Patagonian Reflections

I found this wonderful excerpt in the Patagonia travel log, a gift to us from our hosts at Explora Lodge in Torres del Paine. The passage truly captures our ten days of mountaineering in phenomenal Patagonia!

"So far the weather has been unbelievably good. For ten days straight the wind had blown very little, while clouds filled the valleys and covered the Patagonian Ice Cap. Now, from our perch at 2590 meters and upwards, the sky remained blue and we could catch glimpses of it from inside Fitz Roy´s (one of the most spectacular mountains in Patagonia which we captured by telephoto on flight to Puenta Arenas) private cloud that cloaked the upper half of the granite monolith. We realized it could not last and that somewhere between the Pacific Ocean and the mountain must lurk a massive amount of moist air waiting for the right moment to strike. In Patagonia, every day of good weather makes a climber feel as though he is living on borrowed time. Alpinists can never shake off the feeling that only moments away the mother of storms is brewing winds that will pluck the fixed pitons right out of the wall."

Alan Kearney
Mountaineering in Patagonia