Back in Chile

After a 13 hour bus ride, I arrived in Puerto Varas quite by accident and found the day to be a great day. When I woke up from a long night on an overnight bus, I assumed we were at Puerto Montt where I realized I would have to get back on a bus for another 20 minutes to Puerto Varas. I sheepishly asked the lady at the turbus window when the next bus to Puerto Varas left. She looked at me, trying to decide if she understood this foreigner asking when the next bus to the city he just arrived to left, and said, "you´re in Puerto Varas." So, that worked out well, and could have been a lot worse.

I got to the hostel and explained why I arrived early, and the hostel owner told me I should take advantage of the nice weather and check out some sights. So instead of showering and napping, I took off on an afternoon adventure.

The clouds cleared that had been plaguing my during my time in Santiago, and they finally burned off down here. There had been rain for the last week or so and there was evidence of this on the road to Lago Todos los Santos. There were huge washout spots on the road. But luckily enough for me, the sun shone on Puerto Varas today and I had a nice afternoon hiking around. I arrived at Lago Todos los Santos in the city of Pertohué, and walked up a ways to get a good view of both the volcano and the lake. Then I walked down, caught a bus to "Saltos de Petrohue" where there were some incredible waterfalls to be seen. Then I got home, tired and hungry, and made a reservation to get to the top of Volcan Osorno tomorrow.



The all saints lake (Lago Todos los Santos)


Volcan Osorno, from a distance. That´s what I´m hoping to get to the top of tomorrow. I think I get to use a chairlift though.


Saltos de Petrohue. I already have the "I guess I´ll take a self-pic, this is weird smile down, after only one day traveling solo.


I was thinking going down river left, then eddying out river right.

My time in Santiago was incredible, but now it´s time for another adventure, with ealier nights, less asados(bbqs), chicha(local fermented drink during their Independence Day), smog, and more mountains and lakes. The weather has been very September-y for Chile, with cool/cold days with a lot of misty rain. But I got two nice days so far in the five days I´ve been here. I met a girl from Ireland here and we´re going to get a ride up to the top of the Volcano tomorrow. It should be fun, hopefully it won´t rain/snow.

It's already half way through May, and I know before I know it, I'll be saying, "it's already September." The last few months flew by. I spent the majority of my weeks on the road doing some sort of recruitment work for camp, and also taking some time to enjoy the spring, as it slowly arrived in northern Wisconsin. I got my Wilderness First Responder certification in March, which supplied some great knowledge of what to do in emergency situations, and minor cuts and bruises, attended a conference in St. Charles, IL called Mid-States Camping Conference, went to Madison for Canoecopia, and made it down to Arizona to visit family. In the last couple weeks I've been to Minneapolis for Midwest Mountaineering Outdoor Expo, and have been out paddling on the Wolf River and the Montreal River. Summer and all the responsibility that comes with it begins this weekend as groups start arriving for leadership camps, and Outdoor leader courses.
Since the snow is gone(the last snow melted April 29th), and I can't skate ski any more, I've been running again. We'll see how my running schedule looks come June, but right now, I'm enjoying my morning runs. Every day I see deer, but last week I saw two coyotes, which made me pick up my pace. I think I'm getting everything in line for the summer, and am excited for staff and campers to start arriving.

Jay, Brooke, and I with Grandma Creagh. I was a surprise.

After a warm extended weekend in Arizona, this is what I woke up to April 21st.

Working hard to sell Camp Manito-wish at Midwest Mountaineering.

Surfing a wave on the Montreal River last weekend with Kris.

Kris comes to camp

A couple weeks ago one of my college roommates came up to camp for a visit. We made sure to show him around the area, so he could get the city grid understood and know what parts of town to stay away from. After 2 minutes we finished the tour and introduced Kris to our friendly bartender Jeff from down the road. Kris fit in just fine.
Being from Gillett, WI, Kris came fully prepared to do some serious ice fishing. This is something I've been wanting to do for some time, but have never wanted to drive to a lake, set up and freeze while starting at a hole in the ice. But, since the lake was about 100 feet from my house, and all the locals told us sunrise/sunset were the only times fish bite, I was set to go ice fishing for about two hours.


Kris and Ben, jigging for some hungry fish

Then just when I was ready to call it a successful day of ice fishing, (meaning we drilled some holes, had a couple beers, talked for a couple hours, started getting cold) the tip up dropped and we had ourselves a Walleye. Now, this is a big deal because it was only the second walleye Kris caught this winter. And, the following week there was an ice fishing contest on Boulder Lake and no walleye were caught.

Kris with our prize

Grabbing the already frozen fish

We cooked it up the following night into a delicious dinner and now I can cross off "ice fishing" from my list of things to do while passing a winter in northern Wisconsin.

Back in Wisconsin

It's been awhile since I last posted anything of substance, but that's because I've been super busy the last month and a half. The flight back was easy and painless. I arrived on time, but my baggage came back about 90 minutes later. My dad met me in Chicago, and I was ushered back to the midwest with some cold weather and about 3-4 inches of snow. 30 hours later, I was driving up to Boulder Junction where I started work at the Staff Recruitment Coordinator/Outpost Director. Now I'm back where I was about a year ago, except this time I have responsibility, and a place to stay besides Jay and Brooke's guest room. It's been a wild turn-around, but fun. I'm still finding things that I learned in Chile coming up in my everyday life, and finally came to realize that I'm not going to go "back" to where I was before, but I will forever keep some of my year down there and it has further shaped who I am. My first week was centered around learning what goes on in the office, and getting acquainted with everything. Last week I was down in Cincinnati, Ohio for the Mid-American Camping Conference which was a blast. It was nice to get some new ideas and talk to some of the other camps from around the midwest. I think there were about 200 other camp directors ranging from Nebraska to Pennsylvania to Missouri and one camp from Florida. So we had a lot of experience at this conference and a wide range of scenarios that were discussed. Also it was nice to see another camp, since I've been at Camp Manito-wish since the mid 90's, and spend some quality(or quantity) time with two co-workers. We drove down to the conference, which translates to about 30 hours in a van with these two other guys.
Today's Saturday, and I just got back from about an hour cross country ski with the weather showing a balmy -3 F, and clear skies.
I don't know how much I'll update this now that I'm back in the US, and doing more of a job than kind of exploring South America, but I'm sure when I get some downtime I'll update it every once in a while.

summer break pictures

pictures
Here's my summer break pictures.

Back in Santiago

Finally, I'm back where it's warm, or some would say hot. I made it back this evening, without any problems. I've been catching up with roommates and will meet up with a Camp friend, who is down for the holidays.
Pictures will eventually make it up.

What a trip: "Cold" Summer Break

I´m back where I started, in the same hostel in Punta Arenas I was in December 10th. Since then I´ve been here and there. From here we went to Ushuaia, which is the official, End of the World. In fact I got my passport stamped with a stamp that says, "fin del mundo, Ushuaia Arg" So I guess that´s quite official. We did a hike from town up to a glacier, and walked around the coast another day. From what I´ve seen in pictures, the place reminds me of what Alaska could be like. From Ushuaia we basically bussed up to Puerto Natales, which took two days to get there because of bus routes and schedules. From there we headed into Torres del Paine National Park for eight days. This was the main reason for my 20 days in Patagonia, and I loved every minute of it from the freezing nights, snow flurries in the morning, 18 mile days, rainy days, sunny days, windy (every)days, drinking straight from the glacial rivers, relaxing, and just enjoying time away from it all, and enjoying the camping lifestyle. After the hike, we dried off and made some great food in Puerto Natales for Christmas Eve, and on Christmas we took a bus to El Calafate to check out a gigantic glacier. It´s something like 200 feet high and apparently, all of Buenos Aires could fit on top of the glacier. It was actually kind of a let down for us because the weather was rainy and finally broke 20 minutes before we had to leave. Plus in Torres del Paine we walked up and over a mountain pass(3.5 hours up, and 3 down) and had views of the 3rd largest glacier not in Antarctica on the way down from the pass. That, was an amazing view. But nonetheless, it was an impressive glacier and if the weather would have been more agreeable, it probably would have been special. Instead, we all read in the restaurant, and all three of us finished our books that we started the previous day. Since El Calafate, I´ve been traveling solo without Steve and Kaleah because they continued north, and I´ve met plenty of people already, and today, I tried to go visit a penguin colony with an Italian I met here, but with 70 mph winds, the boats were not leaving. So we walked around town and took pictures of all the "penguins" we saw around town. Tomorrow I head back to warm Santiago, and I´m ready. I know this wont sound too crazy to all you northern dwelling residents, but I haven´t worn shorts or a t-shirt since December 9th because it´s been windy, cold, windy, cloudy, windy and drizzly for the last three weeks. I checked what the weather should be like the next ten days, and it doesn´t look too bad, high of 89, low of 56 and sunny. I didn´t check for Boulder Junction, WI, but I´d assume it´s just slightly cooler. I´ll post pictures when I get the chance, and plan to upload all of them into a photo album.
Love to all.