This weekend I hit the trails again. I decided to finally head to the refugio up on Mount Tronador.

Tronador has been in the back of my mind for a while. The name means something like Mount Thunder, so named because it's surrounded by 7 glaciers and their constant roar as they "thunder" and calve. At about 11000 ft, its the biggest peak around. I was camping at almost 7000 feet, right before the snow starts, but it feels like you're really up high - the peak juts out, seeming like it's right above the cabin. And the wind... it's really incredible. Your muscles are constantly flexed just to keep your balance up there. At the same time, the sun is intense. I ended up sweating under all my windproof layers while my hands got sunburned and numb from the cold. Very weird sensation, the weather up there.

Despite the piercing/numbing heat/cold, I mostly stayed outside. With the Andes spread out in every direction, as high as you can imagine, as far as you can see - I don't think I could ever get used to it.













Though I've seen a few, this was the first time I've slept in one of the refugios. This one is called Refugio Otto Meiling, and it amazingly offers drinkable running water and a bathroom.

The downstairs is an open kitchen and a room of long tables and benches, cafeteria style. There's a couch, pictures on the wall, and an old-timey iron wood stove doing the heating. All dark wood, very cozy.

Upstairs is wide open. It's the sleeping quarters (10 bucks a night, which only feels cheap before you sleep there). The floor is completely covered with summer camp sized mattresses, end to end, so the unlucky folks in the far corner had to walk over everyone else to reach their sleeping bag. It was kind of fun, obviously very warm. I woke up with someone's feet resting against my ears.


On Sunday I took a trip with the family to Cholila, a tiny town, if you could even call it that, about 3 hours south of here. We were visiting Anna's son at his new job. He's now a real life gaucho, working with horses on a huge farm.

Even just a few hours south, the landscape totally changes. We left the lake district and really entered the Patagonia - a vast, flat, nothingness on every side. Huge mountains in the distance. It's dusty and windy all the time. I just finished a book about the place where the author says he finally realized, "Nowhere is a place." That's kind of how it feels down there.

As it turns out, Cholila was once the home of exiled outlaw Robert Leroy Parker. He was born into a nice Mormon Utah family and grew up into a gunslinging, bankrobbing outlaw better known as Butch Cassidy. Beyond his famous name, I didn't know his story before I got down here. He was almost a revolutionary figure (a legendary shot, he vowed never to kill a man, robbed from the rich, etc.) and when he was too hunted in the Wild West, he escaped with the Sundance Kid to the wilder (south)west of the Patagonia. It's a really interesting story. They covered their tracks pretty well, so no one knows the details beyond local legends of the bandoleros norteamericanos. He may have died here or reemerged under a different name back in the States. If I visit Cholila again I'm going to go see his cabin.

Anyway, such is the intriguing history of the Patagonia. More soon.