Going up and coming down in the Andes

The Maipo Canyon, El Cajon del Maipo may be most famous for its place on the label of Concha y Toro wine bottles, but it was also an ideal place to spend our first week in Chile. Descending from dramatic 6,000 meter peaks through myriad rock formations and compositions to chaparral valleys and vineyards, the Maipo river defines and has created this marvel at the southeastern stretch of Santiago. Chile is often only around 200 Km wide, the “Long-Thin Country” as Pablo Neruda put it without his usual poetry, and is one of the few places in the world where you can literally be standing on glaciers in the morning and surfing in the afternoon. The top of the Maipo Canyon is a short and beautiful ride 2 hours outside of town, past some of the most accessible rock climbing in the country to the town of Baños Morales, a sleepy mountain town with a mix of cowboys, oddly placed Swiss-style chalets and green fields with grazing sheep. From here to the beaches of Viña del Mar would be around 4 hours. So as for orientation, that should get you here from wherever you are, should be able to place all of us geographically in this edge of the world, and having journeyed with us to the airport where Alejandro (un buen amigo Chileno) picked us up and sped us up the canyon before even having a chance to wave at Santiago we all find ourselves (yes, you reading this too) in the mountains and camped in the High Andes which are below the Southern Cross 30 hours after leaving Denver; are you with us?

So, in the Cajon, on the glaciers and in the presence of such massive mountains, the mind begins to wander, fears creep in, humility takes a strong hold and expectations that were put in place years ago slowly begin to wane. It is time to listen. These are the mountains of my childhood reading articles on climbers, reading book s like Banner in the Sky and imagining myself occasionally in these places, on these glaciers and slopes. And speaking of glaciers, oh sure, they are retreating at a sad and rapid rate but damn they are still big around here. The first lesson is in scale, which, as with all of the world’s great mountain ranges, is humbling. It’s hard to contemplate, hard to gain perspective, but rises that should be easy climbs are actually mountains in their own right; it’s the “mountains beyond mountains” that we’re after but to get there, remember, we must climb mountains. And they are MOUNTAINS, placed in Colorado these would be the range’s landmarks, but here they are simply foothills and guardians of the further mountains. Thus the humility, and true blessing to have the opportunity to be smacked and intimidated by natural forces.

The South Face of El Morado was our first intent and we were swiftly stymied by doubt and prudence, two healthy bits of our conscience we are trying to ride with on this trip. We decided to stay in Central Chile before heading to Patagonia in an attempt to have some sunny days in the mountains in case our time down south is tent-bound. Well, our time in the Cajon was largely tent-bound as well, as we watched black clouds come from the coast and shadow the menacingly black 600-meter south face (notorious for poor rock) and the darkness of the whole scene made us doubt our ability to safely move up it with an impending storm. And so the day consisted of a 3:30 wake up – a climb up to the base of the South Face – a (mis)assessment of the weather – decision to turn back – climb up one of the “mountains before the mountains” – 3 hour nap in the tent – attempt to climb up an easier route on El Morado – being blocked by an 8-meter wide and 10-meter high crevasse – another decision to go down to the tent – a final decision to go all the way back to Baños Morales – a bottle of wine (that we had actually carried with us to our base camp hoped to drink after our climb) in town and an excellent-night’s sleep in a soft and u-shaped bed.

Salud.

We left with a whole load of health and well-learned lessons on the Andes, what moves them and what moves us in them. I write this from Bariloche, Argentina, where we have stopped in our journey south after descending from the Maipo. We are at the cusp of Patagonia, but not Butch Cassidy’s Patagonia, this one is one of t-shirt and chocolate shops, of night cubs and fine Argentine cuisine. While much of the isolation has been paved out of Patagonia, it is still inevitable that time here be an adventure. As you sit looking across a white-capped lake with wind-ripped clouds and vast peaks and then turn around to see the vast pampas with cows, cowboys and bunch grass, wind-swept desolation and smoky barbecues, the magic of Patagonia still hits you. Or, stop sitting and move into the end of the world, the Patagonia of metaphor and myth, move into it, far up into it, to the granite peaks that rip a giant gash into the visual fabric of the world.

Here we go . . .

along with everyone else, from Israel to Sweden to the US and Australia. We’ll chase these wild places while we can.