Home ·· News Room ·· Prints ·· Licensing ·· Gallery ·· About Us ·· Contact Us ·· Articles ·· Services South America stock photography trip report, December 30, 2007 to January 15, 2008 Updated August 27, 2008 Page 3 of 5 Previous page Next page
	continued... Friday, January 4, 2008 We woke up at 6am so we could make the run up to see Valley Francais. The plan was to pack all of our gear, including the tent, while it was still dry. That way, if it did rain, our packs would be wet but the contents would be dry. Looking back as I write this 3 days later, it would have been better had we cranked up the speed of our camp tear-down, that we might have made it farther up into Valley Francias. Though, after speaking with Albert, the Canadian we kept running into, the clouds that closed in on the valley obscured the best views of the valley, so I didn't feel so bad. Some say the valley is a jewel of the trip, but a wall of clouds just isn't that interesting. I figured that the first backpacking day would be nice and slow, but the second day was to be really long. Not getting all the way into Valley Francais was the balance of making it from Camp Italiano to Camp Britanico, arriving very late and not getting to sleep until midnight, covering the most difficult parts of the trail at night. Then, we had to wake at 4am the next day to catch the Towers at sunrise. A 3 day itinerary doesn't allow for as much loafing around, but cutting 2 days out of it allowed for other ventures. The walk up Valley Francais was steep, but pleasant without a pack. Joann still kept up her racehorse pace. I call it the Chinese walking speed, because I saw that pace in China and it's just faster than I normally do. Then again, she had been on the Inca Trail a few weeks before and I still had the lingering effects of normal international cold. That's my excuse, at least. In fact, I've been really impressed with Joann's speed - so with that and the combination of the junk in my lungs, it's been an entertaining challenge. Today the weather has been more or less cooperative, with small spats of rain, but nothing to justify taking the time to don rain gear. As we had been plowing up and down mountains, I had stripped down to my short sleeve, button down collared shirt and travel slacks, walking at an even, slow pace to avoid sweating. In the grand scheme of things, if I had been moving any faster, I would have broken out into a sweat and roasted myself. I walked in sunny San Diego day clothing. In stark contrast, the rest of the people were dressed like they were ready to assault a raging blizzard, wearing heavy shell jackets, rain pants and keeping hands in pockets. I did receive some funny looks, only wearing a thin, synthetic unbuttoned shirt. We achieved the lookout point to Valley Francais about 15 minutes earlier than the suggested map time, so we forged farther into the forest in hopes of achieving a closer look at the valley. This effort yielded little other than a walk in a dense forest. I spoke with a guy coming back from the valley about the travel times. He said it was worth going up to the valley to tempt a look, but not at the expense of arriving very late at Camp Torres, as that was the toughest leg of the trip, in the dark. The hill we needed to achieve was still another half hour away in thickening clouds. Arriving in the dark, getting four hours of sleep and possibly in bad weather was not attractive. Joann wanted to push for the valley, but in retrospect, I think what we ended up with was best. I wasn't all that bummed about missing the full valley cirque, as I'd seen them before, but Joann seemed more disappointed to have missed it. From the postcards we saw later, the view farther up the trail was not terribly different from the view we had, so I was ultimately okay about it. The walk back down didn't seem nearly as long to me, but Joann said the trip back down seemed extra long. It's all a matter of perspective in this one, where I had dude horse syndrome and she felt she had missed something. And yet we walked the same trail at the same time. It's funny how two people can nearly occupy the same place in time and space, and yet have a vastly different perception and experience. Middle Lake Refugio We lucked out with no rain so far. We hung our packs in the trees in case rain came so we didn't have mud-covered bags, only wet. Hoisting up our loads, we headed down out of Camp Italiano and to the very long section of this trek. The trail turned along the lake and began making its way east toward Lake Refugio 2. This section of the trail led up higher in altitude for a ways, then back down, toward the refugio. We had some constant light rain. It was annoying, but it kept me cool enough that I didn't bother putting on a jacket. The Lake Refugio 2 was not particularly remarkable and only afforded us to trim out our supplies. So, we hit the necessary and got back on the trail. I estimated that the passage to the short cut turn off would take 3.5 hours. This shortcut was supposed to cut off a good hour of trail time, something we would end up needing. We crossed many wide, flowing creeks, allowing us to fill up our water bottles often, wash our feet and hang out for a few before pressing on. This is the only place in the world I've run into that you can drink the free-flowing water without chemical purification. From what Jeremiah at Erratic Rock Hostel said, the water in Patagonia is as good as it gets. People even regularly drink from the tap here. Jeremiah even demonstrated this fact in the kitchen sink on the morning we were to leave for the trek. I took the risk of following the hostel guide's advice and drank the creek water straight. There were enough streams, creeks and waterfalls that I was able to subsist off of a beat up little ½ liter bottle brought all the way from the States. It was easy enough to get it through the airports, emptying it prior to arrival at the airport. Handy trick. This little bottle saved me weight and time, making drinking a snap. This experience was far better than in the California Sierras where it's generally best to purify. If I'm entertaining giardia in February, I'll know where it came from. Drinking straight, unfiltered and untreated water added real pleasure to the trek. Walking along the rocky beach of Lago Nordeskold was a wild experience. The wind was strong enough to blow water hundreds of feet up into the air, getting everything wet without a rain cloud over us. More than once, we were forced to the ground to wait out gale force gusts. Joann was blown into a tree branch and konked her head. No visible damage, other than the insult of having it happen. Joann said that had the air been warmer, she would have taken a dip in the lake. Personally, the lake water was a bit cool to the touch for me. Camp Britanico When the small lake where we were to take our shortcut came into view, we didn't see the cut-off trail but kept forging on. We slightly lost the trail in the bushes, then reconnected. All of the sudden, the bushes closed in again, as the shortcut trail was described. Then the trail completely disappeared into marshy grass. Joann checked her compass and sure enough, we had hit the short-cut trail. Somehow we had completely missed the main trail cut-off. Had we been heading toward the final refugio, we would have been toast. But, in this rare case, we were saved a good extra hour of walking. Just once, I lucked out. The wind had died down since leaving the lake, so we were quite warm in the afternoon. There were a few big creek crossings where Joann passed her pack to me, after I did the cat-dance rock-hop. The next few hours led us through a pastoral, daisy-filled landscape. As we turned up the final leg of the 'W' trek at 8pm, Joann put it into high gear and ground up the steepest past of the trail, faster than the stated average, to hit Camp Torres in daylight. The trail builders in this section ran out of original ideas and put up fixed knotted ropes to ascend and descend certain sections of trail, while other sections of trail reached very steep 1,500'/mile inclinations (a steep staircase). For reference, 1,000'/mile is very steep (like regular stairs) and 2,000'/mile makes you consider scrambling with your hands (like stairs on a boat). Arriving at Camp Torres at 930pm, Joann set up the tent while I got water boiling. Hearty beef soup and lasagna was our tasty freeze-dried fare. We geared up for tomorrow, so we could get a quick move-on early. Early risers at Torres del Painne There were a few bugs in the wet camp, but the light wind through camp took care of most of them. I surmised that had there been no wind, this campground might have been quite miserable for how wet the location was. Even so, we had a few flying beasts enter the tent. Joann efficiently dispatched them in short order. Saturday, January 5, 2008 4:15am. It's light outside, so we got up and hit the trail to the top. We left at 4:45am, making the first pass to the tower view in half an hour. We were able to follow the orange dot marked rocks all the way up. Doing this paid off because it kept us on an easier (?!) 2,000'/mile trail instead of stumbling through a massive boulder field until the very last moment. Joann languished a bit - her fast trail speed finally bled off and I didn't feel like a slug, prodded on by the continually brightening sky. There were 20 or so people up on the pass, waiting for the sun to strike the 3 Torres del Painne. It was completely worth it to haul up our 9 oz sleeping pads. It made sitting in the dark, below freezing, on that frozen, hard, heat-sucking and uneven rock completely tolerable. It made the experience all that much better, as I've frozen my backside off many times doing the same without a comfy Z-rest. The sunrise was pretty, but the lighting effect may be better in February, when the sun was likely to hit all three towers with alpine glow instead of full light. This is all speculation and picking, as the view was darned impressive. We spent a fair time exploring the rocks, making photos and having a grand old time after many people left. I was able to make a time lapse, much to my satisfaction. On a tightening schedule, we tore back down to camp, packed up and hauled out. We both marched on, snacking instead of eating a full breakfast meal for want of speed. We wanted to catch the earlier bus. We ended up arriving a full hour before the shuttle, so we took a well deserved rest break in the grass, bathed in warm sunlight, with a row of backpackers doing the same. A gentle breeze plied at my bare feet, drying them out and making me comfortable. Planning the bonus trip Back in Puerto Natales, Joann tried to make reservations in Ushuaia to no avail, so we headed out to dinner. Joann had cordillo and I had Chilean salmon. Both were good, but not awesome. But, after living off of food bars of cardboard and freeze dried dinners, it was just a bit better. The shower cleaning the grime of three days was even better, though. Sunday, January 6, 2008 I wolfed down another Erratic Rock breakfast. If you stay there and get up early enough, the place serves up a mean meal to start the day. It's highly recommended. I met up with Joann and we caught our bus bound for Ushuaia, travelling over the Patagonian Steppe. We ended up randomly changing busses in the literal middle of nowhere, absolutely flat to the horizon, under lead gray skies. I've been in a lot of nowhere and this place was definitely that. It was a full 13 hour bus ride to Ushuaia. Woo hoo! I watched National Treasure and Nacho Libre, played on the bus to pass the time. We ended up having lunch at a small place on the Chilean side of the Argentine frontier (border). Then, we had a ferry ride across the Strait of Magellan. Normally, it would take 2 hours just to find the right conditions to make the crossing, but we lucked out and had perfect weather just as we arrived. The water looked gorgeous, if a bit cold. However, the stories I've heard made the Strait just a bit more sinister, hiding in a cloak of good weather and fair breezes. The northern part of Tierra del Fuego is almost as flat at the Patagonian Steppe, a flat, featureless landscape. The car ride The Strait of Magellan at the ferry crossing isn't wide at all, maybe 20 minutes by boat. On the Tierra del Fuego side, there was a huge fenced off area marking out an old mine field. Guess things weren't so smooth in recent history. I mentioned to Joann that I was tempted to throw rocks into the field just to see what happened. Joann laughed, shook her head and her look said, "Boys…" Really, I'm 34 going on 12. About 100km (62 miles) out of Ushuaia, the landscape became interesting. Mountains and glacier covered slopes rose out of nowhere. All of the rock here is a deep black and red, looking like basalt. This very dark look takes away almost all the depth of the mountains, giving them a 2-dimensional feel. Ushuaia was unexpectedly large. The city has stoplights, a cargo and cruise terminal and who knows what else. This is quite unlike the rest of the cities and towns I've been in the past week. Nothing like them, at all. Joann and I met Juan Carlos, one of the guys who meets people right off the bus. Naturally, he was pushing his hotel. It was 150$p ($48US) a night for a two bed room with private toilet. This wasn't a hostel price, but as Joann had struck out on every place she could find in the Lonely Planet - South America on a Shoestring Budget, Juan Carlos's offer solved a big problem. Joann was worried that he was like guys in Southeast Asia who would lure you far away from the city, only to rob you. Though unlikely, it was possible. I kept my camera free and in my hands. It's a nice machine, but 3 pounds of magnesium is an unexpected tool when things get rough. I'd say Joann was being paranoid, but this is Argentina with a sordid history. In the end, there were absolutely no problems and we had a room by 9pm. Since we had spent quite a bit on a room, we rolled the budget approach to food and bought some empenadas (meat filled tortillas) and cooked up some rice with tuna on my camp stove in the room. It was a very "fresh off the boat" approach, as Joann called it. Previous page Next page
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