My day on Mount Tronador
Trip Start
Oct 19, 2007
1
96
126
Trip End
Ongoing
San Carlos de Bariloche,
Argentina
Thursday, February 7, 2008
There are two buses going to the park and I am on standby. Man, if I don`t get one of these buses I am going to be salty but thankfully someone who had purchased a prepaid ticket doesn`t show up and I get the very last seat, word. When we get to the park entrance everyone has to give the rangers their name and emergency contact in case they get lost up there or die
A stream we had to cross
. Sweet. Not as bad as the time I went sky diving though. You had to fill out like a 3 page form where you had to sign your name next to like 25 statements all stating that YOU COULD DIE (in big bold lettering) and that you except responsibility and agree not to sue in case of such a circumstance. Hah, how the fuck are you going to sue when you are dead. A bit of a catch 22 (not in the true sense but akin) there which reminds me of one of the greatest books I ever read (titled "Catch 22") and one of the salient parts of the book being that personnel didn`t have to fly combat missions if they were insane but the only way you could be given clearance as being insane was to ask the doctor to ground you because you were insane and once you did that you were obviously sane because only a sane person wouldn`t want to fly combat misisons and possibly die (this is where the everyday use of the term Catch 22 comes from btw). Anyways, we walk about 12km today in total and about 2km up. There are flies everywhere buzzing around my head and they are driving me absolutely nuts. I think they are horse flies as they are larger than normal ones and they bite as well. It tell Olie that I would pay $50p for no more flies, they suck that bad. Olie (hah, what an awful name) is a super nice dude but a bit dull, but we manage to have a good time trekking up the mountain. The oddest thing is that he is married and he just left for SA for 3 months without his wife. He says they like to do their own things once in awhile and I find this astonishing but maybe that`s why 50% of marriages in the US end in divorce, married couples simply spend way too much time together
Condor flying - Mt. Trondador
. According to Vonnegut, marriages end in divorce so regularly now because people don`t have large extended families anymore and women just want people to talk to. Since men don`t have large extended families nowadays it decreases the amount of people the men`s wives can talk with and they become bored and sick of always having to talk with the husband. He says that when a couple is arguing what they are really saying is "You are not enough people". He says "a husband, a wife and some kids is not a family, it`s a terribly vulnerable survival unit". When we finally get above the tree line the view is stunning and if this view was a woman it would have given me a boner. We stand on the edge of this cliff and from this perspective we can see the valley below of which a river winds its way through as well as being able to see a glacier straight ahead of us from which about 10 waterfalls fall off the ledge that the glacier seems to be precariously resting on. Then all of a sudden we see a Condor flying overhead. Condors are the largest birds capable of flight with some of them having wing spans of 4m (13 feet). This particular one probably has a wingspan of 3m but it`s still amazing how flippin large this bird is. We finally make it to the refuge after a tough and steep boulder climb. The view is incredible as the refugio is situated between 2 glaciers and you can see mountain ranges in 270 degrees
Glacier - view from Mt. Tronador
. We don`t go all the way to the top of Mt. Tronador but the peak looks pretty cool from where we are and just on the other side of the peak is Chile. This is my first time up in a mountain (I am a city boy thru and thru) but I instantly fall in love with the solitude and otherworldliness that is gratuitously offered from such a surreal location. Olie and I get a beer at the refugio (I know not exactly roughing it) and it`s probably the best beer I have ever had. There are like 4 girls that work at the refugio. They work for 15 days and then they get 1 week off. They have to haul up all the food and beer and drinks and other supplies in backpacks. Fuck that, I had a hard enough time with my small daypack. I just chill outside on some rock formation hanging over a cliff overlooking one of the glaciers. This place is situated in the perfect location. Food and beer are kept cold in a hole that was dug in one of the glaciers. When they have to get more beer or have to get the food in order to prepare the upcoming meal the workers simply walk out on the glacier to the hole and dig out whatever provisions they need. There are a bunch of tents set up as well. These are people staying up here for a longer period of time and for more hardcore outdoorsman (or woman). I get another beer and I end up talking to a couple of Israelis (go figure), a couple from Holland (btw, people from Holland are the best, they are the cheeriest fuckers I have ever met) and a Brazilian couple
Glacier and Andes
. I crack jokes the rest of the afternoon and the dude from Holland says I should do stand up comedy. I had a good run with how I only like to date dumb and ugly girls because then you don`t have to work as hard and you always have hand (but I had hand, and your going to need it - seinfeld). This isn`t really true, but it turns out to be funny, well the dumb part is somewhat true. The Brazilian dude asks where I have been in Brazil and I tell him "I was there for 2 1/2 months, I have been everywhere", him - "So you`ve been to the Patanal", me - "No". We get dinner and Olie and I split a bottle of wine and I feel like the worst mountaineer ever. A homecooked meal and wine, I`m a poser. Then I go upstairs to make my bed which consists of putting my sheet on a mattress. All the mattresses are lined up next to each other and just have to pick one and hope your neighbor doesn`t snore or fart alot. Everyone has sleeping bags except me, I am going to use my winter jacket for a blanket. I really need to buy a sleeping bag more than Mexicans need to buy a greencard. I hang outside and I noticed a couple of chicks earlier who were staying in one of the tents and 1 of them looked pretty dope for being an outdoor chick. I walk down there and meet her and she turns out to be an American. She is only 19 and from Maryland and I was right, she is pretty dope even though she has on winter clothing and a hat and all you can really see is her face
Glacier and it`s waterfalls
. It is starting to get pretty cold up here. I talk to for about an hour and I find out her and a group of like 12 others are up here in these mountains for 2 weeks studying Condors (which amounts to no more than them walking around and saying, look there`s a Condor and then marking down the location and time, I don`t find this out till a month later though (because I run into another one of the girls in the group somwhere down the line) but it sound much more scientific when it fact it is extremely elementary. She tells me that when she was in Peru her bus caught on fire and her bag along with everyone elses went up in flames and she had to buy all new shit. Dude that would suck. I wonder what I would do in such a situation. I hate to admit it, but if I lost all my shit I would probably just buy a plane ticket home. I really wish I could say, no, I would take it with a grain of salt and just start over and get everything I needed, but I know me. Well, I guess the contributing factor that would ultimately determine what course of action I would take would be the number of months I had been traveling for. If it was like early on I would probably actually just buy everything and continue on my way, but if it was past the half way point I would probably give up and kick it back home.We decide to go hang out with some other people and hop inside the refugio for a minute to warm up. It is now dark out and pretty fucking cold. We are joking with the Brazilian couple inside the refugio and I am my normal loud self and some jackass who is trying to sleep actually yells from upstairs and tells us to shutup. Usually this would piss me off and I would say something, but we (I) am pretty loud and definitely in the wrong so we go outside. The view of the stars is incredible. I have never ever seen so many stars at the same moment in my entire life
Me and the valley below
. You can even see the Milky Way from our vantage point. It`s spectacular and I lay on a rock and just stare up. I forget the chicks name but she points out satellites that cruise by. And low and behold we even see a shooting star. Satellites look like shooting stars because they move so fast compared to the stationary background but they don`t fade out like shooting stars so you can tell them apart. The Brazlian dude points out a constellation and says it`s called The Key since it looks like an old time key with a triangle at the top and a line coming off the bottom corner and I tell him it looks more like a martini glass (which it did). The chick decides it`s time to go crash and I give up on trying to make a move since it`s freezing and she is sharing a tent with another girl anyways so where is this going to go (it`s a good thing I didn`t try to kiss her or anything because I would have been drastically shot down and felt stupid, stay tuned for why in about a month).Fin
