if the rock is not here, it is very windy
Patagonia is in a section of the world known as the Roaring Forties where, due to the absence of major landmasses that far south, the winds of the Southern Pacific can rage and course without impediment. So, we knew that the wind would be wretched, and we had prepared for that, packing winter gear to go along with the light summerweight stuff. Still, it's a bit different to read about it on Wikipedia then experience it firsthand. Our second day in the park, we climbed out of the Rio Fitz Roy valley, heading north over a gap between Loma De Las Pizzaras and Cerro Rosada to camp at Campamiento Poincenot on the banks of the Rio Blanco. As we crossed the flat plateau past Lagunas Madre and Hija, the storm that had been forecasted for this afternoon arrived, with wind pummelling us on any open stretches of our hike.
The original plan was to pitch our tent at Poincenot and, time and weather permitting, make the one hour trek to Laguna De Los Tres -- a small lake that sits in this gorgeous ampitheatre of rock with views of Fitz Roy and its sibling peaks of Cerro Poincenot and St. Exupery; however the storm was intensifying, shrouding the valley in snow and mist and blasting us with freezing glacial winds, and the laguna was a 2 km long, 500 m high climb from the camp. With Roxana's warning about how most of this trail was above treeline and exposed to the winds still fresh on our minds, we opted to take shelter in camp and wait out the storm, reading books and writing postcards in our tent.
We woke the following morning, on our third day, to find the campground blanketed in a fine layer of snow.
The wind had died down but flakes were still falling from the sky and the peaks were still shrouded. Many of the groups who had arrived the previous night were packing up and heading back towards town, away from the Laguna. silentq and I brewed up some tea and had a bit of breakfast while deciding what we wanted to do. We looked up at Cerro Madsen, now completely white and looming above us. The guidebook had been discouraging, noting that "if views are obscured from camp, they will not be any better at the Laguna." The translation that we picked up on later: "if the weather is shitty down here, it's going to be even shittier up there."
Oh well, we made it this far. Might as well go and see what we can see.
We opted to go light, with me unloading my pack and just bringing along essentials like water, food, a knife, map, first aid kit and my trekking poles. The tent, sleeping bags, clothes and extra food would be left here at camp. We crossed over the Rio Blanco, stopping briefly at a shelter intended for mountaineering parties looking to summit Fitz Roy. The trail itself was fairly obscure and hard to follow. The park didn't have much in the way of blazes or signs indicating where the trail was, and a part of me was worried that with snow obscuring the trail, it would be easy for us to get lost. Fortunately, another intrepid couple had also chosen to investigate the Laguna ahead of us, and left their footprints in the snow. Posts also soon began to emerge, giving us a rough outline for the trail.
We climbed through groves of trees of increasingly small size. Soon, we saw the couple coming down, heading back towards camp. We greeted each other quietly, as we crossed paths. The snow kept on falling.
We kept going higher and the path kept on getting steeper. The wind was much calmer than the day before, but we'd have to stop periodically and brace ourselves whenever a gust would erupt. We soon left the treeline and entered the barren, rocky flanks of Cerro Madsen. Without trees, a gorgeous view of the valley below was revealed to us and we could look out and trace the route that we had taken the day before, pointing out Madre and Hija and the Rio Blanco, all enveloped in a late blanket of snow.
The trail had started to get a little slippery and rocky as we made our way further up. The accumulating snow was also getting deeper in spots on the trail and from time to time we'd find our feet plunging knee deep into powder. We'd injured ourselves before when winter hiking without snowshoes, turning ankles or slamming knees into hidden rocks as we lost our footing, and while I don't think either of us were ever in grave peril, a sprain or twisted ankle here would be rather inconvenient. We hadn't seen anyone else on the trail besides the couple who had turned around. At some point, their footrpints had vanished on the trail and I wasn't sure if that was because they had turned around or because the snow and the wind had erased them entirely.
Eventually we made it up to a lip, thinking that the laguna was just on the other side, but were instead greeted with another open, barren, frozen plain howling with wind. The clouds had settled around us, wrapping silentq and I in a mute world of grey mist. silentq said that we ought to turn around. I said that the laguna might just be on the other side of that plain. She nodded and said that I could go on ahead and "if there was something to see you can wave me up, but I don't want to risk crossing that if it's just going to be more snow and fog."
photo by silentq
So, I kissed her and pressed on, in the wrong direction. I had thought that the trail was going to continue straight across this plain, but reached the edge of it and just saw a steep descent into a gully and the side of a glacier. Looking around, I could make out another post, further up and to my right, fading in and out of the blowing snow. I retraced my steps and made for the maker. Over my shoulder, I could see silentq watching me and then another fellow come up behind her and continue on. The wind was roaring in this hollow and I had to use my poles to stay balanced, but eventually, I got to the marker.
photo by silentq
Below me was a broad, flat field of snow. It looked like it may be the laguna, frozen over and covered, but it was hard to tell. Everything else around us was obscured. It was just more snow and fog. The other fellow made it up to me. He was a Korean and after greeting each other he just shook his head.
"Is that the laguna?"
"I think so."
"The guidebook never said that this was so steep. It sounded so easy."
"eh, it's Patagonia."
"Yes. Yes, it is."
I turned around and waved silentq away. There really wasn't much to see, and I think we'd both had enough of slippery trail conditions. While we had both brought cold weather gear, we had nothing for the ice, and still had a four hour trek back to town. As we descended, we were enthralled again with the view of the valley below. The storm seemed to have quieted in the south, allowing us to see all the way to Lago Viedma. That was something.
As we descended further on the switchbacks we could see other hikers coming up, folks who likely started at El Chalten earlier that morning and were just getting here now. We wound up crossing paths with a chestnut haired fellow who had asked us if there was anything to see up there.
"No," I said, "snow's still pretty heavy. You can maybe see the Laguna, but all the mountains are obscured. You going for it anyway?"
"Sure, I mean, we're already here, right?"
"Yeah, and you've got the view of the valley, too. That's something."
"Oh, yeah, weather's a beauty, eh?"
and I looked at him askance and asked, "where are you from anyway?"
"I'm from Vancouver. Yourselves?"
Turned out he was a North Van boy, out in South America for a year, trekking in Patagonia for a month. Lucky bastard. We'd run into that as we continued to descend the mountain. Another party of seven hikers were coming up. One of them would make an observation of the splendid weather while we were knee deep in snow. I'd ask them where they were from, and they'd say Vancouver. That city does something to us, I swear.
We returned to our campsite, brewed up some tea and soup and then packed up our tent and headed back to El Chalten. The return route was gentle and easy, tracking along a small creek called the Chorrillo del Salto before opening up into a larger valley on the Rio De Las Vueltas. The valley itself was another majestic vista, marked by beautiful, snow capped mountains and hints of blue skies. The snow had vanished, and the sun shone upon the streets of the town. It was hard to link this with where we had been just three hours ago.
We checked into the Lunajuim, and after an amazing hot shower and a bit of dinner, I retired to the bar to write postcards by a crackling fire. Afterwards, I sipped a Fernet-Cola with Milly, the bartender and night manager for the hotel. She was a Peruvian, studying hotel management and spending her summers bouncing around various wilderness lodges in South America. She asked me about our trek and about the other places that we've been and what we thought of what we saw.
"Oh, you know," I said, "the weather wasn't great, but, honestly, a bad spring day in Patagonia was still better than some of the best summer days in New England."
"Really, why's that?"
"Well, you have glaciers for one. For the other thing, you can hike up some mountains in New England, and you look around and see cell towers or power lines or the sounds of cars on highways. It's beautiful, but it's not really pristine anymore. You can't drink the water without treating it. You can try to sleep at night and be woken up by the sounds of motorcycles roaring near your campsite. And eventhough the weather is cold and bleak, there's still this splendor in the bleakness. It gives the land this mystery and remoteness that makes you feel lucky to have seen it."
"Yes, I suppose that's true. And it's probably good that you saw the snow. At least then you can say you've seen the 'real' Patagonia. Sometimes, people come here and they have perfect weather and they think that it's not a big deal. We have to tell them, 'no, you must come back and see what it's like when you're not so lucky.' "
"Yes, speaking of luck, did you hear about that other group? The one that was lost?"
Milly just shook her head, a brief bit of worry crossing her face. Earlier, after we had returned to El Chalten but before we grabbed dinner, we stopped at a guide service to see about booking a glacier trip. The glaciers of the park could only be visited with a certified guide, and there was one that had caught our interest by offering a ferry ride to Glacier Viedma and a few hours of guided ice walking. Yet, when we asked about booking a trip for the next day, our salesperson hesitated then explained that most of the guides were actually off doing search and rescue. A party trekking out in the park had gotten into trouble in the storm that we had just walked out of and so most of the El Chalten guides were volunteering to do search-and-rescue, which meant that the guide services were going to be short-handed. "Still, not a problem," our guide said after some consideration, "we can take care of you. Might just be a bigger group. It's ok."
We wouldn't know the truth until a few days later, that a party traversing the Continental Ice Cap was trapped when the storm came in and blew their tent and supplies away. They would wind up being trapped on the Ice Cap for five days while helicopters would try to come in but would be blown off by the fierce winds. Eventually rescue parties composed of friends and El Chalten guides found them and brought them back in, but not before one of the trekkers had succumbed to hypothermia.
Some days it's worth knowing that when you've made it this far, it's not a big deal to see what's just around the corner or over the rise. Some other days, it's worth knowing when it's been far enough.