag in the back of his Toyota truck, recently dented by the butt of a mare (he wouldn't say what he had done).

I handed him 7 days worth of rations, half my tent and a fuel canister. We heaved our packs on. Though it was nearly 4pm, we had about six more hours of daylight. The trail was nearly flat but the wind bullied us back. We ate caramels for morale and kept on. At Camp Seron we popped a bottle of bubbly I had lugged up to toast the inauguration (or the end of the worst administration in US history). Half the pleasure was lightening my load.

I won't kid you. The trekking is not that difficult but wearing a 40 pound pack IS. We weren't a couple, but I tried some psychology, applying a cute nickname to keep tempers cool. "Almost there, honeybunch!" And so forth.

I don't think it is just the exercise. Life on the trail has the power to transform us.

We trod on, snacking on what I remembered to set aside (sometimes just peanuts, from the economy pack) and wondering where the good stuff was. We emptied streams of freshwater and hoped rain would refill them.

Our biggest day took us from Camp Perros over the Gardner Pass and to Camp Grey--a total of 22 kilometers, with wind, ladders and an elevation change that would read like a heart attack on an EKG. At camp, Honeybunch bought us all cans of beer, which served as an appetizer. Next I did the near forbidden. After all those kilometers, I prepared two packets of ramen noodles. I gave one to Honeybunch.

It was the look on his face.

"Hey," I said. "Didn't we have real sausage with the couscous? And bacon in the fettucini that time?"

I think he moaned. I discussed how ramen was a rite of passage to young Americans that we occasionally returned to with fondness. At least I do. But the look held.

At the end of the trek, he unpacked to return my gear, handing me a ten pound grocery bag of food. So here were those cookies, caramels, the chocolate covered....Not only had I forgotten about this stuff, I had started rationing.

"What are you doing with all this?"

"I thought you wanted me to carry it."

So as my pack got lighter every day, Christian's had not. This was the work of the culture gap: Chilenos are foremost gentlemen. Christian lost seven pounds on The Circuit. And kept on hiking, losing 31lbs total. Trekking can be arduous, trekking partners the cruelest of all. It worked for Honeybunch.

It made me wonder about the mare, though.

A Week on the Paine Grande Circuit

Trekking the Paine Grande circuit in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine with Cristian Morales, Meg Simone and Dave Eiermann. Thanks to Trauko for the potent homebaked bread--fuel for the march. And we marched. We crossed miles of daisies, rivers and ladders, almost never seeing the stars since the sun set so late. In the middle, a champagne toast. Mother nature, save for some really big mosquitos in Dickson, you spoiled us again.

Wilderness with Teeth

This past week I joined the Cerro Castillo Citizen´s Expedition for a 5-day traverse set to integrate into Sendero de Chile, a national project linking trails its 8,500km stretch.

day I
We set off on a new path only known to Escuela de Guias. A steep, sandy traverse threatens to pitch me into the void. Somehow I dig in my toenails, like a cat on a tightrope, and make it across. Footprints of huemul, Chile´s endagered Andean deer, are everywhere.

The toll: two hikers with debilitating food poisoning from the previous night (the lox?), one guide slips pack first into the river, a few guides and guests wrangle with a full tripod setup (the topographer didn´t interpret work in terrain literally).

day II
¨Aqui me quedo,¨ says the Topographer, and we´ve only hiked for 2 hours. It´s impossible to get him to resist the tendency to flop on his back, and harder to get him back on his feet, as he scrambles like an overturned beetle.

We reach an alpine meadow bordering a snowy pass. Wildflowers peep through the tundra, water trickles underfoot. No one heeds the Topographer. We arrive at camp 7 hours later.

day III
A day for foot repair. A stray dog at the camp receives ham bones, lentils and oatmeal, he must have been starving. We day hike to Glaciar el Peñon but it´s receded so far it´s no longer a day trip.

day IV
The dog turns back at the pass. Every man, woman and mongrel for his/herself. When someone breaks out the horse jerky, I even try it. Stringy. Hard to forget.

We nose up toward the creased blue glacier sitting under Cerro Castillo´s cathedral spires. It releases a curtain of meltwater over cliffs, bubbling into the stream at our feet.

¨The Castle,¨ as it´s named, must be Chilean Patagonia´s most iconic peak, though it is seldom approached and only climbed by experts. We debate Sendero de Chile´s vision for lodgings, including one right in this priviledged spot.

day V
Over the course of the hike we´ve only run into three other hikers, all carrying the guide I´m updating. They have alternately told me that it´s exactly on the money and that the directions are completely unclear.

There´s work to do, if not in writing than in perceiving, including on my own behalf. Outside Torres del Paine, Patagonian trails are another beast: scarcely marked, pocked with rivers without bridges and passes without footprints. For now, Reserva Nacional Cerro Castillo has only three park rangers to cover its 200,000 hectares.

In this torrential wilderness, any reception of infrastructure, with all of its blessings and curses, will be bittersweet. Yet memories of a wilder Cerro Castillo (like horse jerky) will be hard to forget.

How the Other Half Hikes

(a literal mountain playground)

In the Lakes Region, hop the border to Argentine and you'll find a vastly different reality. Let's just say their Swiss ancestors taught them a thing or two. It's not just the chocolate shops in Bariloche. Mountain huts (refugios) with hot showers serve homemade beer. Trails are marked.

This should not appeal at all to your sense of adventure. But if you're curious, check out BolsonWeb.

Photos
Brand new Refugio Natacion; a crossroads; the glacier-centric Refugio Cerro Hielo Azul; Non-native fauna

The Things We Carried

Hike 1
near Paso Puyehue, Lakes Region, Chile
44kms, 2 days

Km 0
I was still in the truck, two hours in, when I realized my fatal error. A first for me; I hoped we could still go on. After packing the filter. After pontificating on the horrors of Nescafe. After bragging to Ben, my hiking partner, about those beans I'd gotten fresh from the roaster.

I'd forgotten the coffee.

I didn't tell Ben then. It would be bad for the collective animo (mood).

A storm had taken down tree limbs and branches, turning the easy first hours of the hike arduous with the clearing and dodging of debris. After two hours in a tunnel of thistle and bamboo-like quila, we arrived to the great meadow with views. But the day was socked in. After a long, gentle climb, dodging more debris, we came into a dark forest of tall southern beech. It loomed over us, waving surrender flags of gray-green lichen (barba de viejo). Like a dream.

I got my camera. Wait. Where was that battery I'd charged?

Km 20
Clouds broke open as we climbed the pass. Ben woozy with hunger. We'd eaten the turkey sandwiches, a Luna bar each, some nuts. What else did he expect? I had 8 squares of chocolate. I gave him a quarter of his share, lest mutiny set in.

I'd brought food for two. I hadn't realized I'd just brought food for two small women.

Ben, I confessed, I forgot the coffee.

Whatever, he responded. Already without animo. The trail sign was blown over, frozen and half buried in the snow. I kneeled to read the distance but could not.

Ours were the only footprints on the snowy pass, gateposted by volcanoes, with Argentina over our shoulder and at our feet, sinuous streams that fed the azure lakes below. We retreated to camp low in the forest.

Km 25
Dinner:
instant tomato soup
4 cups couscous* with sage and
one tomato
one onion half
a can of salmon
aged goat cheese

(*the bomb for trekking: light and fast, couscous just needs to boil and sit for 5 minutes, pack in ziplock with spices/salt)

Unlike the coffee, all the dinner ingredients came from one of Chile's supermarket chains.

Upon scraping his plate, Ben retreated to warm his wet feet in the sad, square sleeping bag he'd taken on loan from his girlfriend, another urbanite. It was the kind that usually has a plaid felt lining, very Boy Scout, not very Expeditionary.

I felt for him. Though a great hiker, he had no gear, and Chile was hardly the place to accumulate it. His girlfriend had also loaned him a pack holding 5000 cubic meters, packable as a noodle, with no frame and hardly any cushioning. Instead he had borrowed a small pack of mine, hardly ideal, and some technical but not very roomy clothing.

Next to me in the tent, he looked like one very tired tranny. Was he snoozing or seizing? He ferociously grasped his bag, my pink/black down vest zipped snug. Santiago's city life far behind.

We had just the start I'd expected. Flawed. A bit discombobulated. Still fun. With plenty of lessons for next time.

The next morning we packed up swiftly. Coffeeless. Ben had fought off the cold without having to huddle on me. I think that was a primary concern. His spirits lifted, he cataloged exactly what he'd take on the next expedition. But the trailhead was still far.

Ben ordered an advance on his chocolate squares. The end in sight, I complied.

(photo courtesy of Ben)

Chronicle of a Trek Foretold

In 1998 I arrived to Chile with the same goal as every other turista: trekking Torres del Paine.

In addition to a bunch of stuff I did not need, my beastly Lowe pack held Clem Lindenmeyer’s Trekking in the Patagonian Andes. It did not fail me. On trial runs at Parque Nacional Chiloe and Parque Nacional Alerce Andino I faced swarms of horseflies and hip-deep mud. Try that in jeans. Eventually I navigated my way to Torres: thoroughly schooled, loving even the headwind (no tábanos there!) and the sculpted designs of mountain, river, steppe.

Well, it’s time to crack this book once more, but this time I’m doing the writing. That’s right: dream job.

From November through February I’ll be hoofing my way across Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. Figuring out how to get there, what to pack, what to leave behind. Stuff will go right. Stuff will go wrong. Miles will be trod, blisters patched and friendships forged. Or maybe I'll go howling mad from the weeks on end alone. It's hard to tell.

I'll be logging the trip right here. Your comments and thoughts are welcome!

not Alice's Wonderland, but worthy

Most people know Navarin Island for the four-day Dientes de Navarino hiking cirucit. But as its trail markings beg repair, a new option is gaining favor.

The trail to Lago Windhond is low and long, passing through crimson and ochre peat bogs and gorgeous stands of dwarfed beech (lenga) strung with fallen trunks. It is mostly an obstacle course, which made me happy to be with Brian, a US backcountry ranger guiding a season in Puerto Williams. He kept his eyes peeled for the few trail markings—posts striped with orange paint or small pink ribbons fastened to evergreen branches.

Redheaded woodpeckers flitted about. Underfoot there were purple mushrooms and wild strawberries, tiny and sweet, peeking out from damp sod. We ate them with the dirt still on. The whole interior and southern edge of the island is uninhabited. Canadian beavers are wreaking havoc, but its wild as it ever was. For five hours we walked without seeing a soul, just the muddy tracks of wild dogs.

Lolo's Backyard

part II

On the second day it's snowing above treeline. Pituto the dog steps tentatively into this new frontier of sharp scree and thick mists. His caution is hardly surprising. Few landholders get above the treeline, never mind a ragged mutt saved from starving on a city corner on the Escobars' last outing to civilization.

We traverse a cirque counter-clockwise to the glacier, picking through the boulders. Clouds slip around us, giving flirty glimpses of high snowfields, a silver lagoon and the ribbon of a river below us. The valley (not to be named here) of dense forest bears not one human mark, no trail or clearing. It is as virgin as when it was born (though you could argue that, while glaciers recede, the world continues to be born).

Pituto shivers. Tara slips my fleece socks over her hands--she's forgotten her gloves and the air is ice. I ask Lolo the names of things. Disappointment Peak. Laguna de los Visiones. They seem apt.

I pause. "Who named these, Lolo?"

He smiles. Of course. Who else?

By the campfire the night before, he had described his childhood in poverty, the years they lost all their livestock in freak blizzards, when he had scabies and no medicine, when they survived on little more than bread and maté. There were times, he said, when he hated this place, when all he wanted was to escape it.

But somehow he survived those times and changed gears. His steep-sloped ranch was ill-suited to pasturing. Now with the handful of guests that come yearly, Lolo has managed a modest income from guiding others around his mountain refuge.

It occurs to me what a rarity we've found, here above Chile's southern forests. A whole world unto itself, one man's for now, named and gently nurtured. One man's wilderness.

We carefully negotiate the steep tumbled scree. The tongue of the glacier comes into view, slipping through rock face into a frosty turquoise pool. Beautiful.

But it's also grey as an old hound, worn and damp. We approach the glowing blue underbelly to see water shoot out, gushing like an open hydrant. While it is the end of summer and melting is expected, the dripping wetness and the fast flow seem alarming.

Lolo's glacier has receded seven meters since he first saw it. It worries him. Each time he tells someone this, he studies their face. As if he could find some answer there.

It snows harder and we lunch under the eave of a rock on hard bread, salami and a thermos of coffee. Pituto stays warm hunting peanuts in the rubble. When the mist folds in close around us I ask if he's had these conditions before (the question really: can you find your way out?)

Not to worry, he says. And I believe him.

Patagonia via the back door

part one: going local

We were trekking to the glacier in Lolo Escobar's backyard on a trail he created with a hand-axe. That in itself seemed incredible. Patagonia’s backyards feature few swingsets but some include a thorny wilderness inviting adventurers to get hopelessly lost. That’s why you go with a local.

Among even them, Lolo is considered an anachronism. Compact and quirky, we can say he’s serious and sincere but not above a prank. He helps run the family ranch, carves ingenious animal shapes from discarded roots and studies the Guide to Native Plants and the Bible. Given his scant contact with the outside world, it doesn’t seem incongruous to call himself both ecologist and evangelist.

My friend Tara is an experienced hiker, so I found her aghast watching as the pack horse was saddled with 60 kilos to head up the mountain for a few days. She had already cocked a brow when Lolo’s sister packed us glass jars of honey, four kilos of breadrolls, homemade fruit preserves and marmalade. But we did stop her short of including a whole raw leg of lamb.

At these times, I remind myself that we live under local norms here, not modern ones, and are mostly content for it. It helps too to remember that people of this valley died of hunger in not-so-distant past. Thus these hulking grain sacks amounting to a portable Frigidaire were something of a comfort to Lolo (but not to his horse).

We started in the meadows and climbed to a forest of moss-covered boulders dubbed the houses of stone, up a river valley to huge southern beech and thick stands of lenga and ñirre. Lolo walked attentive to surprises in our path: a blue mushroom, a giant spotted moth, a rock in the shape of Easter Island moai.

Given the storybook setting, I would not have been surprised should we happen upon wood nymphs or trolls. Light streamed through the forest in glittering pillars. Big trees grew straight out of granite hunks. The river was transparent and ice cold. I’m telling you, it was that good.

And if there were no gingerbread house at the end of the trail? At least we packed the cherry preserves.

route finding

Above Lago Azul

My other recent trip was an exploratory excursion into the box canyon of Azul Lake, looking for an ideal place to take hikers that wanted to earn birds’ eye-views through sweat. I was set to take two friends from the states, Stephen and Tara, along with fellow guides Cathy and Fernando. As fate would have it a terrible stomach flu claimed Stephen, and Tara as nurse nightingale, so the group was whittled down to three.

But we still had the gear (read: elaborate gourmet food and camp accessories) for five, or perhaps for eight. We hiked the perimeter of the lake on an old trail almost never used. The spiky brush of rosehips and hazelnut bushes and other plants had reclaimed the trail. We had to breaststroke our way through the underbrush, if one had worn shorts it would have been occasion to cry with all the needles and spines grazing our legs. As it was, the conversation was reduced to “ooh” and “ow.”

The next segment of the hike was up, straight up, at a merciless angle. But here there was an established trail, a good one, since livestock climbed these valleys in winter to forage for food. These were the so-called “wild cows” we stumbled upon, or, “spy cows” who gazed at us through thick forest brush and bolted like frightened sparrows at the sound of a snapping branch. All the while we lamented the absence of Stephen and Tara, who would have provided good humor and extra cliff bars.

The valley we climbed into was not the flat, high altitude basin I had imagined, but instead, a long steep walled forested canyon that ended in a wall of formidable peaks: the Argentine border.

The next day, while it spit snow and hail, and the clouds banked low on the peaks, we had a look around the upper reaches on the only accessible mountain, which had burned in years past and now had short grass instead of forest. From up there we could see Lake Azul and the waves of mountain ridges behind it. The wall of Argentina still stood before us like a fortress, but now it seemed we had earned half its height. The trouble was getting down. We went route-finding, which is to say, wandered toward the back of the mountain, slipping all the while in the coarse, wet grass, before descending into thick brush that threatened to swallow us whole, or, mercifully, claim an ankle. Wading though the plants my boots absorbed water until it felt like I had sponges under my rotting feet.

To sum it up, Fernando, a local 20 yr. old, who ached for a military career and herded sheep and cattle all his life, said, “I never want to walk this way again.”

I wasn’t so sure. We heard of another local who has ranched and shepherded and knows the valley well. He says there is a better trail which leads up to the border, and he’ll take us there. I have gone to the pharmacy, undergoing the initial embarrassment of asking for a cream to cure the mushrooms on my feet (literal translation). They’re starting to heal up nicely. And once again, though half the time these trips result in uncertainty and mild torture, I find that I ‘m tempted.

These places will never lack adventure, they will always have places to explore, secrets to find. The cows know. I have a feeling, the way they eyed me suspiciously. And they want their secret kept.