it’s all just about whatever’s happening right here.

this guy, adrian, was like ‘lindo dia no?‘

and he showed me where there’s a little pozito of agua that’s pure and comes straight up out of the aquifer. you can see the little streaks of sulfur in the water.

and he invited me to go up there with him to explore the monte, al caballo. [to the mountain, by horse]

he said come on over early some sunday morning, come early and we’ll go up there together.

and it’s all just like that, everything’s just like right about the day and what can happen downstream.

and while we were sitting there, a little bit of the waterfall blew, like the wind changed direction and the water sprinkled down over us and he said that the waterfall did that when it was getting jealous.

A couple weeks ago the group who owns the little ski operation bought two new snowcats (‘pisanieves’) and they made corduroy roads deep up into the plataforma. Last year you needed snowshoes to get up here.

There are plans underway to create new infrastructure here, a gondola lift from the base that takes you all the way to the plataforma, with eventual development of these back bowls into runs similar to Cerro Catedral in Bariloche.

For the time being it’s quiet and deep powder conditions.

Peter Hartmann, activist leader, standing above massive rapids on the Rio Baker. “The biggest problem is that [the HidroAysén hydroelectric project] implies destroying everything, taking everything out of the region without leaving much behind…These projects are immense, on a scale that is absolutely unmanageable for this region. They’re unmanageable because this region is very fragile, ecologically, geologically as well as culturally. For example, in the area where they want to build the HidroAysén mega-project, there are as many people living there as the company is going to need to build the dams. So imagine what that means – practically doubling the area’s population.”

Photo by : Bridget Besaw, courtesy of of iLCP, taken for their RAVE campaign.

Please see more information on how this project basically shits on Chilean Patagonia.

And please also see more photos of what will be lost if the dams are constructed.

Yesterday we made it up to the refugio on Cerro Piltriquitron. There’s a local crew that flies paragliders off this mountain. On the ascent we watched this guy. In the background is Cerro Lindo and the Patagonian Andes.

During this time of year the Lengas (Nothofagus pumilio) turn bright red. They’re the last vegetation encountered below treeline, and depending on conditions you can find these red trees with white snow just above.

A kilometer from the parking lot is the bosque tallado. After a forest fire a couple decades ago, local artisans began carving the trunks into sculptures. Layla climbed this one javali.

The refugio is open year round. The refugieros brew cerveza artesenal and make pizza, bread. From the top you can study the Patagonian Cordillera, back north up to Cerro Tronador near Bariloche. Staying in the shelter is like $6, or if you camp it’s free. To reach the summit is another 2-4 hours depending on your crew.

On the slopes in the background (opposite lau’s beer mug) is the local ski area Perito Moreno. There’s a big plateau above the runs called the meseta. You can take the t-bar to the top of the runs, then snowshoe up onto the meseta and there’s all this sick sidecountry – big cornices and features – or backcountry if you cross the meseta and ascend the peaks.

We started descending with the sun only a couple fingers above the cordillera. Layla had hiked the full ascent and was tired. I put her in the ergobaby on the way down and she slept. The lights were already on in the valley (El Bolson) by the time we got back to the car.

[All pics except the one of Laura drinking: Laura Bernhein]

Took Virginia home. Couldn’t think of things to say. I never can. Virginia doesn’t seem to care though. She just looks out the window. As I cranked the car, Brisa was chasing Maxi down the road. Virginia and I smiled and looked at each other acknowledging something. Maybe just their stoke. We drove out to San Martin and I said it’s un dia tan lindo and Virgina agreed. It was blue in all directions.  Earlier she’d mopped around where I had my feet propped on a bench in the kitchen. Her / the mop’s presence registered as some kind of ambient noise or environmental factor like wind. I was trying to write something about the way people use sentences like “I arrived in Mexico thinking of only one thing: Tacos” and how that couldn’t be true. Nobody ever thinks of one thing. I couldn’t concentrate and gave up.

We went through town. The feria didn’t seem that crowded. One car passed us on the right. I thought about what kind of notes you could take about the drive. There didn’t seem like much. Earlier when I’d picked her up there’d been a woman on a bike holding on with one hand to a 4 wheeler. If you were from the US this might seem notable, dangerous, “free.” Maybe a symbol of “Patagonia.” If you were a paisano from here maybe you’d be jealous of the dude’s 4wheeler. I’ve been here long enough now where I just kind of enter pothole / pedestrian / object-avoidance mode while I’m driving. You forget the concept of lanes.

I turned at the church up towards Virginia’s barrio. We hadn’t said anything the whole ride besides agreeing about the sky. Two small brick houses a crew has been working on now had windows. Years working construction distilled into that feeling of working on a wall or section all day and noticing at different points how your shadow is changing angles and time is passing. I asked Virginia what the names of these barrios were. She told me a couple that I can’t remember. Hers was nueva esperanza.

dm and joshywashington in hielo azul headwaters

ON – OFF DRIZZLE. The cairns and talus slopes just right there getting slicked. We decide to call it. We can finish breaking down camp and then hike out together, parting ways at the turnoff back to Hue Nain. More wind gusts, as if confirming the decision. We eat freeze dried bacon and eggs. Astronaut foil pouches. Kind of nasty liquidy runoff.

A break then. Temporary clearage. We finish camp breakdown and decide to just walk up into it. If it starts dumping we can always retreat. Up first into this boxed in section of waterfalls. All of it running down from the snowfields and glaciers up near the ridgeline. This massive bowl of all different sized talus. Purple and brown and white boulders with treeline tapering away in these little pockets of lenga forests. The water dripping through all of it in meltwater channels, some dropping straight down from snowfields 1000 feet vertical, turning into spray on the mountainside. Others streaming together to form Arroyo Teno. The walking sticks feeling good on the talus. Basic rockhopping. We stop and take a pic looking back from the waterfall (above).

Coming back down the L knee starting to feel it. But then there’s the flag, these other cairns leading up higher into the bowl. We decide to get a view from the next section of cairns. This feeling of moving fast and smooth but knowing on the way down you’ll pay for it. Each step adding another foot to the more than 3,000 ft of descent in the hike out. What do you think? Josh tells me we should head up another 10 minutes and re-evaluate.

We never planned to hike up to the glacier but at the pace we’re scrambling it’s as if this unspoken decision was made. This kind of nervous energy in the scramble now and I’m leaving Josh behind.

I peel off layers. I reach this mini-throne-rock. A massive view out from the pocket. Sitting up there waiting for Josh and just looking around. Up high enough to see layers of mountains back to the east and Piltriquitron. Home.

Falling water sound everywhere. Up above, another flag, maybe 150m, then a big turn where the route goes up steeper. No sight of Josh scrambling up yet. This feeling that right now the flow is just going back down. That this is the Apex. The turning back point. Not because I couldn’t easily make it to the top. Not because I’m really worried the hike out will be too long and I’ll be limping by the end (although that’s part of it.) I’m not sure why exactly but as I think about it, it occurs to me that whenever I’ve had these feelings I always tell myself I’ll come back.

A little sun-break opens and then quickly closes up. Josh will stay up here tonight. He’s still ‘up here’ while I’ve got a ‘travel day’ ahead. He gets to go on up to the glacier, to get that for the team. More falling water sound. If you could just keep hearing it always. If you could stay up here. If you could remember they’re all travel days.

This thought now that when he gets up here I’ve got to tell him that I’m heading back down, even though me busting away right now just below the final push for the glacier is incongruous with the unspoken flow we’ve locked in to this morning of just fucking going for it. But after a while he scrambles up and as soon as I say I’m rolling back there isn’t any feeling of judgment or worry or anything else but just a sudden sense that the part of this trip that led to this moment has already ended and his trip and mine are changing, morphing into something else, and I say “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a sick parting ways spot,” and on my way down and on Josh’s way up we both turn at various places on the mountainside and give each other a few victory arm raises from what’s quickly become thousands of feet across the bowl.

Took this while driving the last the 5 km into Cholila. There was another condor a few hundred meters higher. Cholila is famous for being where for Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Etta Place bought a ranch in 1901, and lived for the next several years. Their cabin is still there.

This was the only vehicle we saw parked in town. Note the water tank on top. There are no fatass American style RVs in Argentina. People convert old buses.

12 km west of Cholila is Villa Lago Rivadavia. It’s a small village of maybe 40 or so houses, a couple of super small mercados (‘dispensas’), and dozens and dozens of horses loose everywhere. There are ~6 cabañas, a couple of restaurants, and one hostel that runs fly fishing / float trips. We walked down a small wash to the Rio Carrileufu. It was very windy.

The Carrileufu drains Lago Cholila and flows into Lago Rivadavia in Parque Nacional Los Alerces. The area has minimal development / unpolluted water.

Around 8 km south of town is the entrance to PN Los Alerces. You can access the shoreline by pulling off 3 km after the park entrance.

Micael was asleep for most of the day. When he woke up in this place he seemed to be picking up on stoke levels.

The next morning Layla said something about a raton. I followed her out. Its body was in the crook of the wall. A long rat tail, no head.  Muchacha got him; it’s just what cats do. They’re hunters.  Felt grateful for shovels and soft ground. Layla saying chau chau lindo raton.

Later at the carpa we saw clowns from Buenos Aires. I went for seats up in the bleachers, somehow knew they’d be pulling people onstage. It had been raining all day but wasn’t then. I wanted it to hear rain on the circus tent. Micael looked up from the baby sling in hyperpresent-tense. Layla wanted to climb to the top row. Watch out baby it’s a long way down. I Put my arm around her and noticed someone had sharpie-d the word NOROESTE on an orange patch above our heads.  The clowns were acting out Snow White. When they called for dwarfs the up front rows of kids rushed the stage.  After they finished Layla ran down and sat with them. Whoever had written it had got it right: this was the Northwest side. Later, beerdrunk, I held Micael, told him I was trying buddy, you just came from there and for me it’s been a long time.

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¹ pulling front paws slightly off ground in alternating /  heavily-weighted-looking movement that coincides with slow tail wagging due to hindquarters being too stiff / sore to jump up  anymore.