Fitz Roy Range, El Chaltén, Argentina

We’ve just returned to civilization after 8 days camped out in the mighty Fitz Roy range near El Chaltén in Argentine Patagonia. One of my main goals of this return trip to El Chaltén was to capture a photo that I have been dreaming about since my last trip to Patagonia four years ago. I was prepared to spend a week or more waiting for the perfect opportunity to accomplish this photo, and to repeat the efforts with stubborn determination until I did it. I want to talk a bit more about my experience behind this “dream shot” since it epitomizes everything I love about mountain photography!

Back in 2007, I spent two weeks in the Fitz Roy range with my 4×5 camera, hiking around to all kinds of obscure viewpoints every morning like a madman. One morning, I hiked up to the still-partially-frozen Laguna de los Tres for sunrise, and scored one of my favorite Patagonian photos. I was stoked. After the sunrise it was still early, with very calm weather, so I decided to go for the summit of nearby Cerro Madsen. I had no info whatsoever about any route up Madsen, or if it was even possible without climbing gear, but I had scoped it out from different perspectives the previous days and thought that I had figured out a route that would go. The route turned out to be a very fun and challenging scramble, with numerous little obstacles and puzzles along the way, even including a pretty long knife-edge section with gaping abysses on both sides. I made it to the summit, took a photo, and got back down just in time before the Patagonian winds started howling again. It felt great to climb this mountain using only my own reconnaissance and instincts – for all I knew I was the first person to ever climb it… Of course that’s not true, but it felt that way to me!

I wondered about how amazing it would be to get up on that summit for a sunrise, but at the time it seemed like quite an accomplishment for me to have gotten there at all – getting up there for sunrise would be a bit much. But the seed was planted in my head. In the run up to our trip to Patagonia this year the idea starting growing again. My memories of the climb had faded a bit, and now it didn’t seem to me like it would be so impossible. It would be my holy grail grand finale photo of our three month trip down the Andes. So I decided to give it a serious effort. I had my challenge. The hike itself is not what concerned me since that was the only part squarely in my control. Given enough time, along with the long period of dawn light in the summer here, the hike would be strenuous but straightforward. What worried me was the unlikeliness of the convergence of good light, decent clouds but not so much to cover the peak of Fitz Roy (as is very often the case), and most importantly not having the usual ferocious winds that could fling me off that knife edge scramble. We were stocked up with enough food for a week at the base camp area, and as I mentioned before, I was prepared to stubbornly repeat my efforts every morning until I hopefully scored the perfect conditions.

Fitz Roy Sunrise : Prints Available

Sunrise light on Monte Fitz Roy - December.

Well, very fortunately, I scored my “dream shot” on the very first morning! I timed it just right with the 2:00am start. The scramble was just as tricky and fun and challenging as I remembered it, and I arrived at the summit just in time to take some dawn shots and then wait for the real sunrise light. I was troubled by a thick cloud on the eastern horizon that I was sure was going to block the sunrise light; I was sure I would have to repeat the hike again for better light. But the cloud dispersed right before sunrise and when the tip of Fitz Roy started glowing faintly reddish pink with the very first rays of sunlight, I knew I was in for a good show! As the sun rose fully above the horizon, the light got more and more intense, finally descending onto the glaciers below the rock faces at the peak of pinkish-orange intensity. I was shooting the photos as if in a dream and I started to wonder if maybe it was actually one of those awful photography dreams where you always lose your photos once you wake up. But no, it was real and I was photographing perhaps the most amazing sunrise scene I’ve ever witnessed in my life. If my photos from that morning convey even one quarter of the glory of that scene, I will be a happy photographer.

Cerro Torre Reflection #4 : Prints Available

The piercing spire of Cerro Torre reflects in Lago Torre at sunrise - December. 

After spending three more days camped below Fitz Roy in poorer weather, we headed over to Lago Torre, below the jagged spire of Cerro Torre. Again, the first morning there I had good luck with gorgeous sunrise light and decently calm reflection conditions. In a stark contrast with my “dream shot” of Fitz Roy that I just described, getting to Lago Torre at sunrise involves merely a sleepy 5 or 10 minute stroll from the campsite to the lake.

The contrast between these two photo scenarios illustrates why I believe that the experiences behind the photos matter so much. With landscape photos like these, much of the creative spark lies within that experience behind the photo – the process of discovering unique locations and perspectives and photo ideas, and then the physical challenge of accomplishing the task. There are those who will look at the two photos objectively and may prefer one or the other for purely visual reasons, with no concept or care of the story behind them. But for me – and for those who can understand and appreciate the challenges behind the photos – the experience shines through bright and clear.

Meanwhile, Claudia got stuck in a tree.

At 6:00am this morning, I met up with 12 friends in Ouray to head out for a day of cat-skiing in the mountains near Purgatory. Packed in four vehicles, we headed up Red Mountain Pass in the darkness and dumping snow. Several miles up the pass from Ouray, my friends in the lead truck noticed a set of tire tracks disappearing off the road into oblivion. Anybody who has ever driven the pass knows how scary steep and treacherous this road is – in places carved through sheer cliff mountainsides. A closer look down into the canyon revealed the dim glow of headlights in the bottom about 400 feet below.

As luck would have it, about half the people in our crew today are on the Ouray Mountain Rescue Team, and by the time I got out of our truck, my buddy Jeff was already harnessed up and rappelling off a truck hitch down into the gorge with his headlamp. Part way down, he stopped at a 50′ cliff and was able to yell down to the driver. Miraculously, and to our great relief, the driver responded back that he was ok.

Basically, as we learned in due time, this semi-truck driver was driving up the pass when another semi-truck came around an inside corner a little too wide. The outside driver gave him a bit too much room, and once the wheels fell off into the soft snow on the edge, it was too late and the truck slid off the road into the chasm below, launching off a 50′ cliff midway down. Somehow the semi flipped around and hit trailer first, which was probably an enormous stroke of good luck which may have saved the driver’s life. Although the truck was completely crumpled and the engine torn out, miraculously the driver survived with only minor injuries. And as further luck would have it, our caravan of Ouray Mountain Rescue Team members just happened to be passing by just a few minutes later. Unbelievable.

Perhaps the strangest thing to me is to imagine how the driver felt, after surviving the death ride of his life, stuck in the bottom of a steep snowy gorge in the middle of nowhere, in the midst of a full winter snowstorm, and then just a few minutes later a rescuer rappels down into the gorge asking if he’s ok! So strange.

Anyhow, while Jeff and the others worked on getting down to the river to help the driver, calls were made to the rest of the rescue team and within minutes a whole array of rescue trucks, firemen, and an ambulance were on scene to help out. The firemen set up a flood light while the rescue team prepared to haul the driver out of the steep ravine on a stretcher (still unsure of possible injuries). It was pretty amazing to me how many people were up there so fast to help out. I’m not sure if they all sleep in their clothes or what, but it was definitely a cool thing to see.

In the picture above, you can barely see part of the crumpled wreck of the semi trailer down in the bottom of the gorge. Clint, Kevin, and Jeff hauled the driver up this couloir, but the truck itself had fallen off a much more treacherous section of cliffs left of this photo.

Once the driver was safely hauled up out of the snowy canyon and into the ambulance, we piled back into our cars/trucks and resumed our mission over the pass to go cat-skiing. We had only lost a few hours, and there was no hurry as the snowcat would be waiting for us in Purgatory (Durango Mountain Resort).

Well here we are inside the snowcat, happy about the outcome of the morning’s strange turn of events, and pumped to ski and snowboard some perfect untracked powder all day long.

Little did we know that after 3 or 4 good runs, the snowcat would break down, stranding us four miles from the ski area. The Durango Mountain ski patrol finally came to our rescue, dragging us out with towropes behind their snowmobiles. Despite our immense disappointment, all we could do was just laugh at the random craziness of today.

As I write this, I kind of want to go to the corner pub for a beer and a sandwich, but I’m wondering if I’d be better off just staying home for the remainder of the evening. Who knows what else is in store on this cursed day?

Yesterday I went on one of the most memorable backpacking trips of my life.  With a weather forecast clear of rain for all of New Zealand, I was excited to get up high and get some views of the Fox Glacier and the west side of Mt. Cook.  My plan was to hike a steep route trough the forest and camp on a high ridge above treeline.  I set off under clear skies and started the grueling route through the forest – so steep that some of it consisted of climbing up what can only be described as root ladders.

When I finally got high enough to see through the forest canopy, I was disappointed to see a completely overcast sky.  By the time I got to the ridge above treeline, it was completely socked in fog.  I was bummed, but I set up my tent anyways and ate some food.  After studying the map, I decided to do a long hike further up the ridgeline… what the hell, it may clear up later I thought.  Hiking out the ridge was challenging in the thick fog, but with careful map and compass work and a bit of intuition, I made my way out.  Several times when there were drop-offs I had no choice but to sit and wait for a bit of clearing in the fog to see where I needed to go next.  I kept going though, and as I hiked higher and higher, I noticed that the clouds were becoming brighter.  Sure enough, I eventually popped out above the cloud layer into bright sunshine and a glorious clear day, with huge views of the gleaming white peaks!  I was so stoked.

I got to a highpoint with a great view of the entire range as far as the eye could see, with Mt. Cook front and center. With sun and no wind, I spent four hours up there, relaxing and soaking in the view. I think I got some killer sunset pano shots of the range bathed in alpenglow with the cloud cover down below.

A strange thing happened right before sunset. I was looking at the view from a slightly different point, and all of the sudden I remembered a dream I had years ago – of the same scene! I know it sounds strange, but I had this dream once where I was by myself really high up on a rugged foreign mountain range (much more rugged than what I’m used to) and it was about sunset and I was taking photos, and it was all a bit scary with the snow and steep drop-offs around. The dream was not much more than that, and I soon forgot about it. But I swear at the moment last night seeing that same view triggered my memory of that dream, and I tell you it was the same scene! Trippy!

Anyhow, I made it back to my tent in the dim dusk light and then headlamp, and everything there was still all foggy and wet. This morning I packed up all my wet stuff and made my way carefully back down through the steep rainforest. Now I’m back in Fox Glacier town and am going to chill out, post this blog, watch a movie, and cook some dinner (along with a bottle of tasty New Zealand wine, of course!)

This last week I did a 7 day backpacking trip through the high and rugged Needle Mountains south of Silverton, Colorado. See my photos from the trip here. This trip had a couple unexpected events in store for me, but fortunately, Lady Luck was really by my side this time.

A near tragedy for my camera! I woke up at 3:30am one morning, and hiked up 1200 feet in the dark to the summit of aptly-named Knife Point, a 13,265-foot spire with a killer view into the heart of the Needle Mountains. Once the dawn light started illuminating the surrounding peaks, I started to take some photos. At one point, I decided to switch spots, and grabbing my tripod I started bounding up some rocks to get to the other side of the summit. I heard an odd jiggling sound coming from my tripod, and turned to look just in time to see my camera falling off the tripod, crashing and bouncing off boulders. Oh crap. In a state of shock and denial, I jumped down to the camera, noticing shattered glass and dismembered plastic. OH CRAP!

With only minutes before an epic sunrise, and with a 2-3 day hike to leave the wilderness, I was appalled that my camera was ruined. Luck #1: I had a clear UV filter on the lens at the time, and that took the brunt of the destruction – the lens itself was slightly bent, but the glass was unharmed. Luck #2: Even though the viewfinder was broken out of the camera, the camera could still take photos! Plus, this Olympus camera has “live view” where you can frame the shot using the LCD screen instead of the viewfinder. Ok so maybe not all was lost. I couldn’t unscrew the broken filter since the threads were all bent, so I pulled out an alan wrench from my camera bag and used it to bust out all the broken shards of glass. With the lens clear and the live view switched on, I was back in action! The photo above was taken within minutes of this near-disaster. I was later able to use a knife to wedge the viewfinder back into camera, and it snapped back into place and seems to be working fine. I am so happy that the camera still worked after this awful crash, because most of the best photos from this trip came after this.

Here’s the second stroke of twisted luck. The morning after the camera crash, I again woke up pre-dawn, packed up my camp, and headed up above treeline, with the intention of taking sunrise photos at a high lake then crossing over a 13,600-foot pass to get to Chicago Basin, the final valley of the trip. As I hiked in the dark, I noticed that it was pretty cloudy. Darn, I thought, too cloudy perhaps for a good sunrise shot. Well in the darkness what I could not see was how thick the clouds really were. I soon found out when I heard the dreadful KABOOM of lightning across the basin. Oh crap. Having already hiked well above treeline in a broad tundra basin, there was nothing I could do but to run for a shallow depression where there were at least some taller knolls around me. I crouched on my Thermarest as the lightning crashed and boomed around in the basin. Terrifying. After about an hour and a half, the storm let up a bit and I scouted around, finding a deep valley with 200′ cliffs. I could camp down there and be theoretically fairly safe from the lightning, with the high cliffs to protect me. I set up my tent, and all day long wave after wave of hail, lightning, and thunder passed over. I had no chance of crossing the high pass and was thus stuck in the basin all day. I was bored, anxious, and constantly fearful of the ever-present lightning.

But, luck came again, and in the evening the clouds broke just enough to present the most glorious sunset I’ve witnessed all summer. I gleefully snapped away with my camera, and when the sunset faded away I was so stoked I let out a big hoot for all the mountain goats within 10 miles to hear. Not only that, but the next morning was another glorious spectacle, with amazing sunrise light, shining through the clouds. If it weren’t for the storms that trapped and delayed my trip for a day, I would have missed all of these sweet shots.

So, in the end, I came home with a battered but functioning camera, and a nice collection of photos, the best of which can be mostly credited to Lady Luck.

This photo shows a sample of the kind of terrain and bushwhacking I was dealing with the entire time. There are many obstacles along the river which forced me to constantly hike up and down through thick bush and forest and along steep, loose, rocky slopes. Over the three days, I spent 23 hours of tough hiking to cover a mere 12 miles round trip, for an average of about 0.5 miles/hour! I can think of a few words to describe this bushwhack; it was brutal, tedious, frustrating, demoralizing, maddening, hellish, unrewarding, exhausting, etc, etc.

Below are some more photos from this fruitless exploration.

This is an evil plant. The leaves are covered with toxic needles, which I realized when I walked straight through a huge patch of them. My skin welted up, and though I tried my best to rinse my legs off in the river, they stung and itched all night long.

Here’s a somewhat generic sunset photo from the first night, along Cow Creek in the junction where Wetterhorn Creek and Wildhorse Creek meet Cow Creek. It’s an impressive place with vertical cliffs reminiscent of being in Ouray except much tighter and more confined. Unfortunately, this is not a great place to camp because, as with the entire Cow Creek valley, the ground is completely rocky. I was lucky to find one single spot flat enough to sleep on.

At this point is when my spirits really began to sink. This is six miles up Cow Creek when it quickly becomes apparent that it’s a dead end.

Since probably nobody in their right mind ever goes up here or sees this waterfall, I’ll claim the right to name it – I’ll call it Dead End Waterfall. Seriously, I wonder how many people have laid eyes on this large and impressive waterfall… probably just a handful.

This photo would be so awesome if a person was standing on that slope right in front of the falls, to show the huge scale. However, shots like that are difficult when you’re hiking solo, for obvious reasons.

[+] Not yet completely defeated, I had a shred of hope that I could hike up and around the Dead End Waterfall. And I so very much did not want to repeat the bushwhack down out of Cow Creek that I was willing to try anything else. I hiked about 1,500 feet or so up a steep gully filled with precariously loose scree. I searched every possible exit route until finally realizing that there was truly no possible way through. I even considered the potential of climbing up and over the summit of 13,000-foot Blackwall Mountain, but that too was impossible due to sheer cliffs. I had no choice but to repeat the dreaded bushwhack all the way back out Cow Creek.

Demoralized, but at least satisfied by the knowledge that I had no other option, I headed back down to start the arduous return. The photo above is looking back down Cow Creek from my high vantage point on the slopes of Blackwall Mountain. Across the valley are the incredibly intricate spires of eroded volcanic sediment that form the impenetrable western slopes of the Wetterhorn massif.

I wish I could say that I enjoyed the challenge, that I savored the difficulty and am a better man for exploring this wild and untamed valley. But the truth is that this trip was simply awful and I hated just about every moment of it. In retrospect I feel like I spent three days thrashing around in the bushes like a deranged beast. I think I’ll stick to the trails and the tundra for my next few trips, like a civilized human being.