Scree Surfing

I just got back from what
was, without exaggeration, the most precarious hike I´ve been on in my
life. Physically, it was a moderate challenge. Mentally, it was
absolutely daunting. On Saturday I hiked in to this backcountry camp
and met a nice couple (Angie the American and Steve the South African)
over maté on the way there. (Ooh, and I also found my sunglasses
lense on the way over!) On Sunday, the three of us headed up to Paso
Cuadrado. The path up predates modern switch-back innovations, and
just goes straight up on loose two-steps-forward-one-step-back gravel.
After the first two hours of pushing up the loose hill, we finally
reached a slightly more horizontal area. We thought "that´s going to
be tricky on the way down." Little did we know what was coming...

...So we got to this glacier and it was confusing where the trail went
from there. We ran into some Chileans and asked them where the trail
goes. They explained "through the snow and up the granite scree to
your right" as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and we
were stupid for asking. (Scree: a sheet of coarse rock debris covering a mountain slope) So we went that way, skating our shoes
through the snow, and then scrambling up steep, loose granite for two
hours. At first, I was a little worried stepping through the rocks,
thinking it was a perfect set-up for a twisted ankle. But as we got
higher and the rocks became looser, my concerns for my ankles seemed
juvenille in light of my new fear that the whole scree might start to
slide. I was constantly worried that my feet might dislodge the rocks
that were supporting the rock that my hand was grabbing onto.
Sometimes everything beneath me would feel like rolling balls.
Sometimes I would grab on to a rock my size and it would start to move
toward me. To make matters worse, I had the song "Landslide" by
Fleetwood Mac stuck in my head. But I busied myself thinking of other
things instead of brooding over the possibilities of sliding down the
mountain, across the glacier, and into one of the many crevasses below
:-)

The three of us got to a spot near the top of the mountain and rested
on a big rock that didn´t look like it was going anywhere. I like
understatement, so I said "This is definitely one of the more
precarious hikes I´ve been on." And Angie responded, "Yes, in fact, I
can´t think of having ever done anything so dangerous in my life."
(Angie and Steve are both climbers and they had just gotten to
Argentina after a climbing trip in Rocklands, South Africa).

From our rest spot, we were very close to the top, but by then we had
realized this was maybe not the right trail, and the rest of the way
up seemed even more dangerous. And the wind was picking up, making
balance more difficult. We all really really really wanted to go to
the top to see what was on the other side, but we also realized that
it was only getting more hazardous...the scree curved over a cliff
side, for one thing. Angie said, "this is exactly how most
mountaineering accidents happen... when people realize that something
is dangerous but they´re so close that they just can´t turn back."
And as we were weighing the pros and cons of continuing on loose scree
above a sheer cliff, the snow just 20 feet to the left of us (that
also curved slightly above us) started having a small avalanche. We
moved a little further to the right so we would be out of its path in
case it got bigger. Finally, we decided that was the sign to call
enough enough. The view was breath-taking already, and as much as we
wanted to see what was on the other side of the mountain, we decided
we´d appreciate the experience much more as a whole if we all made it
back in one piece. We took a few pictures and made our careful way
back down, talking about Malcolm Gladwell, John Muir, Apartheid, and
other matters of great importance.

We later talked to a local about the trail to Paso Cuadrado, and it
turns out the Chileans gave us totally wrong directions and that we
actually got way up above the pass, which is pretty cool. When I told
him which way we went he said, "Oh that´s dangerous." From the
bottom, we could also see that if we had gone the rest of the way up
the mountain, all we would see is another big rock face, and we
wouldn´t have gotten a new perspective on the Glaciar Viedma anyway.
So it´s good we came down.

The day before going off on that hike, I did aerial fabric for like
four hours and it was soooo awesome!! There´s another girl in town
who does fabric (Lula) and as soon as word got to her that I was on
the fabrics in the gym, she dropped everything and raced over to come
practice with me, with the hope of picking up some new tricks. I
taught her "Jesus Christ Falling Over Backward" and she taught me "La
Estrella." It was fun.

Then I bought quinoa!!! Between fabric, quinoa, and the mountains, I think I´ll probably be in El Chalten for a while longer.