Ryan Cozzolino University of Vermont
It was an early start this morning as we had a long day of hiking ahead of us. We were camping deep in the Furiosa sector of Patagonia National Park collecting data for a pilot study looking at the endangered huemul deer in the area. The study was looking into the relationship between the populations of huemul and the cows illegally grazing in the park. Our tasks for the day were to document any signs of huemul (i.e. scat, tracks, rubs) and to retrieve the two camera traps left out by a past semester. It was a little chilly when we got out of our tents and it started to drizzle a bit as we got started on a breakfast of scrambled eggs and oatmeal.
A waterfall near our camp
After that, we packed up our lunch and all our personal and group gear for the day (Hand Lens, Compass, Rite in the Rain, Binoculars, Radios, GPS’s, etc.) into our day packs. With everyone suited up in their rain gear, we were ready to start the trek into the camera traps. Our hike started off following an old mining road that crisscrossed a low-flowing river (lots of rock hopping) until it turned uphill.
One of the many river crossings we did
We branched off the road to continue following the river through the valley towards the first trap. We took our time, stopping to practice identifying native species like Calafate and to learn the difference between Lenga and Ñire (similar-looking deciduous trees in the same family) for our natural history quiz. We have five of these quizzes on Chilean flora and fauna spread throughout the semester and it’s great to get face-to-face with the species before we are tested on them. After retrieving the first camera trap we stopped for a quick snack break before starting our climb out of the valley towards the second camera trap. This brought us out of the floodplain dominated by shrubs and into a beautiful old-growth Lenga forest covered in Old Man’s Beard lichen.
The Lenga forest we were walking in
In areas where the canopy opened up, we had some pretty good bushwacking through tightly growing Lenga saplings but we made it to the second camera trap right around lunchtime. During lunch, in classic Patagonian fashion, the weather switched from mostly clear skies to hail to mostly clear again while we ate. After lunch, we continued up the ridge to the tree line where our instructors had planned a geology lesson for us. We learned that the mountain was made of sedimentary rock and the Andean Scree was mostly black shale and sandstone. We were also able to find a bunch of fossils preserved in the rock, ranging from shell imprints to a couple of really cool preserved Lenga leaves.
Some of the fossils we found (with a scale of course)
The view from above the treeline was stunning. We were able to see pretty much all of the Furiosa Valley, even where it connects to the Chacabuco Valley sector of Patagonia National Park, where we’ll be later in the semester for the guanaco and nandu surveys. After our lesson was over we started heading back down to camp, stopping to share some cookies along the way.
The scenery was beautiful
On the way down we saw a lot of birds such as White Throated Treerunners and Black Faced Ibis. Back at camp, we scrambled to make a big pasta dinner on the camp stoves as everyone was starving after a long day of hiking. Four packs of pasta later, we finished washing the dishes and everyone settled down for the evening. We had reading to do for our Humans and the Environment class and some more studying for the natural history quiz. Overall it was a very fun day and I’m looking forward to the rest of fieldwork this semester!