and… relax.

It’s been a pretty good few months, but it’s hard work this holiday stuff. My poor wee knees are feeling the pace, and were just about ready to start some kind of strike action if I hadn’t taken some time out. Which is why I’ve found myself chilling out in Pucon for most of the last week.

It´s a good base for outdoor activities, or just for chilling out on the black volcanic sands by the Lake. I found myself getting back in a kayak (on a river) for the first time in around three years, which was brilliant! It really made me remember why I used to love it, so I’m looking forward to getting to New Zealand to give it another whirl. I even went for a wee wander up the local volcano the other day.

Ok, I’ve got to admit that I wasn’t that thrilled with the volcano, but that’s probably my own fault for expecting too much. Everyone raves about it here, but at the end of the day I’ve come to Patagonia on a walking holiday/photo mission, spending most of the last two months walking in some of the most magnificent landscapes you could ever hope for and for the most part doing it in perfect solitude. To ascend Volcan Villarica have to go with a guided group and after the last two months I found walking a snail’s pace, nose-to-tail up the hill kind of trying. It became so monotonous and mindless that the guy behind me kept walking into my rucksack every time we stopped.

That said, the views really were stunning. Particularly early in the day when we had a perfect cloud inversion for sunrise.

Perhaps I’m also judging it a little harshly as I’d really hoped to see some magama bubbling in the crater at the top of the volcano. Unfortunately the levels are apparently quite low at the moment and all we really got at the top was a whole lot of extremely noxious gas. On the whole it was still a worthwhile experience, and I’m glad that I went up; it just didn’t quite rate on the same scale as some other recent outings!

Tomorrow I backtrack a little down Chile to Chiloe, a large island near Puerto Montt. I’ve really not much clue what I’m going to do when I get there, but that’s because I’ve been doing some serious relaxing rather than thinking about things this last week. It’s been great, and I’m sure that Chiloe will take care of itself when I get there. I understand that it’s a particularly mellow and pretty place to visit, so I’m trusting that my return to The Mission won’t be too much of a shock to the system!

In the mean time, I took a stroll along the beach form town this evening. It might have been intented to be a week off from the photography mission, but it’s still a very pretty place to be….

Banos De Caulle

Scotland is old. I mean, really old. Some of the oldest rocks in the world are in Scotland. You go for a walk in Scotland and you know that you are walking in a finely refined landscape that has gradually approached it’s current near-perfect beauty over the course of countless millenia: the rocks and mountains finely sculpted by brutal ice ages and delicate weathering, the rivers and streams coursing through hard-won gorges and valleys formed over aeons of relentless erosion by the force of the water. It’s a landscape comfortable with what it is, continuing to slowly change just to keep itself fresh, but ultimately secure in itself.

Not so the Lakes District in Chile, and certainly not the landscape I spent the last four days walking in. It’s so new it’s not even finished yet, and the processes of it’s creation are there laid out before you everywhere you look. That’s not to say that it’s not worth visiting, quite the opposite! I’ve got to admit that the four days I spent walking on the Banos De Caulle trail were some of the most interesting, beautiful days I’ve had since I got to South America – and that’s really saying something.

It a stark, and frankly sometimes even slightly surreal place to visit, particularly on your own. As you traverse around the upper slopes of Volcan Puyehue towards the Banos you are essentially crossing a desert. You might be walking across barren white sands and pumice in the blazing sunshine, but through the clouds beneath you there is a glorious view of the lakes and forests. It’s like it’s teasing you: water!

I have seen things over the last four days that I have only ever seen on the television before now: bubbling mud pools, steaming fumaroles, scorpions and almost as many lizards as there are stars in the sky. Oh, and a very confused walker trying to figure out why the large boulder he has just thrown in the river to use as a stepping stone is floating away downstream….

the stars in the sky

I’ve also decided that every trek should end at a hot spring!

As nice as that was though, I’ve got to admit that I found it quite a hard route. Perhaps it was the end of the cold taking it’s toll. Perhaps it was the simple fact that a Scotsman is not designed to traverse a desert environment at these temperatures. The third day in particular was hard work: With photo-taking time it was around a five hour round trip to the Geysers, then another four or so to get back to the area of the refugio. After over 9 hours carrying a load in the heat, walking on sand and loose rock, I was ready to quit for the night. I was reay to hang up my walking boots forever, come to that. I really, really didn’t want to have to go to visit the summit of the volcano.

But when else am I going to get the chance to peer in the crater of a volcano?

“Next week in Pucon.”

I’ll regret it if I don’t.

“No, I really won’t.”

You promised your sister a rock from the top of a volcano, and Villarica’s covered in snow.

“Ah, nuts” *

The 1.5 hour ascent of the last 550 meters of Volcan Puyehue, relentlessly upwards and exclusively through deep, loose sand and gravel was almost enough to break me both physically and mentally (though the 23 minute run back down was glorious!).

As I sat below the volcano this morning waiting for the bus back to town I opened a perfectly chilled Coke, looked up through the clouds to the volcano and thought to myself:

“up there somewhere, some poor sod is having the time of his life.”

*paraphrasing

Not quite the Nahuel Huapi Traverse

I should have known that it wasn’t going to be an easy ride when the bus to the start of the trek didn’t stop to pick me up: the world was trying to tell me something. If that wasn’t hint enough that I should stay in town, the fact that the cable car wasn’t running should have been.

To be fair, the first day’s walking was very pleasant. A nice traverse along a rocky, windy ridge. Then I dropped down into a beautiful valley below Cerro Catedral to camp for the night. It rained most of the night, and I staying in the tent until late morning in the hope that it’d stop. In the end I got tired of waiting and wrestling with my broken stove (I’d carried my stove on the Helio Sur trek as a back up in case the one provided by El Chalten Mountain Guides broke. It did on the second day, and we used mine – I forgot to swap them back after the trek). I decided that the weather in Patagonia had been consistently inconsistent, and it was bound to stop raining soon and I should start walking.

Apparently I was wrong: the weather here can stay the same for a whole day.

The paths became stream, the streams became torrents. The rivers… well I’d tell you about some of the crossings, but my mum reads this. After a little more than 6 hours walking and scrambling over two passes in the rain I arrived at Refugio San Martin and decided that I didn’t really want to camp. Everything I had was saturated – even the gear that hadn’t left my bag all day. I was soaked to the skin despite being gore’d head to toe and I had to borrow some trousers from the lost and found box….

The next morning however, was utterly stunning! Not exactly clear blue skies, but patchy blue and all the prettier for it. The wind was still fierce, blowing my tripod over down by the lake. That combined with a fresh dump of snow meant that it would have been reckless to try the next stage of the trek, which was a long, exposed ridge. I decided to bail and return to Bariloche, tail between my legs, and dry myself out.

It’s a shame really, but that’s just the way it goes I guess. At least when I go out again I’ll have dry kit and (hopefully) a stove that works. There’s al dente and there’s crunchy….

the Helio Sur

Technically, I guess it was a walk in the Park, though it certainly wasn’t your average sunday afternoon stroll….

I also suppose that I might have been slightly naive in my reasons for going on the trip. I was sitting on the bus on the way back to Chalten and I decided that I really wanted to be able to see and to photograph Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre from the other side: from the ice field. As good a reason as any, but the circuit has so much more to offer than just that!

Fitz Roy from the front

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t that confident that we’d make it when we left Chalten. The weather forecast wasn’t promising and the first day’s walking saw us meet two other groups that were attempting the same route as us. All of them were retreating. One of them had spent a few days in the refugio on the Marconi Pass before bailing out, the other group had their tent destroyed by the wind at the first campsite.

Valle Electrico from the first camp

The trend continued the next day, with another couple of groups retreating off the Marconi Glacier as we ascended towards it: despite the reports from these groups of bad conditions, and the uninspiring weather forecast that we had, we had started so we might as well try to get up the pass anyway. It was a bit breezy on the way up, but we chanced upon an absolute gift: a perfectly constructed snow shelter left by a party of Russians that had passed through the day before (we could tell it was them by the litter they had left – good skills with the construction of the shelter, but not much in the way of respect for the landscape). We camped there, right in the middle of the Marconi Pass that night.

In fact, we spent a few days camped there, pinned down by the weather. Occasional breaks would allow me to sneak out with the camera, and as luck would have it, we even got a peek at Fitz Roy through the clouds on the first night. After two days stuck in the same spot, we decided to take advantage of a brief break in the weather to move to a refugio an hour’s walk away (not being sure that the tent would survive another night). We might have been in a bit of a rush to get the tent down and the gear sorted, but I managed to snatch a few quick shots while the weather was good – I got the shot of Fitz Roy from behind that I’d wanted!

Fitz Roy from behind

The refugio provided some welcome shelter, and more exceptional views over the Ice Field. The relatively calm weather lasted long enough to get some shots at dusk, before darkness fell and the wind returned. Definitely a good decision to abandon the camping that night!

The next morning the weather had broken, so we made a break for it. Most groups camp half way down the Ice Field, with the possibility of exceptional views of Cerro Torre. By the time we got there around 2pm, the wind had returned and we had to carry on. It seemed that I was going to miss out on the other half of my original reason for being there but as we plodded on in the snow shoes, the clouds parted just briefly…. I’m not sure if it was the summit of Cerro Torre or Cerro Egger that poked briefly through the hole in the clouds, but it made my day anyway! It lasted just a few seconds – no time to get the camera out – but for some reason I’m ok with that. I’d set my heart on seeing it, and over the four days leading up to it had slowly resigned myself to the fact that it wasn’t going to happen. Happening to glance up the one time that it peeked through seemed like a gift: perhaps a reward for having made the effort when everything seemed stacked against us.

And to be honest, there was so much more out there to enjoy out there that if I hadn’t seen it, it would still have been an amazing trip. The 60 to 70 mph winds (gusting lord knows what!) meant that it wasn’t easy or practical to stop and spend a lot of time setting up a photo, but the views really were stunning. I’ve nothing that really does the day justice, and I’m not a good enough writer to express it properly, so you’ll just have to take my word for it this time.

As Adrian said after the trip: everyone makes it round the circuit when the conditions are good. Not many make it when the weather’s like what we encountered. It might not have leant itself to working the angles photographically, but I’ve still come back with a few images I love, the satisfaction of actually having to work a little to complete the route, and with a couple of new friends. All in all, I think the job’s a good ‘un!

new friends

A big vote of thanks to Carl and to the team at El Chalten Mountain Guides, and particularly to our guide Adrian who had the faith to keep going with us when other’s were turning back – cheers lad!

Four days south of the end of the world….

It almost went horribly wrong, but in the end the Dientes Circuit trail was probably the most satisfying hiking trip I’ve ever done.

The American university contingent were glimpsed once from a suitably remote distance, and other than that I only bumped into a couple of people along the way, and then only very briefly. I shared a camping spot with a Belgian couple the first night but other than that and about ten minutes chatting to a couple from Alaska I had the place to myself, and what a place!

Certainly, the views of Fitz Roy or the Cuernos in Torres del Paine might stick in the mind as being more spectacular landscapes, but the experience as a whole in the Dientes de Navarino just all came together to be something very special. There is no sanitised trail, full of people carrying backpacks with wheels for the airport, and no ranger stations along the way. Indeed, it’s hard enough to find the marked circuit in some places. The trail itself is sometimes easy to follow, with an embryonic path forming in places, but at other times it’s near impossible to see any sign of the people that have gone before. Spotting way markers that are normally just three or four small stones against a background of, well, thousands of small stones can be very difficult at best.

The walking was continually varied and interesting to say the least. The descent from the final pass might even have been slightly spicier than that, starting with an exceptional scree run that led you directly into a steep snow traverse (big, deep cracks in the snow too) directly beneath a dangerously unstable cornice. The recent avalanche debris littering the traverse suggested that it might not be a place to linger for long….

As a personal experience, I loved every minute of it, even despite some very improvised, slightly epic navigation on day four. I admit that from a photography point of view, I don’t feel that I made the most of the area. The weather is a fickle beast down here: from a hiking point of view I can’t possibly complain, but the photographer in me felt very frustrated at times, never quite getting the right combination of location and conditions.

I’m not going to worry about it this time though – there was always one eye on the project but really, this one was just for me.

A fly in the ointment….

It’s not been that easy getting here. I had to pay an extortionate price for a RIB to myself across the Beagle Channel and when I arrived my arranged transport from Puerto Navarino to Puerto Williams broke down in a distinctly unsubtle, people racing with fire-extinguishers kind of way. All in all I’ve travelled around 450 miles south from the last place that I actually really wanted to see, all just to hike the most southernly, most isolated and one of the most lonely established trails in the world: the Dientes Circuit.

As far as I can make out from the list at the local police station there are around 5 people on it at the moment, which is not really that many for a five day walk. I’ve been looking forward to this since I left the UK: complete solitude. Not even so much as a trail or an established path, just a rough route in the wilderness of the last inhabited island before Cape Horn. Tonight at the hostel a group of around 35 to 40 Americans turned up for dinner….

They’re “doing the Dientes” tomorrow.

Gutted? Not even close.

I’m not trying to be anti-social here; it’s just that some time completely on my own, completely self sufficient in a proper wilderness was the whole point of this trek – I even stayed another day in town because I heard that there was a sole Kiwi lad coming to start the circuit today. Sure enough there was and I personally walked him out of town this afternoon. Ok, I walked him out the wrong end of town, but I’m sure he’ll figure it out at some point…. (it really wasn’t intentional)

After a couple of hours fretting about it, I asked just exactly what the group’s plans were, thinking that I could perhaps wait an extra few days for them to get enough of a head start that I didn’t have to see them. Thankfully, it sounds like the group is only hiking the first day of the circuit and spending three days camping in the same spot, doing short day hikes from there every other day. Better yet, they’re doing the low-level alternative route to day one, so if I stick to my intended route I might not see them at all, particularly as their intended campsite lies before the two trails converge.

How that campsite will cope with a group that large for three nights straight remains to be seen: everyone I’ve talked to that’s done the trail says that there’s hardly enough dry ground to pith the one tent: these are not “campsites” as such: no toilets or shower, just an outside chance at a patch or roughly level ground. You can make what you want of the fact the the group is a univeristy field trip from a Texas university studying Ecological Philosophy….

I’ve been looking forward to this trail, anticipating it to be one of the highlights of what’s already a rather exceptional trip. It’s got the potential to be someting that I’ve never experienced before just on the basis of being so remote, so isolated and so personal. To have to share it with a huge group like that would change it from what I’ve been looking forward to to the point that I’m not sure I’d want to do it: certainly it would still be a nice experience, but it wouldn’t be what I came here for.

Nevertheless, I’ll still leave tomorrow but not as early as planned and if I do end up meeting up with the University group I’ll probably come back to town. I like to think I’m a sociable kind of a guy, but I’ve come here with a clear idea of how I want to approach this outing and I’m quite happy to wait to achieve that if I have to. No great hurry. Worst case, it gives me another few days to keep trying to find a boat to Cape Horn.

I’ll make sure that I have the SPOT on tracking when I leave, so if I turn back it should be obvious!

the W

The route known as the W in the Torres Del Paine National Park has a reputation for being the best trekking in the world. I can’t say that I’ve tried them all, but it’s certainly not half bad!

It’s not a trail for those wanting to rough it or looking for a little solitude, but with four days of constantly changing landscape, good trails and the option of cooked meals and hot showers at the refugios it’s got a lot to offer. I was fortunate enough to meet some great people along the way: trekking the first two and a half days with a lass I’d bumped in Chaltern, then bumping into an Irish family that I’d played boules with below Fitz Roy, and getting to know (among others) a cracking English couple and their guide at the campsites every night. (If any of you ever need a guide in the Paine area, give Dave a shout: http://www.dittmaradventures.com/ )

From a trekking point of view, the weather was kind again. From a photographic point of view, it was exceptionally frustrating. Lots of “almost” great conditions, but that’s the nature of the game, and you’ve just got to make the most of what you get on the day. And I guess that the silver lining to the cloud is that on days when there’s lots of low cloud and it’s snowing at 4am you get to go back to bed rather than crawl out to try and take some photographs. And not every day was bad!

Spotlight on Torre Central

I tried not to worry about it too much. I am, after all, on holiday: not every day out has to produce perfect pictures. And to be honest, I still maintain that sometimes you get something more representative of the area, more real to most people, when the weather’s not quite perfect.

Coming down from the Torres and rounding the side of the mountains to a sudden view of Los Cuernos up close for the first time, or climbing up into the French Valley, watching the regular avalanches makes for constantly interesting walking. A suitably early start in the morning helps you to make the most of the trails before they get crowded. You still have the pleasure of some good company at the campsites every night, but avoid the crowds during the day – it’s the best of both worlds.

Paine Grande

I still can’t quite grasp just how much the landscape changes from day to day. Each section of the trail has it’s own very distinct geology and character. The imposing, ragged peaks and spires of Paine Grande could not be more different to the sculpted elegance of the Cuernos right next door. Equally, every valley or summit seems to have it’s own weather system. You can be standing in blazing sunshine by Lago Pehoe, watching the snow falling in Val Frances so hard that it completely obscures the mountains.

Paine Grande & Los Cuernos

I’m now back in Puerto Natales, taking a fews days rest to catch up on some processing, some sleep, and some washing. I’ll head back to Paine in a couple of days to try some alternative locations, and get the photos that I wanted from the W. Without feeling the need to complete a set trek, I’ll have more time to sit and wait for the light and the conditions that I’d like, and if I try not to leave my book on the bus this time, the waiting will be all the easier too….

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Puerto Natales

Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre

The changeable (or just plain bad) weather is a fact of life in Patagonia. There are plenty of horror stories about being stuck in a tent for weeks, of visiting Torres del Paine or the Fitz Roy area and not actually seeing the Torres del Paine or Fitz Roy, and just trekking around a big cloud for a week. That’s part of the reason that I’ve given myself so much time down here; time to wait for the weather to let me actually see these legendary mountains rather than just stumble around in their general area. And I’m glad I have. The luck I’ve had so far can’t possibly last.

I have spent the last four days trekking around the Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy area in the Los Glaciares National Park.

It’s not bad.

Day 1
A 3am start from El Chaltern allowed us to catch the sunset from a look-out, distant from the mountain (a Norweigan lad I met on a bus decided to tag along). I’ve read about these mountains in books and climbing magazine for years, and finally seeing them from the road into town yesterday really was quite something. Seeing them all lit up for sunrise was just exceptional!

Cerro Torre at sunrise

Once the sun was properly up, we carried on up the path to Laguna Torres, stopping occasionally when the view demanded getting the camera out.

After Svein departed to catch the late bus back to El Calafate, I scouted around to try and find a composition that I liked. The glacial rubble that constitutes the end of the lagoon made it hard to find a eventually found a nice spot by the river on the way back to the campsite.

Day 2
Another early start, but a slightly more acceptable 4:30 rise. Alas, the conditions weren’t as good as yesterday, and with the low cloud my nice composition went out the window. That said, the atmosphere of the place still made for spectacular viewing!

Moving on, the campsite below Fitz Roy is well shaded in the trees, but step out and you get a grandstand view of the mountain. Watching the sun set behind it was plenty of motivation for another early start the next day.

Day 3
A brutally steep climb for 4am takes you to Laguna de Los Tres, right at the foot of Fitz Roy. The laguna itself is frozen over, but you’ll not find a better place to watch the enormous rock faces burn with the sunrise then this. I tried to set up a timelapse and botched it: schoolboy error. A bit of a mad scramble when I realised this led to a couple of reasonable stills shots while the mountain was still glowing, but I couldn’t help wonder what I’d have got if I’d just stuck to what I know and saved the timelapse for later.

To be honest, I rather liked the colder atmosphere of the shots that I got just after the orange glow faded – it seems slightly more forbidding. That said, I wanted that sunrise shot….

Day 4
It’s hard to get out of your sleeping bag at 3:30am to go climb a mountain (again) when the wind is howling and there’s snow falling outside the door of the tent. In contrast to the dozen or so people that were hiking up yesterday, I was the only one on the route… it’s almost as if they knew something I didn’t. But I gave it a go. It was obvious from the campsite that there was a lot of cloud on the top third of Fitz Roy, which is unfortunate, but I hoped that I might get lucky and if could either lift or even just stay and add to the atmosphere of the scene. About 2/3 of the way up I realised that there was also a lot of low cloud on the horizon and there wasn’t likely to be the same display as yesterday so backed off: time for plan B.

Plan B

There’s been a few things taken me by surprise over the last four days:
- The stunning weather
- How much heavier a 25 to 30 kilo bag gets after 3 ours of up-hill
- Winning at bouls against the Americans and the Irish
- How difficult it is to find a composition to call your own in this place

It seems counter-intuitive to say that it’s hard to find a photo I’m happy with in a place so overtly beautiful. It’s just so stunning, so dramatic and so picturesque that it’s almost tempting just to stand back and take a snap. It’d still be a good photograph, but would be the same as any other photo: it wouldn’t be mine. Besides, the big mountains only tell half the story. They may act like an anchor for your attention almost all the time, but they are only a part of the landscape, they don’t tell the whole story on their own. In the end I found a couple of shots I was happy with and for the first week of shooting that can’t be bad.

I can see this being more of a challenge than I thought….

Cerro Torre Junior