Written September 29, 2015
By Ryan Colarusso (University of Vermont)
Yesterday we returned from our first overnight excursion away from base camp. We travelled into the Chacabuco Valley, part of the future Patagonia National Park, where we day-hiked and tested our field equipment. Sunday was a beautiful, sunny day; an ideal day to drive through the ecologically rich valley. We all got to experience our first sight of guanaco (a native camelid). The sightings began with solitary males far away on ridgelines. Initially, we were happy enough just to see these. What we weren’t expecting, however, were the herds of twenty to thirty guanaco we would see not far down the road. By the time we started our hike at 1:30pm, the guanaco had lost any sense of novelty they had held earlier that day (not to say that it wasn’t still exciting to see them).
The hike itself was, at least to me, an incredible experience. We hiked along the side of a steep mountain, skirting around its peak in order to reach Lago Gutierrez on the other side. While in transit, we named many of the plants and animals we were seeing: neneo, calafate, austral thrush, plumbeous sierra-finch, chimango caracara, and so on.
Upon arriving at our destination, we started to familiarize ourselves with the field equipment. We all became accustomed to using our compasses, the range finders, and the GPS units. We also measured our paces in order to estimate distances. There was a contest to see who could pace out 150 meters most accurately (I won). And to top off the hike, a nice stroll to the lake shoreline, discovering guanaco skeletons and picking up driftwood on the way.
Though it was only one overnight, our first trip into the Chacabuco Valley was certainly an eye-opening experience and one I will never forget. I cannot wait to get back there for our guanaco and vizcacha surveys and to see what else Patagonia has to offer.