I would love to go back and hike around right this minute, however, after a weekend full of rain, I figure it would be more like cross country skiing.  The Andes are striking today in all their snow-capped glory.

Yerba Loca

6/6/10

The 2009 Lonely Planet guidebook doesn’t even spare a paragraph for this gem located in the heart of the Andes. Just a 25-kilometer drive outside of Santiago, Santuario de la Naturaleza Yerba Loca is yet one more giant playground for the adventurer’s soul; yet one more of the uncountable and indescribable beauties of Chile.

The summer months, December through March, are the best times to explore Yerba Loca, however that did little to deter Max and I from our 15-kilometer trek throughout the park. Our goal was to make it to the glacier, but due a late start (it takes about 4 hours of straight trekking to reach the glacier—and with me, nothing is a straight trek because possible photos are popping out everywhere!) we opted to go until the snow became too tiresome to trudge through.

A wonderful day it was, for the body and the soul! What I love so much about being out there amidst the mountains is the reminder of what a tiny little spec you are in comparison to the world, not only in space, but also in time. What little I retained from college geology classes flooded my mind, and thinking about the formation of these towering rocks mystified me.

The Andes Mountains are the world’s longest mountain range, stretching more than 4,5000 miles from Venezuela all the way to the tip of Chile. I like to think of them as South America’s spine.

Yerba Loca is just a vertebra within that spine, but definitely worth a look, be it a weekend of camping or a daytime trek. To cup your hands into that icy glacier water and put it to your lips, well, little is better than that my friends.

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”  ~Ansel Adams

In order to get the first picture of this phlog, I had to really move around to find that “perfect” angle. So, that meant utilizing my gortex boots and awkwardly positioning myself on a rock seemingly placed for exactly what I had in mind. Here are more fruits of my labor.

 

Max is a huge Lebron James fan, and many a time I’ve seen arms fly up in the air, baby powder showering everything in sight; and I decided that this needed to be documented.