Where the Cold Wind Flies
The light of sunrise crawls inside breaking storm clouds that float effortlessly above the magnificent blue ice of Glaciar Grey, in Torres del Paine National Park, Chile. This view is looking northward, up the tongue of the glacier, as the waters of Lago Grey glow in the growing morning.
Having spent much of the past few days speculating as to the character and mettle of John Garner, after climbing over his namesake pass, we spent the night at Campamento Grey, which is situated about 500 m south of this vantage point. We all agreed that Mr. Garner had likely explored the pass nearly 100 years ago, wearing hob-nailed boots, woolen knickerbockers, silk ascots, and with a generous supply of claret to fuel the afternoon exertion. Idle speculation aside, this was the first ‘refugio’ style campground we visited, outfitted with a bar, bunks, with canned beer and boxed wine for sale, a dry goods food shop, and boating and backpack equipment rental to relieve the unending stream of 20-something tourists arriving by boat of their unallocated funds. They also served a hot multi-coursed meal for a modest price, which was impossible to pass up after several days of camp risotto and spaghetti. The only drawbacks were the attendant wads of toilet paper with which these same tourists saw fit to decorate the trees and ground, and the recently deposited pool of vomitus we discovered not far from our tent after we had finished setting it up.
Nonetheless, the meal was hot and delicious, the canned beer tasty and refreshing, and we attempted to open ourselves to a different sort of backpacking experience. Part wilderness (the northern part of the loop), and now as we bore southwards, measures of ‘spring-break’ were joining the mix. Our strategy to maximize sleep in this circumstance was to select a campsite as near the fringe of acceptable spots as possible, and sequester ourselves away from the masses as best we could, like the newly middle-aged social misfits we are. After dinner, I lingered talking with the barman while the others headed back to the tent, and he enquired why we were leaving so soon? I thought this was an odd question, since I often go to sleep after a big meal that arrives at the tail end of a day dominated by physical exercise. Several beers also tend to hasten the process, and enhance the desire to collapse. In Spanish, he waived my quizzical look aside, and informed me that a local hero of his, John Garner himself, would be delivering a presentation this very evening, in 30 minutes time in fact, in this very refugio, and I would be a fool to miss it. Garner, a 63-year old climber from the Lake District, and his Park Ranger partner Oscar from the wilds of southern Patagonia, were there to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the blazing of the circuit around the Cordillera Paine massif in 1976.
This serendipitous run-in with the man whose name had held so much mystery and entertainment for us over the past few days was the most memorable aspect to the trip after the awe-inspiring mountains and glaciers themselves. Furthermore, contrary to our assumption that he had likely lifted off his mortal coil nearly 100 years ago, he was blatantly not dead, did not seem prone to demanding claret, and appeared never to have considered wearing a pince-nez. The jarring reconciliation of the real man with our stories proved a lot to digest. We talked with him and his wife for some time after dinner, and he brought alive his experiences as the youngest member of an English climbing team in the mid-1970s, exploring the nether reaches of the southern gasp of America, in a place inhabited by no-one, and visited only by people with a very high tolerance for wet wool. Apparently, he conceived of the route around the Cordillera Paine from the summit of a nearby peak, studying the contours of the landscape thousands of feet below, and the key to the whole thing is the Paso that now bears his name. There’s a funny error that’s crept into the story as well - on most maps the pass is printed as ‘Paso John Gardner’, but the man himself is actually named John Garner, with no ‘d.’ He informed us it would probably be far easier to change his name than to correct all the propagated errors the world accepts as truth.
Where the Cold Wind Flies
The light of sunrise crawls inside breaking storm clouds that float effortlessly above the magnificent blue ice of Glaciar Grey, in Torres del Paine National Park, Chile. This view is looking northward, up the tongue of the glacier, as the waters of Lago Grey glow in the growing morning.
Having spent much of the past few days speculating as to the character and mettle of John Garner, after climbing over his namesake pass, we spent the night at Campamento Grey, which is situated about 500 m south of this vantage point. We all agreed that Mr. Garner had likely explored the pass nearly 100 years ago, wearing hob-nailed boots, woolen knickerbockers, silk ascots, and with a generous supply of claret to fuel the afternoon exertion. Idle speculation aside, this was the first ‘refugio’ style campground we visited, outfitted with a bar, bunks, with canned beer and boxed wine for sale, a dry goods food shop, and boating and backpack equipment rental to relieve the unending stream of 20-something tourists arriving by boat of their unallocated funds. They also served a hot multi-coursed meal for a modest price, which was impossible to pass up after several days of camp risotto and spaghetti. The only drawbacks were the attendant wads of toilet paper with which these same tourists saw fit to decorate the trees and ground, and the recently deposited pool of vomitus we discovered not far from our tent after we had finished setting it up.
Nonetheless, the meal was hot and delicious, the canned beer tasty and refreshing, and we attempted to open ourselves to a different sort of backpacking experience. Part wilderness (the northern part of the loop), and now as we bore southwards, measures of ‘spring-break’ were joining the mix. Our strategy to maximize sleep in this circumstance was to select a campsite as near the fringe of acceptable spots as possible, and sequester ourselves away from the masses as best we could, like the newly middle-aged social misfits we are. After dinner, I lingered talking with the barman while the others headed back to the tent, and he enquired why we were leaving so soon? I thought this was an odd question, since I often go to sleep after a big meal that arrives at the tail end of a day dominated by physical exercise. Several beers also tend to hasten the process, and enhance the desire to collapse. In Spanish, he waived my quizzical look aside, and informed me that a local hero of his, John Garner himself, would be delivering a presentation this very evening, in 30 minutes time in fact, in this very refugio, and I would be a fool to miss it. Garner, a 63-year old climber from the Lake District, and his Park Ranger partner Oscar from the wilds of southern Patagonia, were there to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the blazing of the circuit around the Cordillera Paine massif in 1976.
This serendipitous run-in with the man whose name had held so much mystery and entertainment for us over the past few days was the most memorable aspect to the trip after the awe-inspiring mountains and glaciers themselves. Furthermore, contrary to our assumption that he had likely lifted off his mortal coil nearly 100 years ago, he was blatantly not dead, did not seem prone to demanding claret, and appeared never to have considered wearing a pince-nez. The jarring reconciliation of the real man with our stories proved a lot to digest. We talked with him and his wife for some time after dinner, and he brought alive his experiences as the youngest member of an English climbing team in the mid-1970s, exploring the nether reaches of the southern gasp of America, in a place inhabited by no-one, and visited only by people with a very high tolerance for wet wool. Apparently, he conceived of the route around the Cordillera Paine from the summit of a nearby peak, studying the contours of the landscape thousands of feet below, and the key to the whole thing is the Paso that now bears his name. There’s a funny error that’s crept into the story as well - on most maps the pass is printed as ‘Paso John Gardner’, but the man himself is actually named John Garner, with no ‘d.’ He informed us it would probably be far easier to change his name than to correct all the propagated errors the world accepts as truth.