Cat Schilli, University of Puget Sound
As we drove away from Valle Chacabuco in Patagonia National Park we were sad to say goodbye to our home for the past week. We arrived a week beforehand eager to begin our next project: surveying guanaco in Valle Chacabuco. Our first day was filled with training lectures as we learned the system we needed to use to accurately document a guanaco, huemul, cattle, horse, or sheep sighting within the national park. We reviewed our navigation skills from our first backpacking trip and learned how to drop waypoints for the documentation of animal sightings properly. We ended with a scavenger hunt around our new home and discovered many new plants along the way. After dinner, we played a game of PELT underneath pink clouds and the glorious backdrop of the snow-capped peaks behind us. We spun under the stars, grabbed our hot water Nalgenes, and climbed into our tents.
The next day was full of preparation and excitement as we began planning for the arrival of the local high school students who were to help us survey for our first day. They arrived and were excited to get started learning. They went through a similar training to our day beforehand and then joined in a game of PELT as we waited for dinner to be ready. PELT later turned into a competitive game of soccer as the stars came out again.
Our little homes in big mountains
The next morning groups were assigned and we headed out on our transects. There was a variety of different stories and experiences when we all returned and almost everyone was just a little sunburnt. Some transects passed through the administration area of Patagonia National Park, others took transects into knee-high mud and others climbed up in elevation and were able to look down on the valley. After saying goodbye, I led a discussion for our Humans in the Environment class that touched on the idea of the “pristine wilderness” myth along with the human impact on the forests of Patagonia. After eating dinner, Betsy and Calvin, the student leaders of our project, got to work on inputting all the data from the day while the rest of us helped clean up. As we waited for our water to boil, we worked on our daily field journals and made preparations for the next day.
A guanaco taking in the view
The next day Phoebe and I were gifted a beautiful transect, but the whole 3.6k was all uphill. As we climbed onwards and upwards we asked for guanacos to magically appear so we could count them in our survey but also so we could stop walking for a bit. We spotted a male up on the ridge and then a group of two or three up on another ridge. We finally made it to the end of our transect and were greeted by a group of 4 guanaco and a lone male across the way. After marking our waypoints, we ate some lunch and boot danced looking down on a group of lakes and the glorious mountain range surrounding us.
The start of a transect
After making sure to hydrate, we began heading back to the road. We stopped along the way and identified the new plants we were trying to learn for our natural history quiz at the end of the week. We made it back to the road and were picked up by Cal and her gaucho. The rangers invited us back to admin for some mate and of course, we could not refuse. We spent an hour sharing mate as they talked about the pumas in the park along with their lives working for Rewilding Patagonia. We were sad to say goodbye but knew that an apple and manjar back at basecamp would be a good treat. We helped cook dinner and then we grabbed our hot Nalgene babies and went to sleep.
We woke up to ice on our tents, so a warm beverage was a necessity before gearing up for the day. At the announcement of transects and teams, Cal and I jumped up and down in delight and we were not disappointed. We were dropped at our transect and were greeted by neneo macho flowering at the beginning of our trek. After dropping down into the valley, we began walking through high grasses and swampy mud. We squealed as our boots spilled over with water and giggled as our boots squished and squashed through the mud. We finally made it to the river and were met with a new adventure: crossing in the most safe and effective way. We walked along the shore until we found a spot, giggled, and proceeded to cross. After making it to higher ground we took off our boots and squeezed out our socks, laughing at the puddles of water we created. We grabbed a quick snack and continued our search for guanaco. After around 3k we finally spotted our first guanaco and then noticed a whole group next to him. After documenting our find we began heading back to our initial easting and were met with another large group of guanaco on the horizon. We laughed at our luck, documented them, and reached the end of our transect. We decided that we wanted to eat lunch down by the river so we began retracing our steps. We splashed some cold water onto our faces and sat down to eat the sandwiches we packed for lunch. We took a cowboy nap as we listened to the river ripple past us and were startled by the alarm thirty minutes later. With plenty of time to adventure back to the car, we began heading back towards our starting point. We crossed the river and found ourselves in a forest of low Lenga trees and calafate bushes. After squeezing our way through the forest and falling victim to many spikes and spines, we made our way back to the Neneo macho. As we drove to our nature walk, we learned all about the interesting rock faces above us. We met up with the rest of our group and did a nature walk to help us solidify our knowledge of the geological formation of the valley and the different plant species within the valley. Driving back it was hard not to want to drift off into sleep. We arrived back at basecamp, ate dinner, and quickly boiled water for our Nalgenes and went to sleep.
On our last day of transects, the group was divided between a driving transect and a walking transect. The walking transect was a beautiful trail around Lago Chico. Once making it to the trailhead we began our walk on the lookout for guanaco as we meandered through lenga forests and back into the land of the cushion plants. The mountains towered over us as we walked down and around the lake. We saw our first and last group of guanaco during lunch right before sharing our chocolate bar sweet treat. We continued to loop around the lake and were able to see into the valley below and to the peninsula that divides Chile and Argentina. We stopped and talked about the cool rock structures surrounding the lake along with evidence of different mass movements that had occurred in the area.
Rock stop!
As we approached the last 4k of our transect it began hailing. The little bundles bounced off of our rain jackets and packs creating a loud drumming sound and then it stopped almost as quickly as it started. We made our way back towards the cars and drove to a rewilding location where they were preparing for the ñandus to eventually release back into the park. We drove back to basecamp shortly after and were ready to climb into our sleeping bags as early as 19:00.
The following day was filled with classes and academics. Cal lead a discussion about Tompkins and the creation of Patagonia National Park. This sparked a conversation about both the positive and negative impacts of the creation of Patagonia National Park and what can be done moving forward to make amends between neighbors. Later in the day, we had a class on the history of guanaco in the area. This lesson helped to bring into focus the importance of our field work documenting the current population of guanaco. We all created timelines, presented them to the class and began our walk towards our end-of-trip quiz. In celebration for the end of the academic side of our trip, we ate a yummy dessert after dinner as we began preparing for leaving camp the next day.
There was ice on the tents the following morning after a rain early in the night had frozen over which made me even more grateful for the hot water bottle nalgene I had made the night before. After eating breakfast, we began packing up camp in preparation to head back to base camp. We were sad to go but excited about the ice cream and clean(ish) clothes that waited for us back in town.