With the taste of homemade cookies and fresh watermelon still lingering in our mouths and minds, Logan backed St. Phoenix down a long concrete ramp onto the Puerto Montt/Chaiten ferry, and the rest of us trooped down behind the car. We located our seats, met a Chilean man who was traveling to Chaiten to do research for his Masters Degree in Geography. After finding our seats, we abandoned them, and rambled and rampaged all throughout the boat. We found a catwalk along the rim of the port hull, and walked out over the water, we went to the rear of the boat and watched the city recede into the sunset. We watched mountains, ate some fruit that a generous crewmember snuck to us, messed around with our facial hair (as we flatter ourselves) and struck manly poses for photographs. Later, when I had succumbed to the comforts of my padded seat, Logan, Josh and Andrew snuck out onto the cargo deck where the car was, and spread their sleeping bags in the open air, with occasional sprays of surf.
We landed in Chaiten under a cloud. In fact, literal clouds greeted our arrival, and under their heavy brow, we rolled the car off the boat, and up onto our glorious gravel home for the next two weeks--the Carratera Austral. Some friendly soul had mentioned that the northern segments of the road were the roughest, and we found ourselves praying that it was true, as St. Phoenix uttered groans and rattles of protest.
Along the Austral, after first venturing through two landing strips built right into the road (essentially a widening of the gravel, a windsock, and a pair of railroad gates) we found Parque Pumalin, a public-use park, privately owned by the founder of The North Face, in which the road was well kept, there were freezing showers (but, y’know, showers), clean restrooms, and really terrific campsites on the banks of picturesque lakes. We breezed into one such site, ate some lunch, and made for a hiking trail promising to take us straight to Volcan Chaiten, the active volcano that erupted in 2008, with truly catastrophic results for the region.
We wound our way through a rocky landscape of verdant scrub, and the bleached corpses of ancient trees, uprooted, snapped off and tossed any which way. The trail was a steep ascent up steps constructed from the debris of the shattered forest. Even our rigorous exercise at Conguilo left us unprepared for Chaiten. We labored up the barren slope, slopping through sand and ash, and taking frequent breaks to gape at the valley behind, or at the climb ahead. Once, we were passed by a buoyant Chilean who assured us it was only a little farther. He turned out to be lying, but assuring ourselves that mind takes precedent over matter, we at last achieved the summit.
To be honest, it was a little disappointing, at first. We had assumed we were summiting Volcan Chaiten itself, and would finish by staring into the dense smoke rolling out of vents, and perhaps see the glow of lava, far below. Instead, we were divided from the volcano by an immense chasm, the floor of which was entirely large slabs of hardened lava, and one sickly pool. On the far side of the gap, though, rose the angry red walls of Chaiten; too smooth to climb, with steam rolling out from its bulk, and a cloud boiling out from its obscured head. There was a sound of rocks rolling and falling, although we couldn’t see them, anywhere, and the grey magma on the floor of the gorge was scattered with the red castoffs of the volcano. The whole scene was one of sullen menace.
The next morning, we left Chaiten, stopped off for internet in the town of Chaiten--still digging itself out from the eruption, and headed south down the Austral.
The excitement of that first day can scarcely be overstated. Mountains like something from Peter Jackson’s feverish dreams came rolling out of imagination on all sides. Green hills with alpine farms stood underneath incalculable granite walls, and snowcaps receded out of sight beyond those. The drive was characterized by constant exclamations of wonder and exclamations of worry that St. Phoenix might not endure the road.
That night we camped along the high banks of a fast-flowing turquoise river, in the back pasture of a pleasant elderly woman who seemed surprised we’d even bothered to ask if we could intrude. We feasted on rice, lentils, sautéed onions, Nepali roti, and cabbage salad, and sat back to drink our tea, feeling like kings.
Later on in the evening, a trio of Israelis came down to the river and told us they were hitchhiking the Austral. Apparently, it’s a common practice for young Israeli men, having fulfilled their obligatory military service to spend some time traveling in South America, whether to chase the demons of war from their minds, or simply to take some time away before moving on with life, it’s hard to say.
The next day, (after I attempted to fashion a duct tape cover for the broken CV Joint boot in the front right) as we made our way up the gravel ribbon of the Austral, we ran into the Israelis twice more, and--as they predicted we would--ran into other small groups of Israeli ex-soldiers, all of them making their patient way down the Austral, smoking cigarettes and reading books beside the road.
That night we camped on a beach of rocks and sand in a national forest, surrounded by the remains of other campsites. Our camp was uninterrupted by any other human presence. Our water filter, having stopped working the night previous started again abruptly, and then stopped again.
Yesterday, we rose fairly early, cleaned up our camp, kicked sand and water all through the last vestiges of our illegal fire, and drove up a series of abrupt gravel switchbacks to Bosque De Contada, one of the hikes Aaron used to convince most of us to join the trip.
It did not disappoint. The path wound over babbling streams through an ancient forest, covered in moss and illuminated by golden sunlight, then up a really fairly reasonable ascent, through some brambles, across some fallen logs and out onto a small rapids, in the clear air of a narrow mountain valley. Steep forested mountainsides rose on either side of the river, and the trees receded away to the south, and to the north stood a tall granite horseshoe-shaped mountain, and an honest-to-goodness white-and-blue glacier was hanging down from the rim. We clambered all over the rocks of the stream, and took some pictures, then pressed on along the path.
The path led through another thicket, and then over a small hump of ground. As Aaron--in front--topped the hump, he exclaimed loudly and clapped his hands to his head. Just in front of us was a round basin, and in that basin a lake, fed by waterfalls from the glacier, and littered with shards of the glacier. We inched down the wall of the basin, and ate our PB&J beside the frigid water. Then, knowing that we would never forgive ourselves if we didn’t at least try, we set out to actually climb out onto the ice floes/mini icebergs in the lake.
It took a lot of scrambling through sliding rocks, about halfway around the lake, but Weber, Josh and I can now proudly say that we have stood on top of glacial ice, floating in a lake high in the Andes, and stared up into the sapphire ice of the glacier itself.
After that scary little excursion, we returned to the others, and together we all scrambled up over boulders and through scrub to a place where the mountain snow stretched down the slope far enough to climb to. And climb to it, we did. We made a bold attempt to climb up it, but the grade of the mountain and the slickness of the ice defeated the attempt.
So we rambled back down the mountain, finding as we neared the trailhead that, just like Chaiten, our legs were wobbling (well, mine were) from the exertion.
Last night, we made camp in a shabby sheep pasture, beside a river where we once again used our pole and lure to discover that no fish in Southern Chile is going hungry, and made another round of rice and lentils on our shopping-cart grate from Mike Hostetter.
The fish continue to vanquish all our efforts, but rice and lentils satisfy our hunger, and the hike was more than sufficient to settle us down for sleep with satisfied smiles playing ‘round the corners of our lips.
Those interested in praying could remember our lack of fish, our intermittent water filter, our attitude, and definitely that we would be salt and light, and a blessing to the people we meet.
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