By Collin Campagne (University of Vermont)
Was I lost? No question.
Did I know where I was? Not at all.
Had I been happier in my life? Never.
Mary Oliver
The visibility out of the aircraft window was poor as we descended into Balmaceda. Seven out of nine of us were on that plane- one student had missed the flight from Santiago by mere minutes, and the other was to join us the following day in Coyhaique. I wondered myself if I would end up on the plane from JFK to Santiago after making a novice mistake and ending up at the wrong terminal. Yet, here I am, with 8 other people who even after a few days feel like family to me, in a place so foreign and spectacular that it would bring a tear to John Muir’s eye.
We waited to get our luggage, questioning every moment that passed if our luggage ever arrived. Inevitably it all came through. We walked out of the gate into the shallow airport lobby, where two men greeted our slap-happy group.
“Are you guys here with Round River?”
“Yeah”
“Mateo, nice to meet you. Our trucks are waiting outside.”
We shook hands with him and Fernando, the other instructor, and introduced ourselves. After formalities, we loaded up the trucks and prepared to go. I hopped in the “Green Machine,” an old yet faithful green truck almost as old as I am, with Fernando behind the wheel. He sported a long ponytail and beard, in a thick wool sweater. In a thick Chilean accent, he asked, “What you guys think of the mountains? Incredible, no?”
Being a climber, immediately I was awe-struck by the endless columns of mountains that surrounded us. His question was more of an invitation to grill him about the climbing scene in and around Coyhaique. To my surprise, and adding to my ever-growing excitement about being in Patagonia, it turned out that he had set routes at Muralla China- The Great Wall of China, the only band of limestone around Coyhaique. He told us about his hippy youth, living at a cherry farm at the base of the cliff, working in exchange for a spot to pitch his tent and for a piece of bread a day. This goofy, kind-hearted dude was to be my instructor for the next three months. Needless to say, stoke was super high.
We arrived in Coyhaique after 30+ hours of traveling, still two students short, exhausted and hungry. Mauricio, the proud owner of the Huellas Patagonica greeted us outside and we stepped into the chilly, yet very quaint and pleasant lobby and moved into our bunks. The vibrant colors of street art on an otherwise gray, smoggy mountain town greeted us outside our window. For the first time, we were alone with each other, with no planes to catch, no bags to retrieve, nowhere to drive to. We made initially uncomfortable jabs at small talk. It seemed pretty hopeless at the time, for we were too tired to have meaningful conversation. Yet at dinner, our instructors pried us for information about our lives, and this is where we opened up to each other for the first time. After a 2-hour long meal, we returned to the hostel, and shortly after, crashed.
The next day we rose to a breakfast of bread, cheese, and jam along with coffee, a commodity we were told that would be precious later on in the semester. Given this, we caffeinated to our hearts desire. After breakfast we walked over to our instructors’ hostel, the Cabañas Tio Nino, to be briefed on what was to happen over the course of the semester and to take part in the sacred yerba mate circle, led by Fernando. Mate would become central to our daily routine from there on out. The rest of the day consisted of talking in the crowded cabin and walking around Coyhaique, picking up last minute essentials such as Mate gourds. This was the day leading into La Fiesta Patria, Chilean independence day. The streets were crowded with vendors and kids playing soccer, along with children dressed in ponchos dancing and teasing each other. The city buzzed with an energy so exciting and engaging that it made our small jet-lagged group really stand out as gringos.
Even though we stood out, we still wanted to get immersed in Chilean culture. We approached a man on the corner of a street, and bought a nalca stem – a vivid green, nubby stem with a taste resembling a very mild, starchy bitter apple that peels like rhubarb. Apparently, the best way to eat this is with obscene quantities of salt. We finished off the day by going out to eat, and boy was it a feast. The appetizer alone was enough to fill us, yet we kept eating and drinking fine seafood and wine until the night turned. Very full and very content, we regressed to the hostel and went to bed, knowing that the next day we wouldn’t sleep in a real bed.
By 10:00 am the next day, we were out the door and on the road. Even though I sat in the middle seat of the Green Machine, the stunning landscape of Cerro Castillo and Lago General Carrera made the eight-hour drive to Cochrane fly by. When we arrived, I set up my tent and was instructed to build a fire. Kyla, one of the strongest and soft-spoken women I have ever met, looked at me and said, “have you ever chopped wood before?” I hadn’t, but close friends at home have told me that it is something that I need to do at some point in my life. So Kyla’s question posed an opportunity for me to fulfill this necessity. I was so stoked about this that I started writing a letter to my friend that night about how I chopped wood for the first time.
Sunrise over Cochrane. Photo by Katrina Brace
The next day, we headed into town to watch the parade during La Fiesta Patria. We gathered with the locals in the town square to listen to the mayor give a speech, and teenagers dance the Cueca. Then the military marched. They had skis strapped to their packs and carried ice tools, which were nicer than the gear I had at home. We stared at their gear, analyzing it amongst ourselves and fantasized about climbing the gnarly peaks that surrounded us. We returned to base camp and had classes, and prepared for our first expedition to the Tamango Reserve.
Children dressed traditionally walking in the parade for La Fiesta Patria. Photo by Charlie Southwick.
At 9:00 am we arrived at the entrance to the Reserve. We met the guardaparques for CONAF, Wilson and Felidor, who would be assisting us in putting camera traps along the park in search of feral dogs, along with searching for huemul deer the next day. The following hours were a hailstorm of information and plant names, from English and Spanish common names to the scientific names. To further confuse and complicate things, as soon as a bird would sing a song or fly overhead, we would struggle to whip out our binoculars to search and identify it. We scribbled furiously in our field notebooks. Once we set the cameras, we chopped down pine trees.
What many people don’t know about Patagonia is, much like many places in the USA, much of the natural land cover and native trees have been removed. Due to a growing lumber industry, Douglas firs and pines have been planted, effectively outcompeting native southern beech species. We chopped an area of about 200 sq. meters for about 2 hours, then hiked 13 kilometers to base camp. Our camp sat on an edge of Lago Cochrane, the clearest lake in Chile. After dinner, los guardaparques invited us to their cabin, 100 meters from our camp. The space was small for the 14 of us, but pleasantly warm. We laughed and joked, even though few could understand the gentlemen who let us share their home for the evening. Chilean Spanish is really difficult to understand, but that didn’t stop them from joking along with us.
After losing power the night before we left for the Tamango Reserve, we enjoyed a candlelit dinner. Photo by Charlie Southwick
The next day we set out to see some huemul deer. We set out early and bushwhacked up 700 meters of vertical gain over 7 kilometers. We wanted to practice for our Grinnell journal write-up, so we took frantic notes of plant species and birds at what time we saw them, the type of terrain they occurred in, etc. Something that I didn’t anticipate before going on a Round River program is how academically rigorous it is. Most of the days in the field we had our field notebooks out writing down everything we observed. What made that day even more difficult was that trying to write legibly while walking is difficult in itself, but when bushwhacking, it becomes nearly impossible. So we spent the whole day stumbling through coigüe and lenga forests, and getting pricked and impaled by calafate bushes. It was not for nothing though. We saw one macho and one hembra huemul deer. It is important to monitor huemul populations in this area because fragmentation of populations along with habitat loss has made huemul an endangered species. Tamango is among an area affected by fragmentation, so this is why we were here.
An hembra, or female, huemul deer with a tagging collar. Photo by Katrina Brace
Our instructors, Kyla and Eli, take a moment to enjoy the views. Photo by Charlie Southwick
Today, we hiked out along the most beautiful trail I have ever hiked. If this trail had been in the US, every major outdoor media outlet from Nat Geo to Outside Magazine would blow it up to be a significant hiking trail. Yet the fact that we were the only ones on the trail, without anyone around us for miles, made it all the more serene. We ascended over the lake, so blue and clear, perfectly surrounded by the pale blue-grey schist cliffs that surrounds it that had it not been for the bitter cold wind howling over us, one could mistake it for a Mediterranean coastline. Trophy-sized brown and rainbow trout leaped from its waters. The landscape was so perfect that few words were spoken for the 6 hours we spent on the trail. There was no place for idle talk, for no words could capture what we were feeling.
A snow-covered peak looks over Lago Cochrane. Photo by Collin Campagne
Our group enjoys a break overlooking Lago Cochrane. Photo by Collin Campagane.
We have only spent two weeks in Patagonia. Yet we have found Eden.
Much love to my friends and family at home who I wouldn’t be here without.
-Collin Campagne, 9/24/2016 Team Guanaco.