The end of the ride
Thursday, November 11, our last full walking day. And what a day it was! For Mark and me, it took 10 hours, quite a bit longer than for anyone else. First a fairly long walk up a broad trail involving a climb of 1200 feet in altitude, ending at a campground that had a little coffeeshop and some restrooms. Except for the expense of energy that was required, not difficult: just potentially very tiring. Charlie warned us to take this section of the climb at our own speed, conserving our energy for the last part, the climb up a very rough moraine to the root of the Horns.
Between these two difficult links of the walk, there were two others, not as demanding: a fairly difficult walk along a very steep terrain, and a pleasant trip through a relatively level beech forest. In all I took “only” about sixty pictures this day, but some of them are very nice. But the walk was so difficult that for much of the time, I packed my camera back into my pack, and even when it was out, swinging from my neck, we were getting so far behind everybody else that I didn’t want to delay Mark and myself any further by stopping for snaps. As a result, there were a lot of great pictures I didn’t get. Some terrific views from high vantage points, and most especially the absolutely amazing “cascade flowers”, small plants that actually live in the continual shower of little waterfalls, flowering at this time of year in a brilliant red. Mark took a few pictures, but from fairly far away from the flowers, so they don’t show up very well in his photos.
First was the long climb. Lots of good views outwards, but since it was pretty gray
all day, the shots here don’t seem so spectacular. The trail is wide, and
much affected by having been traversed by horses for quite a long period. The footing
was a little rough, but not a serious problem. As I said above, the real problem was
that it was a continual climb, no level terrain at all to give you a rest.
The two pictures here were taken midway on the climb, almost an hour and a half after
we left the Hostería, which had been around 8:30AM. On the left, Charlie and
Olga chat a bit while taking a breather. (Big image;
small.) And on the right, Mark, with his two
walking sticks, rests a bit. (Big image;
small.) In both the pictures, you can see the rutted
nature of the path—we saw horeseshoe prints all the way up.
The horses could go no farther beyond the camping area at the top of this long
climb, since the path, now narrow, passes into forest immediately after you
leave the camping area. (Big image;
small.) In the right picture
(big image; small),
members of our group and others rest before going on. Bill sits with his
back to us, and I think that that’s Dennis standing with Mark. We
were all waiting for the arrival of the four members of our group who took
the opportunity to ride instead of walking. And we were taking a much-needed
breather. This was at 11:05AM.
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Because the very first link of this walk is so strenuous, the Hostería offers to people the possibility of going by horseback. There were only a few of their horses unreserved by the time we came in the previous day, but four of us chose to ride: Sue, Maria, Elisabeth, and Russ. In these pictures, they’re coming in to the end of their ride. I think Sue’s big smile has to do with the realization of the effort that they just avoided by riding instead of walking.
And here we see one of the tricky parts of the trail, even though most of the
walk between the first climb and the moraine at the end was not too bad. At the point
you see, the path drops down a steep rocky incline, and you're expected to let
yourself down (or on the return trip, pull yourself up) with the aid of a knotted
rope tied at its upper end to a tree. In the left picture (big image;
small), just over Mark’s
shoulder is our first glimpse of Carola, a horse-riding guide from the
Hostería, about whom I’ll be saying a lot, further on.
Behind her come Janice, Olga, Charlie, Bill, Maria (almost completely
hidden), and Elisabeth. This was
at 11:48AM; a few seconds later (big image;
small), Charlie is letting himself down
the rope, and Bill is getting ready to do the same. Behind Maria and Elisabeth,
another group is at our heels.
All our walks up till this day had been in terrain where we never or only rarely saw other people. But this climb evidently has such fame and repute that the trail was quite busy until that late time in the day when Mark and I were coming back down. Loads of Chileans, of course, but we also saw folks from Italy, Germany, and Ireland. Late in the day we even stopped and gave advice to an elderly couple that I guessed were from Israel.
By noon, we were in beech forest, Nothofagus more
exactly. You can see that this is not any kind of rain-forest. In fact, this
whole area of Chile is west of the Andes, so in
the rain-shadow of the mountains. You wouldn’t say that the trees here
were struggling, but yet there’s so little undergrowth, even compared
to the forests of Eastern North America, that it’s clear that there’s
not a great deal of rain. (Big image;
small.)
Three quarters of an hour later, around 12:45PM, we were still in forest. (Left
picture: big image, small.)
In the right picture (big image,
small), if you look beyond the closest trees,
you can see the rapid drop in the terrain.
Half an hour more in the forest, and we were out in the open, contemplating
the moraine.
Previous day’s pictures: first half;
second half.
Second half of this day’s pictures.
Next day’s pictures.
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