Nahuel Huapi/Paso de las Nubes 6 day high traverse
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2007
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4
11
Trip End
Feb 24, 2007
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Parque National Nahuel Huapi/Pampa Linda/Puerto Frias, Argentina
Friday, January 19, 2007
Earlier we had unfortunately, as a result of a nasty snow-bridge scare and tabano (big scary black flies) attack coming off Pico Navidad on the Laguna Jakob to Laguna Negra traverse, aborted and not made it up the Laguna Negra. Instead we had found the nearest campground and then hiked out to Bariloche, where Theo got a really nasty case of gastroenteritis... etc etc. anyways, we now decided that, having learned a lot about the snow and higher alpine conditions (especially their lack of tabonos), try to do this highly praised and reportedly much unhiked traverse all the way from Laguna Negra to Pampa Linda, as described in the Lonely Planet Pagagonia trekking book, as a 4-5 day high level trek. But even though we were being advised at C.A.B. (Club Andino Bariloche) to do it with, we would do it without crampons or ice axes.
They were telling us we needed those, well, maybe we needed them... due to the southern slopes having a lot of snow on them still. But maybe it had been warm enough, and in the late afternoons the snowy sections would be crossable. Maybe.
We decided we would try.
We proceeded to catch a bus out to Colonia Suise in the morning, a community of swiss who had arrived early to the area and established a farming community on the other side of the lake, well actually it is not even on the main lake. Though these days it appears it is mostly the place where the argentinian hippies hang out; lots of kids are attracted to the cheap camping accomodation and I suppose the hiking that is so nearby. We proceeded to hike up the valley towards Laguna Negra (which we had about 5 days earlier hiked down), and eventually before the day was getting too hot made it towards the switchbacking headwall that is below the lake. Without too many tabano attacks, we managed to make it up to the lake, which really is in a very beautiful spot. Many Argentinians were just packing up their tents to head down the hill around 4pm, and others were coming down from the other side of the lake on the traverse from the Lopez loop (we had decided not to go up Lopez after hearing that camping was no longer permitted up by the hut there, and must add that the size of the hut scared us. Don´t remember how many people it could sleep, but it was some number that seemed ridiculous. No matter how nice a hike is, if they preclude people being able to do it their own way, they can count us out).
Something quite surprising around Laguna Negra... was a few bushes of Porcelien Orchid. What a strange plant. Looks like a little tiger.
The next morning we got up early because we had a long day, and knew that we would be hiking through a lower section of land. Fear of Tabanos always woke us up early. We hiked around the lake to the pass to the east, crossing the Bailey Willis range. At this point we diverged from the path that most people to/from Lopez take. They head north up the ridgeline and then do a complicated path towards the Lopez mastiff. But we continued to hike straight east, down steeply into a drainage, which eventually got us down to the creek level of Arroyo Lluvuco. The other side of the drainage, we would head back up, towards Laguna C.A.B (a lake named after Club Alpino Bariloche... our guess is that very few other people go there, so the old name has been discarded). The neat thing about this particular route is that it would continue to take us up and down through the various vegetation layers, which are each about 200 meters in elevation. From the top of the pass we hiked down through volcanic ash-like ground mixed in with large boulders. Lots of non-human footprints were visible, in particular quite a few were cat like. We excitedly wondered whether these might be puma (wow) but later found out that there is at least one other kind of smaller wild cat that lives up here, perhaps much like a manx or something. Further down we entered into a flat land of mosses and shrubs, with numerous small creeks and lawn-sized swamps feeding them. Then the ground fell out below our feet, and we were heading down very steeply through (First) a bushy region, then increasing tree sizes, and finally, cane. Each of these vegetation layers presented a variety of different flowers.
Upon reaching the creek near the bottom, of course we had to reverse this, all the way up to Laguna C.A.B. This slope did have an extra little bit introduced though -- about 200 meters of grass land with low thorny bushes, full of fierce tabanos, buzzing at our heads and biting our legs, arms, and necks. ARGH. We hoped it would be over soon ... that we could get into a tree layer above, or higher into the alpine where we assumed these horrible insects would not go.
We approached a waterfall section (passing an Australian couple who said they had turned around after not being able to find enough markers to continue up to the pass...), and eventually got closer to the lake. Two Argentians camping there told us that it was likely better go to the left way around the lake, and not right, as the map showed, because the right side was excessively swampy. Of course, you have to realize at this point it is difficult to think very clearly because 1cm long evil flies are trying to bite you every chance you can get. Even though the day was getting hot we put more gear on, and proceeded to go the left way around the lake, which it turns out was pretty much a ¨wade in the water about 50cm from the shore¨ kind of bypass. And after 3km of that, yes of course your boots are soaked, and yes, the flies are still attacking!
On the other side of the lake we found some horrifically bad markers that led us into a swamp, which pretty much did not agree with the map or the GPS. We cut over the swamp (which woke up even more tabanos) and forged our own route through the trees until we managed to hit the marked trail in approximately the right place. It was now just a question of how the trail would avoid the slabs above us, to gain one of two invisible passes up on the mountain ridge above us, one of two passes just south-west of Cerro Cristal. We managed to keep our eyes on the trail, which occasionally swooped slightly lower, and further to the left than expected. Eventually it forced us to climb through grubby trails through the slabs, but it was nothing as bad as the route above Jakob, so we continued. Perhaps even if we had been wrong about the route, we would have continued, because the gaining elevation did have a small effect on the tabano population around our heads. At least there were fewer. But they were the most fierce ones...
We gained the ridge, and eventually could see the route ahead of us. Wow. Just two or three more tabanos to kill and we could decide if we had gotten ourselves in over our heads. The snow slope in front of us was rather scary. It was south facing (this being the southern hemisphere, that means less sun has hit it, and there is more snow remaining). And it had a lot of snow. And for the most part it was decending. We could see one set of tracks over it, perhaps a day or two old. They had obviously been made by crampons, with ice axes.
It was of course not clear exactly how soft the snow was until we got onto it, so we downclimbed the ridge to a point where it was safer to check things out. The guys with crampons had started at a place which seemed obvious to them... but to us without sharp points that place was not great. Well, we were greatly relieved to find out that the snow was in great condition for us. We could safely follow their tracks.
Now we had to think about the second concern. The valley we were going to enter has only two easy exits. One exit is this snow slope, and the other is to continue the route on the other side of the valley... which according to our map would entail two snow routes. If the snow was so soft today because of the hot and sunny weather, and if the weather worsened, we could end up trapped (with 5 days of food) in a valley ... very likely full of tabanos.
Anyways, we were full of adventure, ready to follow people ahead of us who at least had crampons, and perhaps a little bit high from not having any tabanos flying around our heads, so we proceeded down the slope to a lovely little private lake in the Mallin Mate Dulce (Sweet Tea Swamp) valley, set up our tent, waited until the tabanos departed around 5pm, and then cooked to beautiful views in all directions.
We woke up early the next morning, since we wanted to get out of this low-level valley which potentially would be swarming with tabanos in a few hours. We proceeded over the valley bottom on a clear trail and tried to pick up the markers on the other side. According to the map, we were supposed to gain an obvious ridgeline from the left side, and once we got higher, swing leftwards and upwards until we hit snow. Unfortunately here we were faced with two potential ridgelines, and markers which were terribly confusing. Furthermore, the map had a problem. For Theo to be able to figure out which ridge was which, he needed to see the very next panel of the map, which they had put the map information on.
Walking around in a gushy swamp being eaten by mosquitos was not a lot of fun, so it was a very happy moment when Nadine eventually spotted a marker higher up one of the two ridges... just as that ridge started being the more likely candidate. We proceeded up that ridge until it became non-steep slabby terrain cut by small creeks, and eventually small remainders of snow. Eventually we were faced with a monster of a snow slope.
Unlike the slope yesterday, this one was not as obviously south facing. It was also mostly ascending, but there was a decending component in the traverse, and also we were a lot less clear about the conditions underneath the snow since a lot of the ground we were walking on was downwards-trending slabs. What if the snow was ready to slide down a slab, with two Canadians on board? There were however, also two sets of tracks on this slope. The crampon people had gone one route, but another group of people with boots had taken another route, and apparently gotten into a small bit of difficulty in a few places. We chose a mixture of their approaches. We would take the safer parts of both routes. Anyways, suffice to say, we made it to the top.
And what a view, with Mount Tronodor looming in the distance, beautiful summits and lakes in all directions, and condors high in the sky around us! But it got even better. Theo went one way up the ridge to calibrate their location with the GPS, and Nadine another way to look for at the marker trail and figure out why the crampon people came up the trail earlier... and moments later a full size condor buzzed us both and scared the hell out of us! They are not like regular birds. Their bodies are so large they hang suspended below their wings, more like people who are hangliding, and they shift their weight to adjust their direction. Wow. People are used to seeing condors about 2-5km away in the sky, and here we are suddenly about 15 meters away from such a large and wild animal .... that so few people see up close is just astounding. I mean, even here in Patagonia you often see people pointing at condors way way way far away in the sky...
Tronodor was influencing the weather for us up on the high ridge, and below us further to the south east we could see the next lake along the circuit, Laguna C-something-or-other. Most people do the circuit in three nights, and would stay at that lake. We proceeded down steep scree slopes down to the creek crossing at the base of the lake. Little flowers littered the valley, and there were no nasty tabanos anywhere, due to a light wind. We took a little break and decided that we could easily proceed onwards. In fact, standing at the lake looking at the next snowy piece far in the distance we suddenly saw two climbers heading up the final 10 meters of the snow, crest out and disappear over the ridge! We were catching up to them, it appeared, though it would take us 2 hours of climbing over slabby ledges to get to where they had just been seen.
On the ridgeline before getting to the snow, we were able to look southwards at the very large and well named Laguna Azul, 900 or so meters below us. We continued east along the ridge though to pass another lake covered in snow and ice, and then climbed up the last boulders before we would reach the last snowy climb of our trip. It was much easier than the previous two snow climbs, perhaps only 80 meters of angled snow. We crested the ridge near some rather impressive cornices, and once again could see Tronodor ahead. Up on this rather flat ridge we had difficulty finding proper markers, so we just continued side slope on dinner plate scree until we could get to the next lake. We crossed the stream (obviously full of water all year round, and not even shown on the map) and started down the flower covered scree slopes on the east side. Beech bushes and trees blocked our direct access to the valley, and we had experienced the resistance these bushes could give to travel (incredibly dense). The tabanos started to swirl around us as we decended, and after a few false routes we managed to find a very steep gully that dropped us all the way down into the Malin de Ricardo. We proceeded to the other side of the meadowy swamp where a creek emptied the area, and we found a sandy area next to some slabby rocks that we placed our tent. Water was mere meters away, and we even had our own gecko who sat on a rock beside our packs, and ate all the tabanos that we injured (he refused to eat the ones that we had killed). It had been a super long day, and we slept very well.
The next morning we awoke to weather that was a bit cooler, and proceeded to walk down the much more obvious trail towards Laguna Ilon, where there is a standard camp ground. From there we followed the flat high valley trail all the way to a cliff trail, which dropped down into the valley at Pampa Linda. Along the way we passed three parks rangers, who had crampons on their packs. One of them was a fair bit older, so our guess is that he was training the others about the route. The older guy wagged a finger of shame at us for not havnig used crampons on the hike, which amused us. We had been lucky because of the hot sun to not need crampons, but they are not really safety equipment in any case...
Soon after reaching Pampa Linda some very bad weather came into the area and rained for a few hours. We, along with many local hikers in this more crowded area, hid in the trail information center for 2 hours. When the sun peeked out for a bit and the info center was locking up for lunchtime, we walked 100 meters to the hostel where we had some cafes and a plate of fries! Delicious!
The weather was now alternating between sunny and rainy. We thought about taking a bus back to Bariloche, but there was also the thought of continuing the do the (relatively much easier) Paso de las Nubes hike northwards, 2 days following rivers and crossing a relatively low pass, on towards Lago Frias and Lago Nahuel Huapi, where a series of boats and busses would return us closer to Bariloche. At a moment where the sun was particularily nice and sunny, we decided that we would hike. Having decided for sure, the rain started again.
We geared up in our full rain gear, in a hostel front yard full of people, looking at us if we were crazy people. As soon as we put our backpacks, the rain stopped.
What the heck! We started hiking, with the rain starting and stopping over and over. The trail starts along a old road for the first 3km, until it crosses a small river. Soon it leaves the
road (which continues up to the Otto Meiling hut no Tronodor) and becomes a single track along the Rio Alerce. These giant trees have in places fallen over the river, and the banks are quite eroded. Bamboo stands take over sections, and corridors have been cut so that you can make headway. Before we arrived at camp it started to rain heavily. Luckily we arrived at camp during a period when the rain had slightly slowed, and we were able to setup the tent without getting it to wet. We crawled in, and cooked a meal in the vestibule under the tarp. It continued to rain heavily all night long, and all the way into the next morning.
It was a miserably cold and wet morning, but maybe the weather would improve? Theo had done this hike a few years earlier in totally dry weather, and this was not at all similar. We could go back to Pampa Linda toeat some fries with ketchup and then catch a bus to Bariloche, or we could continue to hike, hoping the weather improved. Oh well, we are suckers for punishment, so we grabbed a slight lull in the rain and, fully geared up with rain clothes, and started hiking further onwards. The trail crosses a raging creek which has no real bridge, and then does about an hour in a swamp. After that it switchbacks for another hour up through giant alerce trees, and then spends the next hour in more open slopes, before reaching a pass which really does not have much of a view, even when the skies are clear (perhaps because it is relatively low compared to high level traverse we had done the previous days). This higher section alternated between very wet bushes totally soaking the outside of our rain gear, and then we would walk into more open areas where the wildly blowing wind would cool this moisture on the outside of our clothes. It was surprisingly cold -- we were positively chilled! Luckily we eventually reached the pass, and started hiking down the other side, which was already showing us glimpses of blue sky above the trees. About 2 hours downhill we popped out of the trees and cane onto a rocky outcropping just above the camping area, to stupendous views of Glacier Frias. Waterfalls below the ice fall were being blown by the wind into wisps which never reached the ground. It was stunningly beautiful.
We proceeded down to the camping area where numerous creeks joined, all draped in Fuschia plants. Hummingbirds flew around, collecting the nectar from the flowers. The sun and rain kept swapping, but overall the sun won, and some of our clothes dried out a little bit. Hours later in the early evening, one lone figure did walk into camp from over the pass, but we figured he had hiked all the way from Pampa Linda, and hopefully in slightly better conditions.
The next morning was not rainy, but since it had rained all night long, it was clear that the way would be wet. The remaining trail continues down Rio Frias to Lago Frias, through thick jungle and swamps. Eventually it pops out at Lago Frias where we are thrown onto a ferry over the fiord-like lake to the other side. A bus awaits us, and then takes us to the Hotel at Puerto Blest. From there, we had to book a ferry to Puerto Panuelo, which is near Llao Llao golf course, and a public bus would take us the rest of the way back to Bariloche.
What an amazing hike! We have decided that this particular hike was our best ever, partly because of the terrain, partly because of the early snow conditions, and mainly because we had a blast and stayed healthy and still had 25% or so of our bodies that didn´t have tabano bites on them!
