Sendero al Fitz Roy

Crossing Rio Torre via tyrolean traverse

Today marks one full month in South America. We´ve been able to cook for ourselves more than on the first leg of the trip and, thankfully, there´s plenty of quality produce and potable water here, a luxury we missed sorely in India and Southeast Asia. Four months without a salad is just plain wrong!


Poincenot-Fitz Roy reflections from Lago de los tres

Anyhow, I´ve been dreaming about Patagonia since I was little. I had pictures of Torres del Paine* up on my wall and read everything I could get my hands on to learn about the area. I wanted to know the terrain and mind-state needed to cope in a place at so intensely beautiful and at the same time foreboding.

In 1968 a group of ´fun hogs´ loaded up their Econoline van and surfed their way down the length of Chile. Then they put up a new route on Fitz Roy. They suffered through a soggy month in a snow cave and their clothing -- state of the art wool and leather -- basically eroded off of them. The suffer-fest continued and they summitted, not that anyone was around to congratulate them. For climbers, that adventure has become the archetypal Patagonia experience.

Below are some images from the land of gargantuan sky, unfathomably strong wind, and really really cute guanacos.


Mighty Cerro Torre with Torre Egger and Standhardt to the right


Madres de los desaparecidos graffiti


Cuevas de las manos




Along with 500 km of this...


...comes a bit of this


The choique (right) looks amazingly calm


If you lived here, you´d be home now

Aloha! (Z--being from Hawi´i--isn´t amused by the cold)


Undeniable radness


Who knew my hair was so delicious?



*Despite what I've heard, Torres del Paine does not translate as Towers of Pain. That'd be just too much truth in advertising.