Las Cavernas de Mármol

If you caught my last post, you read about my stay near Lago General Carrera, which is the second largest lake in South America. It is also home to Las Cavernas de Mármol, one of the few marble cave systems in the world and arguably amongst the most beautiful. They've been carved by el Rio Tranquilo carrying glacial silt across the limestone for millions of years. It is this same glacial silt that gives the lake its incredible color. I went on the trip with two German guys, a Chileno, and our Chileno guide.

Travels and Other Stuff

Hi all, sorry for the delay in updating my blog; there's actually been a lot going on lately. Perhaps the biggest news: a few weeks ago a nearby mountain called Mount Hudson started spewing ash and smoke. It's easily visible from here so we watched it for a few days waiting to see if it was going to blow. After a few days it died out with a whimper which, according to seismologists, means one of two things: it's calming down or it has become plugged and is currently building up pressure on its way to an epic eruption.

Mt Hudson from the NOLS branch

An announcement...and more pictures

As I've mentioned in my last few posts, NOLS Patagonia, while undoubtedly amazing and beautiful, has also felt a bit frantic at times. In turn, every time I look at the calendar I'm amazed to see that I've been here for nearly two months already! My personal goals to explore the region, get a grasp of the language and culture, learn about the inter-workings of NOLS, and build relationships, often with people I cannot easily communicate with, are all challenges that require significant time and effort. With all that in mind, I was getting concerned by how quickly I seemed to be running out of time.

Puerto Aisén and Invac!

There hasn't been a ton of free time for me to travel around the region since I arrived at NOLS Patagonia. However, a few weeks ago I was able to take a leisurely Sunday drive with Dave and Martin to a local town on the Pacific Coast called Puerto Aisén. It is at this port that we often send out and receive students on the kayaking portions of their NOLS courses. Below are some images from the trip.

Lunch with a view

4 Courses in the Field!

9/30 NOLS Patagonia SSPM-2 Course

Once again, I apologize for the delay since my last post. We've sent 4 courses into Patagonia over the past two weeks - two into the mountains and two, armed with kayaks, into the South Pacific Ocean. Each course has consisted of approximately 17 students and 5 instructors and, since they're in the field for approximately 12 weeks, the Equipment Team (with whom I've been doing most of my work) has therefore just finished organizing and issuing gear for nearly 7,400 field days. It's been a bit hectic. Yesterday, the latter two of those four groups left El Campo, leaving an eerie silence in place of 34 late-teen/early-twenties adolescents who aren't quite sure what they're getting into...

Fiestas Patrias

Slightly out of focus, perhaps due to the local cervezas.

This past weekend all of Chile celebrated Fiestas Patrias, commemorating the first steps taken towards independence from Spain in 1810. It is the equivalent of July 4th and, dare I say, the Chileans may even celebrate harder than we do. For example, during the span of Friday - Monday, I went to 4 Asados Chilenos (essentially BBQs) and woke up with varying degrees of hangovers every day. Everybody was extremely gracious and hospitable and I feel very fortunate to be here for such a special weekend.

Sorry for the delay...

Bienvenido a la Patagonia!

Hi All,

Somehow it's already been almost 3 weeks since I left Chicago for Chile. My apologies for taking so long to get this blog started. As a recap, I'm spending the remainder of 2011 working for NOLS, an outdoor education organization that leads groups into the wilderness on courses lasting from 2 weeks up to 5 months. In 2010 I took a 30-day NOLS mountaineering course in northwest Washington in the Cascades mountain range. One of my instructors was Marcelo, a Chilean mountain climber who works at NOLS Patagonia during the (North American) winter and leads courses in the US in the summer. He is my connection to Chile and is ultimately the reason I was able to come down here.

Ok, enough of that background stuff...