This is it . The End of the World.

I have arrived. I cant belive it, but my mind has accepted the fact that I am here, in the southern most town in the world. Ushuaia. I did not think that this would be a very significant section of my trip but as we broke out from the flat lands and started winding our way down through the mountains that border this town, I realized that this was something different, that I was in fact at the End of the World. It is adventure. It is exciting. I love it.
Photos are coming soon...

Christmas in Patagonia! Torres del Paine...

Torres del Paine. I hiked the infamous "W" over Christmas. It took about four long days, one of which it rained like I have never seen before. Non stop, with hurricane style wind, it would litteraly blow me over. I loved it though. The weather here is very intense and very extreme. I guess you could say its vivid. As far as the hiking went it was more like an upturned E than anything, I set up camps in a strait line and then made three long side excursions. I would say I hiked about 10 miles or so a day. It was a workout! The last day, Christmas day I took a seven mile run to a glacier, I had to run to make it back in time to catch the boat back to town. It finished me off! Great trail and great times!
I spent this Christmas in Patagonia, Torres del Paine. What a treat. It was great, I loved it. I thought it would be lonely or something like that but, it was not, I felt totaly content doing what I was doing. It was a great expirence that I wont soon forget! This is a photo of the Torres taken though the window of my bus on the way back from the park to Puerto Natales. I like it.

Cool old skipper throwing out the rope to secure the boat.

This boat was a beast! And it was my way out. The way I hiked the "W " I ended up at this camp on the lake, and the way back to the buses was this boat, or a five hour hike, I took the boat. It was fun stuff. I could not belive the swells out on the lake. There were, easily, eight foot high rolling waves. Nuts! Wind gusts, enough to blow you over.

I ate so many chocolates this trip, I am litteraly sick! One of my packages had a "suprise" Christmas present inside it was this little tree ornament you could build, I guess that was my Christmas present this year...

Christmas dinner! It was acutualy super good, Adam turned me on to adding a little parmesan cheese to the noodles, it makes things taste so much better! Wow.

I am feeling scruffy, I think this is the longest my beard has ever been, I can feel my mustach on my lower lip! I dont like that.

I didnt plan things to work out like this but I ended up at this nice refugio for Christmas eve. It was a nice place to spend the evening. I could have eaten Christmas dinner here but they where taking advantage of the opportunity, Christmas... backpackers that have no where else to go... 40 bucks a plate, sounds good, charge it. I settled for a 3 dollar coke. It was great.

Christmas camp. Nice.

The bridges where super sketchy. This river was a ripping, glacial fed monster, and this bridge was a pile! No more than two at a time, and that was giving it the benifit of the doubt.

Torres del Paine... Spectacular.

I seriously asked like five people to take my photo, this one worked, the guy was a photographer. I just dont understand how come its so hard to frame a photo. I would get my head and a shoulder and no towers... I just dont know sometimes!

Puerto Natales Chile...

This place has a different feel to it. Its a quiet and has a lot of character. It feels like a very southern, portside town. Windy and saltly.

Food is Awesome and cheap, this place was nice with brick oven and all.

On my way down from el Calafate I met these really nice peeps, from Israel. We ended up helping each other out a bunch. We wound up with out a place to stay and found this sweet b and b, for super cheap. Nice people. Good times. Oh and I got to celebrate the first day of Hanuka with them, that was a treat.

Pizza!

Fifteen thousand for pizza? Something is screwy with the money down here...

Fitz Roy...

This place is amazing, look at how many types of clouds there are at the same time. The weather is constantly changing. Beautiful and very captivating, due to the the constant evolution of conditions. I would like to take a set photos over an hour or two, it would be drastic.

Adam and the towers.

Adam came dowm for some trekking, it was great. Things went really well. We had some crazy weather, but I think that is just the nature of the area. Crazy. Thanks for coming down Adam! It was super fun!

El Perito Moreno

Contrast...

Two hundred foot walls of ice. This place is beautiful.

Imagine this, they say that Buenos Aires could fit inside this glacial sprawl. Its huge.

Sea of ice. Its sureal. Deep throated cracks and booms eminate from this beast through out the day.

To put it into perspective these fins are well over two hundred feet tall. Its crazy.

The contrast is amazing, blue ice pilling up against red rocks.

Yea its kind of getting colder down here...

This is the boat that we took to see the south face of the glacier. It was pretty fun and fairly cheap.

The little black spot in the water on the right is a huge boat, the glacier is gigantic.

Refugio Frey.

The view from the refugio. It was super foggy as I arrived, so I could not see any of the mountain spires, and it very slowly reavealed itself. This was so unreal to watch. I just sat there and took photos. I would go to put my camera away and more would open up and I would whip it out again and again to take more photos, it was so fun to watch, it all happened pretty fast, and by the time I went to bed the sky was completly clear and the full moon came shining though the cirque. Beautiful.



We climbed this beast. Torre Principal. Scott, Joe, and Me. It was five or six pitches of awesome alpine style climbing. It was brutaly long and very slow going. To put it into perspective its about five hundred feet of climbing, and about twenty five hundred feet of elevation gain from the hut to the summit. It reminded me so much of climbing the Grand. A long approach hike to a base area, and then off to a short approach hike with some glacial travel to reach the base of the climbing. The route was complicated and weird to say the least, route finding was a bit difficult, and honestly, it was a bit scary at times. Some of the climbing was really bizzar, one pitch had this heinous overhung hand crack that was dripping with water and it had these super sketchy wooden pitons, basicly two by fours pounded in with cordlet hanging off them. Nuts! Seriously though it was crazy fun climbing! There was good exposure on the the final pitch, I would keep stoping mid route and say to myself, is this real? It was just so much to take in, light sound, emotions, it was great. The temperature was nice, just warm enough to climb in a t-shirt, and the light was warm and rich, it filled the endless view with rich warm light. It was so Amazing. From the top you can see all the way into Chile and there are these volcanos off into the horizon. Unreal. It was so amazing, and all the while there were these huge condors that were flying around us the whole time, they were so beautiful. Honestly one of the coolest things I have ever done.

Refugio Frey with lake in the background. I had planned on staying here for the night to have a chance at the mountain hut expirience, but once they took me to the common room that sleeps about twenty plus people I gagged. It was dank and musty, I realized, this is not a hotel, instead a dirty sweat hole. Luckly the clouds parted and the clear skys gave me the go ahead to sleep outside. I am glad I did, waking up in that mountain cirque in the morning was a treat.
Candle lit dinner at the refugio. The food way expensive, however good and filling!
Rain day. Hikers and climbers take to the card games.
This trail was so beautiful. Lush and green. I was loving the hike. They say with a load it takes about four hours to reach the hut.
I mean look at this trail! What a cool place!
There was a beautiful contrast on the trail. A burned down forest with a super lush undergrowth poking through it all.
The mountain meadows here are so beautiful. They are filled with color.

Climbing!

Nice! Climbing! This is Scott and his wife Violet, super nice people from Canada. The rock is beautiful streaked limestone. Steep and hard.
Scott and Violet have been living in this sweet VW van for over a year. They go from season to season, surfing, skiing, and climbing. Definatly the way to travel.

Below is a local Argentine climber pulling over a cool roof.