Parque Nacional El Morado, Chile, Mar 24th

So I was sent to Chile for work, yes I know, hard work, but somebody has to do it right? Considering most of my family is from Chile and that it was a great opportunituy, I decided to bring Val along for the trip so she could tour Santiago while I was working and then we could take a couple of days off to go hiking somewhere among other things. Originally I had thought of traveling south but that plan soon failed as just getting somewhere interesting would have consumed a full day or more. So we started looking for close by destinations and opted for Cajon del Maipo which the valley where the Maipo river starts from in the Andes. Our plan ended up being to drive to San Alfonso, a little town in the mountains were we would stay a couple of nights, do some sightseeing the first day, hike El Morado the second and return the third. Some people tried to discourage us from that plan as they said there’s nothing to see up in El Cajon del Maipo. Certainly it’s a very arid area, but far from not having anything to see. The first day, after getting to our cabin, we went sightseeing for a while and then did a short “warming” hike behind the place we rented out. That gave us some nice views of the valley towards Santiago but not even a hint of the scenery we would get at El Morado. Saturday morning came and we woke up early, had a good breakfast, packed our basic gear and drove to the park. The drive was a bit tedious on a dirt road but, the higher we got, the better it got.



Finally we got to the end of the road and a parking lot. It was early so only locals were there cleaning up their little businesses and stands. As we got out of the car we were promptly greeted by two very happy dog puppies that were rescued and cared for by a woman that was selling some handmade jewelry in the area. We spent a bit of time talking to her while she told us the story of the dogs. Then, it was hiking time. We grabbed our gear and headed to the park. From the parking lot, we took a short trail that circles a campground, crosses a creek and goes up a hill until it reaches a ranger station/park entrance. We got our day permits and attentively heard the ranger instructions for the day. Then we started hiking. This first half hour or so was just gaining a bit of elevation and getting closer to the canyon. All the views were actually behind us where we could see multicolored hills with shades of blue, grey, green and red.



Then we left behind that scenery and came up to high elevation vegetation. It was a wide area with little yellow and white wildflowers and some butterflies flying around. After passing a bend we arrived to one of the highlights of this trail, Aguas Panimavidas. This area is where water seeps from the ground and comes back up carrying calcite and iron. As it comes up, it rusts the soil around it giving it a very bright orange/red coloring that makes the whole area look like a place from another planet. Some of the holes were big enough to look like small fountains in the ground. If you look long enough, you can even see bubbles coming from the hole



The water then runs down the hill carrying all these minerals creating a lot of little channels that vary in color from a very bright red to orange to yellow. It certainly makes the whole area look toxic but some green patches of grass tell you otherwise



The trail continues up until you reach Lake Morado. This tiny lake sits by itself in the middle of a meadow with no apparent inlet or outlet even though there’s a big creek nearby. My guess is it feels with snowmelt and lasts until the end of the season when it freezes again. We circled the lake on the west side and found a nice rock to sit and contemplate the scenery while we ate some well deserved food. Most people that hike this trail come here to spend the day and then head back down but our plan was to continue up to the glacier. A trail sign indicated that it would be about a mile and a half to get there so we continued on. Soon after, all the green and full of life scenery vanished and all we could see was rocks, dirt and a big glacier up ahead. It was like passing a very defined line where life is not allowed to pass.



After that line Val and I continued on jumping from rock to rock until we got to the cave entrance were we took another break enjoying the surrounding scenery that included jagged peaks on one side and the whole valley on the other. After a while, we started our return the same way we came all the way to the car almost in silence and awe. All I can say is that, for a very arid and nothing to see place, this was very impressive.

You can check the pictures here



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Barlow Ridge to Barlow Butte, Mar 4th

This is the snowshoe route I’ve been wanting to make for a long, long time. Barlow ridge is by far one of my favorites places to snowshoe as it can get pretty remote while still being a short distance from exit points. In the past, I’ve always taken this route to the end of the Barlow Ridge road and then continued backcountry to the ridgeline. On some trips I got to a high rock formation with views of the highway down below and Mt Hood in front of us but was unable to make the route towards Barlow Butte (even though it was right there in front of me). Other times, I wasn’t even able to get to the rock formations and ended up finding my way down on steep slopes back to the Barlow Ridge. For a long time this loop kept to itself not revealing anything about it. But then, back in January, with very low snow, I tried the loop in reverse and was able to find the route. You can check the report on that trip which was fantastic. This time, it was our chance to finally do it for real and complete the loop and so we did. We started from the Barlow Sno-Park towards the Mineral Jane trail. Then, it was all uphill on the Barlow Ridge road. Much to our surprise, on a beautiful, bright blue sky and sunny day, there was no one else there. Not only that, we did not find any tracks going up. That meant a lot of work to plow thru a foot of fresh powder. At times I had to switch the front positions with others in the group so we could share the effort. Ramon, Lisa’s husband and a good friend of Val and I took the front for the most part as it was nothing. Once we got to the end of the road, it was time for backcountry so we headed up towards the ridge. On that uphill and checking my bearings with the GPS is when I realized why I had not found the way before. At some point we traversed a wide meadow where we made a lunch stop. While doing so, some of us built a big snowman before continuing on. Once we got to the ridge, we veered north following the ridge towards Barlow Butte avoiding the pitfalls of previous trips and staying on the right side of the mountain. Finally we made it to one of the rock formations that, on our adventure in January we climbed and discovers some amazing views. This time, we made the climb as well, and the views were even more amazing. Not only you get the whole White River basin and Mt Hood but we also got some of the craziest clouds we’ve seen. In the pictures you’ll see clouds resembling waves on top of the mountain. It was a really incredible sight. Then came some glissading to get down from the ridge and a small traverse over the butte towards the trail. Nothing less than a spectacular day!
BTW, check out that beatiful girl in the pictures! Isn't she something?

Eagle Creek, Feb 26th

If you live in the area and like to go hiking, you already know Eagle Creek. This is probably one of the most scenic and easy to access trails in the Columbia Gorge. You get plenty of waterfalls, yaw dropping cliffs and stunning scenery. It’s so nice that some tend to repeat this same trail numerous times a year to enjoy the change in colors as flowers bloom in the spring and leafs turn brown in the fall. For us, it was a perfect choice for a hike leader in training to take a group all the way to Tunnel falls. Weather was fair for Portland which means it was cloudy and rainy. Being late winter though, the creek was carrying a lot more water than usual that adds to the already spectacular waterfalls. So bundled up with rain gear we started going up enjoying all the little seasonal falls on the side of the canyon as we gained elevation. Punch Bowl looked amazing as expected although it was difficult to take a descent picture of it. With so much water and a grey ski, we only got a big, white blob, but further up, little streams looked perfect for some good shoots. In sections of the trail, the water was coming from the side, thru the moss and landing directly on the trail. We did find some of the crossings a bit challenging as the logs were very slippery and some of the usual crossing points had washed out a bit, but we finally made it Tunnel Falls were we stopped for a quick lunch break. Then, on the way down, weather gave us a good sample of the changing seasons. First it got gray and started snowing. It wasn’t heavy snow but it came down fast enough to paint the hillside white as we walked thru it. But then, half way down, they clouds and snow dissipated enough to give us some glimpses of blue ski and even some sun rays hitting the ridge on the opposite side of the canyon. It was a very nice reward for getting wet I guess.