Argentinian Glacier

I've been back in the USA for just slightly over a month and feel like I still haven't actually caught my breath. As is always in the beginning of a new semester this one started fast right out of the gate. The Spring semester typically feels faster than the Fall, but in some regard I still can't believe we're only two weeks away from Spring Break. I've spent these past four weeks prepping my classes, planning senior theses with students, traveling to NYC for a long weekend of networking our sport management club, and starting to plan our end of the year banquet (yeah, already).

I've been meaning to post more pictures from my trip and cover some of the parts of the trip that I didn't get to do while abroad, but when I have a couple hours to relax all I want to do is sleep or zone out. So don't be surprised if every once in a while I end up posting random pictures from the South American Adventure in an odd order. It likely will have no logic behind it, except to say that it will likely be what I feel like I can handle in the moment.

When I first returned to the States and anxiously downloaded the photos from my camera something really weird happened.  I was stoked to see that some of the photos are just breathtaking and came out better than I ever imagined my little Cyber Shot could take.  But amongst some of the stunning photos are splotches - dark spots in the same exact location over and over. Now, I know that sounds like it was probably just a smudge of dirt or a raindrop on the lens, but what's weird about this is that the spots aren't in every photo. It occurs at seemingly random intervals - picture 3, picture 7, picture 8, picture 10, etc.  At first I thought a series of the pictures within the total set had the marks, but then I recognized the tainted photos weren't sequential.  The only way I can make any sense of that is maybe there was something on the lens that caught the sunlight at only certain times. I really don't know. In the previous paragraph I said that the content of my future posts will likely be related to what I feel like I can handle in the moment.  That's because I have to edit some of the photos to try to minimize those smudges.

Here are some more of the photos from the Argentina Glacier National Park.

 

 

 

Coming to America... Today!

Today Melissa and I begin the long journey home. I will spend about 30 hours on planes and in airports as I leave Punta Arenas and bid my final farewell to Chile in Santiago. Then, I'll get the privilege of experiencing Peruvian immigration and customs as I take a pit stop in Lima. I'll enter the good old US of A via Miami, where I'll get the pleasure of visiting with immigration and customs again. From Miami it'll be smooth flying to Philly, where I will proceed to spit on any Flyers gear I see, and then off to Rochester after a relatively quick layover. Easy-peasy, right?

I would appreciate any prayers for a safe, easy, and comfortable flight. 

If I can manage, I'll write some more posts along the way because there's still so much more to say about our South American Adventure! 

Pictures from Day 4 on the W

 

 

 

I'm not fooling anyone. I want to go home.

Day 4 on the W: From Camp Frances to Camp Torres

 Today was a disaster for me, a straight up disaster. I slept awful again, despite setting up camp in a fairly serene setting. Camp Frances was a series of wooden platforms nestled into the woods across the side of the mountain. It was really quite quaint. The trees were tall and straight and seemed to bear most of the brunt from the wind. I initially said that the wind sounded like a train running through, but I later amended my statement because it's more accurate to liken the sound of the wind to water rushing out of a dam. I wish I could have captured the sound. I cell phone recording didn't come close to doing it justice. If I closed my eyes I could picture the wind as swirling and gathering in the distance before it rushed out up above our tent. If I wasn't so miserable it would have been magical.

Because of the wind I was freezing most of the night. I really struggled with my sleeping bag. Before the trip I bought a Big Agnes 20 degree plus sleeping bag. I should have been golden. I found myself oscillating between being chilly and being sweaty, which I don't think helped me get warm in the long run. I tried sleeping in just a shirt and gave it the good old college try for about 30 to 45 minutes, but was FREEZING and had to eventually put more clothing on. Ultimately, when I could stay directly on my sleeping pad sleeping on my back I did alright, but if I flipped to my side and slept in a spoon position a bit of my body would hang off the side of the pad. Because our tent was positioned on a wooden platform every time the wind would gust we'd get air pushing through the floor of our tent and then through the part of my sleeping bag that was hanging off the sleeping pad. All in all I think the temperature rating of my sleeping bag was fine, but it wasn't wind proof. The noise of the wind and the cold made for an awful night for me with practically no sleep at all. 

Fatigue would have been one thing, but after getting just a little sleep in the early morning I woke up sick. I had a sore through and could feel congestion settling into my nose and my chest. I was not happy to be feeing this way, but at the same time thankful that I didn't start feeling poorly until day four.  Despite all my hopes of avoiding her, Aunt Flo came to visit right before we started the trail. If you don't know what I'm talking about, just consider yourself lucky and keep on reading. What sucks is that I had very low energy, felt like someone was sitting on my chest all day, and had been feeling particularly positive. Oh, I completely forgot to mention that while we have been blessed with pretty amazing weather, even with the wind, today it started to rain. We oscillated between a fine mist and downright right all day and never managed to catch a truly sunny moment. This did very little to help me feel better.

I set my intention at the start of the day to be focused on the positive aspects of my day and it was quite the challenge. I like to think that it's mind over matter and that I can make any day a positive day, but it just did not happen for me at all today. 

Today was our longest hike - about 5.5 hours total. It doesn't sound like all that much, but when you consider it included elevation changed on the side of a mountain in the wind and the rain while carrying an extra 40 pounds or so... yeah, it's a bit of a longer hike. I was miserable through 95% of it. The trail map showed the changes in elevation and showed a big inclined within our first hour of hiking, but then was supposed to be a gradual decrease in elevation with some oscillating elevation changes. I maintain the map lied. It felt like a near constant uphill climb to me. Every bit of my body screamed at me for those 5.5 hours. My head pounded and my chest hurt. My positivity mantra changed to a chant of survival. My internal dialogue was a constant stream of reminders that it was impossible to give up, that the only way off the mountain was to walk there myself. The wind was the strongest we had experienced yet - 45 mph! There were gusts that literally pushed me from my stance. I joked that I managed not to fall off the mountain, but if it was going to happen it would have happened today. I wish I could have gotten a picture to show the line of hikers digging it and bracing ourselves against the wind on the side of the mountain. It's something that as I think about now is a bit more scary to me than it was in the moment. 

We finally arrived at Camp Torres and I felt absolutely miserable. I was barely dragging my feet and trying to dig as deep as possible for motivation to continue to our specific campsite and help set up our tent. As soon as we did I forced myself to change out of my sweaty clothes and to down some water. I then crashed and slept for a little more than an hour. When I woke I felt some of my energy restored, but unfortunately I felt like the cold set into my head and chest even more. 

While I slept Melissa hung out in the Refugio and mulled over our plans for tomorrow with a hot chocolate.  I was relieved when she suggested that we catch the last bus "home" to Puerto Natales instead of hiking our fifth day as originally planned. The weather report called for more rain and obstructed views, which meant it was pretty pointless to hang around and for me to push through another cold night and another day of hard hiking in the rain. So, we packed up as fast as we could and caught the last bus. Our time on the W has come to an end. 

Pictures from Day 3 on the W

This may have actually been the only photo I took on my phone on day 3. I'm honestly not 100% sure this was from Day 3. It's all starting to blend together already. 

Day 3 on the W: From Paine Grande to Camp Frances

Last night was awful. Absolutely awful. The wind screamed all night and even though great efforts were made to keep our tent tied down it, several ties came apart as the wind whipped at everything. My sleep with fitful at best even with earplugs. The fabric of our tent and rain fly smacked and rattled to no end. The temperature also dropped as the sun set and while I didn't have a thermometer I would bet that it made it down into the mid thirties. Pair that with the wind and on again off again rain it did not create the best sleeping conditions. We were advised to place our tent as close to the foot of the mountain as possible to avoid the worst of the wind, but the best spots were already taken, so instead we chose the quite side of a building. It helped, but it also meant that our parcel of land was slightly sloping. Aside from being restless and cold, I spent most of the night trying not to slide into Melissa. (Side note: My sleeping pad is awesome so far, except for the fact that it's slippery. Putting a slippery sleeping bag on top means that I slide off when trying to get settled. Once I'm set I'm ok and I love the pad, but jeez is it a game when I initially get into my sleeping bag! I'm not even going to comment about my clumsiness and my ridiculousness when trying to get fully into my mummy bag!)

Once we got up and moving things were better despite to being cooler and overcast today. We made a relatively short hike (about 2.5 hours) to Camp Italiano where we took a bathroom break. We were initially going to pause and eat lunch there, drop our packs, and hike further to a lookout point. If you imagine the W again, today we hiked from the bottom of the first line up to the middle of the second line. We decided to continue on for about 30 minutes to our campsite for the night, Camp Frances. It was like skipping over to the third line of the W, but pretty much only moving laterally. Camp Frances is a bit different than what we've already experienced because it's basically a swath of semi-cleared land that travels up the side of the mountain. Platforms were build for tents, so we're a whole group of tents that are nestled into groups along the mountain. It's pretty quaint.  

Because the weather seemed a bit unpredictable today we opted to continue to Camp Frances so that we could pick a good spot, set up our tent, and get our bags protected in case it rained. We had the option of grabbing a few necessities and hiking back to Camp Italiano and then the view point that is about an hour north of Italiano. After we made some satisfying ramen for lunch Melissa and I both recognized that we were hitting a wall as a result of a stressful night and from the stress of traveling so much in general. We agreed that we could take a nap for about 45-60 minutes and still wake up in time to get the lookout hike in. Yeah... we slept for about two hours. Our plans were forfeit. 

It worked out great through because we hung out, listened to some audiobooks for a bit, made dinner, chatted some more, and here we are back in our sleeping bags for the night. It's still windy and chilly, but we're more protected from the wind so we're hoping for a much more restful and cozy night in our tent. 

To be honest today was just a pretty ok day. The hike was the easiest for me, but there were few good views because most of everything was obscured by the clouds and mist. Although, I would like to publicly offer some praise and thanks to God. We have been so incredibly blessed with the weather on this trip. Except for last night we really have had amazing weather. The weather report initially said it was going to be cool to cold and raining our entire time in South America. We have had sunshine and blue skies almost every day and even though today was overcast and misty, most of the concentrated clouds and rain were in the distance. It was almost if the sun walked with us across the mountain. It never fully cleared, but it could have poured on us all day and it has yet to happen. Fingers crossed that this blessing continues!

In summary, today We did some hiking, moved our housing, and here we are going to bed again. It was a simple day and I'm ok with that. 

Pictures From Day 2 on the W