John Reger Explores Magnificent Patagonia |
WCCO) Whenever WCCO-TV news anchor John Reger goes on one of his backpacking trips, he always brings along his video-camera, regardless of the conditions. One of his recent destinations was Patagonia, which conjures up images of rugged outdoor beauty.
He had wanted to go there since he was a kid, and a few months ago finally got the chance. He called it a windswept wilderness and the ultimate pilgrimage of granite and glacier.
Down on the tip of South America, it's a region straddling the Andes Mountains that separate Chile from Argentina. On Chile's side, the wildest beauty is preserved in a remote national park named for three craggy pinnacles.
"They're called Torres Del Paine. Torres is the Spanish word for tower, and the middle tower is over 10,000 feet high," Reger said.
A one hundred mile loop winds up and over, and down and around a spectacle of rock and ice. The lower trails follow ancient paths stamped out by guanacos, cousins to the llama. Higher up the route finding gets tougher.
It was hard to keep an eye on the compass in a geological wonderland. The terrain is a scenic obstacle course filled with roaring streams, thick forests and knee-deep bogs. To go with it, are all-day vertical climbs.
Reger used a raft and wire set-up to get over some frigid water along his trek. Chile's flag, and the blue and yellow of Patagonia marked the few campsites and mountain huts scattered along the way. The heat of a log fire is only allowed at a ranger station. That is where he pitched his tent there and worked his way inside.
Most of the day gale-force winds blow up from the Antarctic. Seemingly good weather can turn wet and vicious in an instant. Reger says you can get four seasons in one day there.
When storm clouds roll in, it seems like walking through a black and white photograph. Then a shaft of light will paint the panorama into Technicolor. Trees bracing against the wind will tint the vistas green and the lakes of Torres Del Paine get credit in the Park's name. Paine is a local Indian word for blue. Sunset blends the best of dark and light.
The park's glaciers are shrinking 60 feet a year. Reger sought one that is just the nose of an ice cap 30 miles wide and 100 miles long. Local myth claims that the appearance of two horns on a mountain top are the heads of giant warriors turned to stone by an evil serpent. But it was an ice age glacier grinding downhill that gouged out the twisting towers and jagged turrets.
Reger's traveling companions were pretty exotic. They included the rare Patagonian gray fox, the Andean condor with a ten-foot wingspan, five foot tall ostrich-like birds and flocks of wild Chilean flamingos. The Guanacos fear pumas, but see so few humans, he could almost pet them.
After 10 days on the circuit, Reger was back where he began. The payoff, he says, is sunrise at the Torres, watching warm, golden sun rays play across the mountain masterpiece.
Patagonia owes it's name to Ferdinand Magellan, who landed there when he sailed around the world in 1520. Finding Tehuelche Indians a foot taller than his crew, he called them Patagones, or big feet.
Reger needed spiked crampons to navigate the glaciers. They can get pretty dicey. Rivulets of melt-water carve out crevasses and wormholes that can swallow up a man.
At Glaciers National Park in Argentina glaciers by the dozen span over a huge preserve on the east side of the Andes. One of them is three miles across at the lake and goes back 40 miles. The head-wall is 200 feet high, but there's another 700 feet below the surface. Ice blocks the size of houses litter the water after breaking off.
The ice is a gateway north to one of the most recognizable profiles in the world, the Fitzroy Massif. It has an 11,000 foot shark fin shoots straight up from a glacial lake.
"The peak is popular with serious mountain climbers and named after a British explorer, Robert Fitzroy, who captained the South American voyage of Charles Darwin that started the revolution on evolution," Reger said.
Tehuelches call it "smoking mountain" for the cloud that surrounds it. It has sheer walls that demand expert climbing skills. One hundred people can summit Mount Everest in a day, but only one climber a year makes it to the top of Fitzroy. It's unforgiving and unforgettable. It's an icon for all of Patagonia and an untamed beauty at the end of the earth.
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