The views of los cuernos, or “the horns” in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile are astonishing. This picture was taken just a short walk from my hotel, along the Pehoe lake, which is a beautiful aqua blue color (not so evident from the angle of this picture), but often in raging white-cap…
For an Alaskan, glaciers are not a new sight. But even so, they are always impressive, forceful features that make and mark the geological landscape. The Gray glacier is one of the easily accessible glaciers in the park, and I took a short boat ride past it’s face after a 10 mile hike up along…
The towers (los torres) are one of the most popular hikes and sights in the Torres del Paine National Park. It is about a 12 mile round trip, with some notable vertical gain on the final ascent to the towers. I would have preferred to be there at sunrise, but that was not an option…
The brilliant red blossoms of the firebush decorate much of the landscape around the lakes and hillsides in Torres del Paine National Park, Chile. Such a color is often a signpost of autumn in Alaska, but here it is prevalent just a few weeks prior to their summer solstice. What is also prevalent at this…
Amongst the “blow your mind” views on this planet, this for sure is one of them. I’ve seem pictures from the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile for many years, but while they are luring, there is no substitute for being someplace, in person, connected to the broader sphere of senses that create real…
Trekking in Chile’s Atacama region was my first encounter with exertion at high altitude, and experiencing the body expressing its great hunger for oxygen. Surrounding Atacama, are a number of volcanoes that can be pretty easily climbed, provided you have sufficient time to acclimate to the altitude. After a few days of altitude acclimation, a…
The Atacama Desert is a region in northern Chile touted as the driest, (or second driest-next to Antarctica) place in the world. It’s unique topography of volcanoes, salt plains and wind eroded geology makes it an interesting landscape. It is however a place where few clouds appear, and the sun is a predictable presence on…
I’m back in the blustery snowy landscape of Fairbanks, following a few weeks in the springtime southern hemisphere of Chile, South America. That is one long, slender country, and I enjoyed the divergent environments of the consistently clear and dry northern desert to the dynamically changing slopes of the Torres del Paine National Park of…