Week of October 10th, 2015
By Matt McIntosh (Marlboro College)
We spent this week in the future Patagonia National Park working on a few different projects. We spent Monday and Tuesday surveying the Chacabuco Valley for guanaco, camping in the middle of the Valley on Monday night.
The guanaco, a camelid closely related to the well-known llama, is a key species for Conservacíon Patagónica’s restoration of the Chacabuco ecosystem. As a generalist grazer of the shrubland, steppe, and alpine habitats, their influence is felt in numerous niches within the valley. They are also culturally important, since they are a charismatic megafauna for the future Park.
A grazing guanaco watches the RRCS survey crew drive by in the Chacabuco Valley. Photo by RRCS instructor Adam Spencer.
Our methodology was very simple: we drove Ruta X-83 (the only road through the Park) at a cool 20-30 km per hour, scanning for guanaco. Once sighted, we stopped the car and took a few key pieces of data: GPS waypoint of our vehicle, compass angle to the guanaco(s), number of individuals, sex, and distance to the individual or herd.
We piled into the three trucks, turned on some tunes, and scanned the rolling landscape of the Valley for camelids. I should note that none of our faithful readers should lose sleep over the status of guanaco within the Chacabuco Valley; we counted nearly a thousand over two days. The guanaco population has been steadily increasing since the land was purchased for conservation eleven years ago, and I would hazard a guess that this will continue.
After finishing up our guanaco surveys around mid-day on Tuesday, we packed up at the Stone House where we camped and hiked north into the Valle Aviles, home to the river of the same name. The trail leads away from the Stone House toward the obvious cut in the towering peaks, crossing the 1.5 kilometer flats of the Chacabuco before ascending the forbidding slope on the west side of the valley. From the Stone House, it was clear that the top of this rise was as flat as a table. A few of us enthusiastically charged ahead, stoked to be out and after it in unknown country. Once we were on top, we enjoyed this terrain, cruising through golden bunchgrass, the wind bringing shivers to our sweaty bodies. It was a bluebird day and spirits were high.
After 15 minutes of this mesa-top hiking, we dipped into a series of ravines, offering shade and slivers of trickling water. We hiked joyfully, half-jogging the brief downhills, pushing our pace on the ensuing inclines. We passed a few potential campsites (oops!) in our reverie and, a few kilometers later, discussed our options with the group.
We pressed on, camping on a decently flat slope after seven or eight miles. Tucked into the edge of a ñirre forest, we enjoyed a pasta dinner and read Aldo Leopold’s essay “The Round River” aloud. I was raised to love not only wild places, but also to learn from the canon of environmental writers who have inspired so many to change their lives to live in dominion rather than domination. For this reason, I really enjoyed the reading and ensuing discussion. I’m continually inspired by the knowledge and passion of my fellow students and our instructors here.
Caitlin Eichten admires the beauty of the Aviles River Valley after a fresh dusting of snow. Photo by Adam Spencer.
Day two of our backpack trip – day three of our week – dawned grey and we left camp expecting to get wet. Our route was simple: continue north up the valley on the trail. The terrain here was unusual and very evocative: across the valley, a ribbon of water poured 30 or 40 meters off a muted-orange cliff; below, the Aviles River outdid itself in a sparkling blue, even as the skies spit on us. We hiked through geological upheavals, as if the whole valley had been tunneled under by industrial-strength gophers. On each side, we were bracketed by soaring cliffs, some finding their roots at the absolute river bottom of the valley and making a break for it, skyward, 120 meters above the chilly riffles.
Eventually, we crossed the Aviles to the east side and entered a beautiful lenga forest. These trees are well spaced but have a thick canopy that leaves you feeling tucked away. Each time the trail led us out on to the rocky river bed, it was incredible to rediscover the big scale magnificence of the valley. By now, its form had changed. Instead of toying with intermediate slopes, like the ones we had hiked through earlier, there now seemed to be only two options: the braided river and lenga forest , or the steep slopes making a bee-line for the heavy clouds. Peaks were snow-capped and nearly 1500 meters up.
The author, Matt, takes notes on the flora and fauna while hiking through Lenga Forest in the Aviles River Valley. Photo by Adam Spencer.
We finally camped in a lenga forest next to a small pond at the base of Cerro Jeinimeni, voraciously eating a pad Thai dinner and trying to keep warm. Our plan was to wake early and do a bird survey at Lago Escondido (Hidden Lake). This was nixed by the two inches of snow that greeted us at 7 a.m. Instead, we slept in a bit more and then hiked to Valle Hermoso, about 3 miles farther north. Here, the Valle Aviles dead ends in the East-West Hermoso, home to even more dramatic peaks, such as La Gloria. The hike took us through lenga forest on the eastern slopes of the valley, affording excellent views of the river bottom we’d hiked up the day before.
After lunch in stunning valley, we returned home in humongous spring snowflakes, all of us feeling blown away by the beauty of the valley. We ate dinner and tucked in early, hoping to complete the bird survey we’d been snowed out of that morning.
Cristina warms up with some hot chocolate on a snowy morning in the upper Aviles River Valley, with La Gloria Peak rising from the Jenimeini Range. Photo by Adam Spencer.
However, we found no such luck; two more wet inches of snow had drifted down in the night, and we began to pack up to return down the valley.
At 10 am, just as we all finished packing, our instructors proposed that we hike up to Escondido. It had warmed considerably, and the sun – with us for the first time in a couple of days – had melted the snow.
We scampered through lenga and moraine to reach Lago Escondido – and holy smokes am I glad we did. It’s one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, with a glacier at the opposite end and soaring spires on every side. The water and ice was the color of light blue Gatorade. Almost all of us waded out barefoot 15 feet to a small rock, where we ate chocolate and marveled at the view. As for birds? We spotted one, which remained unidentified. The rock-and-ice dominated landscape was not particularly hospitable to any life, even us, and we drank in the beauty in big gulps before descending to camp.
Last light of a long day backpacking through the Aviles Valley, outside a rustic cabin the RRCS group used as a shelter to cook dinner on their last night of the trip. Photo by RRCS student Kelsey Hamm.
We packed up and headed to an old cabin back down the valley, where we’d eaten lunch a few days prior, to camp for the night. Hunger was a theme on this particular trip and the lentils and mashed potatoes did not disappoint. Even the most food-minded among us went to bed close to satiated.
The next day led us back down the Valley to Stone House, but not before conducting two surveys for vizcacha on the western cliffs of the valley. We came down from the cliffs with no sign of the large rodents, but when determining habitat suitability, one can never be frustrated with any data, we’re told. We arrived back at the Stone House around 4 pm, packed up, and headed home with an incredible week in the books.