Earth Day
April 22, 2005. Earth Day.
I spend the evening rushing out on a micro belching desiel smoke to the extremes of the city to buy a small cooking camp set (Doite, at MallSport), and return on an even noiser micro to buy guantes, un gorro, y bastones (gloves, a hat, and trekking poles) - all made from non-renewable resources - from the Dutch couple that runs La Cumbre. Then evening: cooking arroz, seboilla, y betaragas for a soup to take into the mountains for the weekend, checking gear, and putting off yet again doing dishes. This is not sustainable.
April 23
7:30AM rise shower eat pack. feeling rushed, and the rush.
8:30AM leave the apartment, micro to the turnoff for Farallones; hitch to the next turnoff at the beginning of the curves; hitch to the entrance to Yerba Loca, hitch to Villa Paulina.
11:00AM begin hiking from Villa Paulina. In a few hours, I pass the place that I camped last time; then the place where I turned back.
5:00PM Set camp at Piedra Carvajal, the stone refugio at the mouth of a high perched valley within striking distance of La Palomina Glacier. It has begun to snow, not too hard; temperatures hovering above freezing in the soft cloudy light of evening.
6:00PM cooking and eating dinner, as darkness falls slowly, a full moon hiding behind the clouds.
7:30PM To bed.
April 24
6:30 AM Rise, eat. Non-essentials left at camp
7:30 AM Begin hike toward glacier, in full gear including ski goggles, which prove to be invaluable...north up the long valley that is a wide braided field of cobbles cut by small streams and the memory of streams, stretching between steep scree banks at the base of sheer rock walls. One of my poles fails to remain extended, collapsing on my when I try to cross a stream. From now on, it is only usable as an uphill traverse pole.
8:30 AM Cutting up to the right of the cascade, I find the trail I lost, and follow it along the valley now tending east as it climbs higher, to a high alpine lake, and then on, along the sides of lateral moraines, across a landscape of glacial till and rockfall. It keeps going up, no end in sight; across the valley, dirty blue ice hangs from somewhere up in the clouds. Wind picking up, in gusts, along with snow falling down, and blowing across the ripples of gravel and scree.
11:00 AM In the shelter of a small mound, with my back to the uphill wind, I hunch down to eat a little before making my retreat. The wind is wipping over 40kph, and from what appears to be a terminal moraine where I sit, there is no glacier in sight, only a 30 meter drop to a gravel floor that continues up a valley ever tending eastward in a large arc that keeps the end out of sight. The blue ice hanging from the north side of the valley is taunting; there is no way to reach it without risking a brutal trail-less descent; and without a piolet and support no point even thinking about it.
12:30 PM Three and a half hours up, one and a half down to base camp. Back in the land where plant grow, however slowly; and a bird even, walking through the dusting of snow along the alpine ponds, the only sign of animal life all day. Lunch, while packing,
1:30 PM Begin the decent, with 4 1/2 hours until the park closes. Along the way, I catch up with a chilean out for a day hike; we make the decent together as my feet begin to swell, knees and ankles begin to ache from the constant hammering downhill stride.
5:15 PM Arrive at Villa Paulina; share a light supper,
6:00 PM Catch a ride with the new friend's family back to near Alto Las Condes, from where I take another noisy, jostling micro home, too warm the whole way in the now seemingly stale air of the valley floor.
8:00 PM (guess) Arrive home.
Lessons? Earth Day is fall here in the southern hemisphere; and it gets cold, even when you are embalmed in synthetic fabrics. The summer mountaineering season is over; from now on, it only gets tougher.
I spend the evening rushing out on a micro belching desiel smoke to the extremes of the city to buy a small cooking camp set (Doite, at MallSport), and return on an even noiser micro to buy guantes, un gorro, y bastones (gloves, a hat, and trekking poles) - all made from non-renewable resources - from the Dutch couple that runs La Cumbre. Then evening: cooking arroz, seboilla, y betaragas for a soup to take into the mountains for the weekend, checking gear, and putting off yet again doing dishes. This is not sustainable.
April 23
7:30AM rise shower eat pack. feeling rushed, and the rush.
8:30AM leave the apartment, micro to the turnoff for Farallones; hitch to the next turnoff at the beginning of the curves; hitch to the entrance to Yerba Loca, hitch to Villa Paulina.
11:00AM begin hiking from Villa Paulina. In a few hours, I pass the place that I camped last time; then the place where I turned back.
5:00PM Set camp at Piedra Carvajal, the stone refugio at the mouth of a high perched valley within striking distance of La Palomina Glacier. It has begun to snow, not too hard; temperatures hovering above freezing in the soft cloudy light of evening.
6:00PM cooking and eating dinner, as darkness falls slowly, a full moon hiding behind the clouds.
7:30PM To bed.
April 24
6:30 AM Rise, eat. Non-essentials left at camp
7:30 AM Begin hike toward glacier, in full gear including ski goggles, which prove to be invaluable...north up the long valley that is a wide braided field of cobbles cut by small streams and the memory of streams, stretching between steep scree banks at the base of sheer rock walls. One of my poles fails to remain extended, collapsing on my when I try to cross a stream. From now on, it is only usable as an uphill traverse pole.
8:30 AM Cutting up to the right of the cascade, I find the trail I lost, and follow it along the valley now tending east as it climbs higher, to a high alpine lake, and then on, along the sides of lateral moraines, across a landscape of glacial till and rockfall. It keeps going up, no end in sight; across the valley, dirty blue ice hangs from somewhere up in the clouds. Wind picking up, in gusts, along with snow falling down, and blowing across the ripples of gravel and scree.
11:00 AM In the shelter of a small mound, with my back to the uphill wind, I hunch down to eat a little before making my retreat. The wind is wipping over 40kph, and from what appears to be a terminal moraine where I sit, there is no glacier in sight, only a 30 meter drop to a gravel floor that continues up a valley ever tending eastward in a large arc that keeps the end out of sight. The blue ice hanging from the north side of the valley is taunting; there is no way to reach it without risking a brutal trail-less descent; and without a piolet and support no point even thinking about it.
12:30 PM Three and a half hours up, one and a half down to base camp. Back in the land where plant grow, however slowly; and a bird even, walking through the dusting of snow along the alpine ponds, the only sign of animal life all day. Lunch, while packing,
1:30 PM Begin the decent, with 4 1/2 hours until the park closes. Along the way, I catch up with a chilean out for a day hike; we make the decent together as my feet begin to swell, knees and ankles begin to ache from the constant hammering downhill stride.
5:15 PM Arrive at Villa Paulina; share a light supper,
6:00 PM Catch a ride with the new friend's family back to near Alto Las Condes, from where I take another noisy, jostling micro home, too warm the whole way in the now seemingly stale air of the valley floor.
8:00 PM (guess) Arrive home.
Lessons? Earth Day is fall here in the southern hemisphere; and it gets cold, even when you are embalmed in synthetic fabrics. The summer mountaineering season is over; from now on, it only gets tougher.
posted by ddgregory at 12:55 PM
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