Friday, November 30, 2012

days 3 and 4...

11/13/11
Stayed in the tent, avoiding the rain, until lunch time. We ate some wraps and finally were able to leave Dickson by about 1:10 pm. Arrived at Los Perros @ 5:30. We ate mac 'n cheese and couscous in the rain. Cold, wet, we hope the pass tomorrow goes well. We bought some beer for $2000 CH ($4 USD). So great! Camp cost $3500 CH per person.


One thing I didn't mention in this journal entry is the miraculous story of the tent-pole-fix. Remember the story from day one? Incase you need a refresher (after all, this was a year ago!)...

On our first night in the Andes the wind snapped our tent pole like a brittle twig. Fortunately, a new-found friend had a spare tent-pole sleeve designed to fix a broken pole. He was a lifesaver, but we knew that we would part ways with him soon and he would need to take the part with him. We were desperate to figure something out.


When we got to this soggy, muddy, yet strangely inviting camp, we noticed that there was a small crew of men working on digging a new septic system for the bathroom. It is strange to come across glimpses of modern luxuries when in the backcountry, and this was no exception.

The men had finished for the day, and beers were being poured and consumed in the incessant drizzle.  This is when I approached one of them to somehow ask him if he had a spare tent part. I didn't know how I was going to go about this, seeing that my limited Spanish knowledge had left me high and dry in terms of camping lingo. I didn't know the words for "tent" "pole" "broken"...you get the idea. My Spanish sucks. But I went over to him anyways, holding our broken pole and the borrowed fix-it part we needed so desperately. In show-and-tell fashion, I held up my belongings and began a game of gestures (or is charades?) with the dread-lock headed man.

He looked at me, puzzled at first, but then realized what I was needing. At least, I think that's what he realized. He began walking towards his temporary work shed and I followed closely. As he walked up the stairs, he happened to glance down at the ground. The ground below the stairs. Let me re-cap: He happened to look down, from the third stair, through the slats in the wood, down to the mud below. He proceeded to reach down through the slats and when he did, he made a sort of "ah-ha" sound. Then his hand emerged, and in it was the exact tent-pole repair piece we needed.

How I left this story out of my journal, I will never know. But I am forever indebted to this dread-locked, Chilean, worker, who reached into the mud and fixed our tent.


11/14/11
We woke up early, excited and anxious about what was to come. at 8:30 am, we said goodbye to Los Perros (the camp that will be remembered as "the one that had a spare tent pole repair brace!"). The hike began climbing out of rain-forest type jungles that gave way to granite spires and glaciers. Truly incredible. We started up John Gardner Pass just as bad weather hit. Near white-out conditions at times. We made it to the top, snapped a photo, and plunged head-first into the wind and the descent. Before long, Glacier Grey emerged from the snow-fall and took our breaths away. We followed it all day, through forests and vistas, down ladders into endless gorges and up fixed ropes lines. We arrived at Camp Guardas at 5:30 happy, tired, and hungry. Free campsite. Dehydrated turkey with mashed potatoes for dinner. Now I sit at the "mirador" over the glacier. It is endless.


I couldn't resist writing a little story about this one!

The wind howled. It was constant, like ocean waves on the not-so-distant shores that act as bookends to the waning Andes of southern Patagonia. It raced up from the valley floor, gaining momentum and power as it climbed ever higher, past the frozen glacier walls surrounding us. I leaned into the storm and looked up for a moment, making sure I was still on track and in line with Courtney’s boot imprints. She was leading the charge up John Gardner pass, the most remote section of Torres Del Paine National Park in southern Chile. We were far. Far from home, far from the trailhead, far from help, far from everything. Blue skies earlier that morning had given way to menacing, blizzard-like conditions up hi on the pass. We had both feared and anxiously waited for this day for months. And we were finally experiencing the sharp teeth of Patagonia. This is what we had signed up for.

We hiked on, slightly slower and more methodical now that we were going downhill. A twisted ankle or broken leg here would be catastrophic. The ground on this side of the pass was more ice and less snow, so we made our way carefully down, down, down. Looming large in front of us was Glacier Gray. It emerged from the white-out, a massive expanse of ice and water and snow, bleeding out of the mountains and all moving as one down the canyon until it broke off, piece by piece into the lakes far below. It was magnificent and took our breaths away.

I caught up to Court’, and we turned out of the wind to gaze back down from where we had come. In just a few short hours, we had risen over 2000 ft, kicking steps in the perpetually frozen snowfield. Rock formations and towering peaks engulfed us, except for the silver-white path of snow that we hoped was guiding us to the top of the pass and then down the other side to safety. We watched the tops of the mountains disappear, and re-appear, over and over again as clouds whisked by so quickly you couldn’t help but wonder, if the wind was this bad down here, what was it like on the knife edge tips above? We would save finding that out for another trip.

I kissed my wife in the driving snow, long and slow, taking in the moment of peace amidst the chaos. We turned back into the wind and continued on. It was my turn to kick steps, though I noticed that there were still the faint boot impressions left from some of our companions who had left camp before us. These had already begun to fill in, only adding to the mystery of our route. Every so often, I would notice a post sticking out of the ground, a simple wooden stake, painted orange, that gave momentary relief from the ever-present fear that we had ventured off-course. We had been following these markers for days now, through meadows, up canyons, and into dense forests that sat below the glaciers, glaciers that dictated the ebb and flow of the entire landscape. These slow-moving giants were new to us, and they demanded respect. I could only speculate as to the enormity of the ice fields and the vastness of the crevasses that scarred them.

Orange marker-post, by orange marker-post, we made our way up. We hiked quickly and efficiently, staying warm even in this frozen land.

Months of planning and preparation, months of reading travel blogs and studying maps, months of excitement, had led us to this moment – the moment when we would crest this pass, marking the halfway point of our journey. I remember one instant in particular, when the wind eased up ever so slightly, just for a few seconds. The sound of my breath, and the methodical crunching of the snow underfoot, was suddenly exposed. I had a near out-of-body experience that sent me hi in the sky, looking down on the whole scene while an unwritten, power rock ballad exploded into existence. The mysterious and unknown music rang in my head and propelled me forward, even after I returned to earth. By now I could see the top of the pass and I marveled at the shrine erected there, made up of mementos and trinkets left behind by travelers from all over the globe.

Courtney reached the high point first while I fished for the camera to snap a few photos. But, it was so cold that the camera powered up for one shot, and then died, leaving the moment a memory known only to us. From the whiteout emerged another young couple coming from the opposite direction. We exchanged a few words, yelled “good luck” at the top of our lungs over the roar of the gale, and went our separate ways. I love times like that, when your path crosses with someone else’s at a certain instant in time that will never be repeated by you or anyone else…ever. Adventures are cause for many experiences like this. Courtney and I and our hiking buddy, Will, embraced at the top, but didn’t linger. We were still facing into the wind, and had been all day, and it was beginning to take a toll. We needed to descend, to find shelter.

We continued down until the snow ceased and the wind calmed. The trail led us into steep, slippery, mud coated chutes that we clamored down trying to avoid injury. All the while the glacier was in front of us, always in sight through the trees, daring anyone to step across its dangerous yet enticing boundaries. The day stretched on. We hiked past the point of exhaustion to reach our destination.

We wore every layer of clothing that we had, and still the icy blasts cut through. Courtney’s hat and jacket were covered in a thin layer of ice. Flakes of snow that settled on her outer layer quickly melted from her body heat, and then instantly re-froze. My beard grew icicles that formed and grew with every exhale. We trudged on, for the most part un-phased by the climb. Our training was paying off, not to mention the fact that where we live in Denver was higher in elevation than where we stood here, buried in the mountains. We were so close to the coastline; the Andes were just getting started in their skyward climb. We felt great, strong, and seemingly able to conquer anything.

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