Ushuaia 3 and Post-Antarctic Depression

Still no photos...hopefully coming soon!
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I was still feeling vaguely heartbroken when I woke up on the final morning on the Iffe. But at least the Ioffe came back to Ushuaia, so when I woke, there were big, beautiful mountains out the window.

Ushuaia is lovely for a city. But at the same time, it's a human stain in a wild landscape. A hard thing to return to after the purity of Antarctica. But at least it was Ushuaia, with its vistas of big, beautiful mountains. A shock, but not as big a shock as it could have been.

We all hugged goodbye in a big receiving line of staff and passengers when we offloaded from the ship. Many of us had spent the final night had been spent in the bar until the wee hours singing with Ari and Brandon on guitars, including the crowd favorite Wagon Wheel, which I believe they played three times that night, and which lodged itself in my brain as an unshakable Uhrwurm for the following week and a half.

When I walked off the ship and was dropped off at my hostel, it was too early to check in and I felt too weighted by sadness to stay there, so I went for a walk to the only place there is to walk to: the waterfront. My legs felt like jell-o, both from the lack of sleep that night and from the transition from sea to land. Turns out I had gotten my sea legs, and now had to work on getting my land legs back. There on the waterfront, sitting on a bench with the Ioffe parked across the water, I broke down crying.

Everyone else, it seemed, was going home. Those few who had traveled alone were returning to husbands or wives or significant others. People seemed sad to go, but simultaneously relieved. I felt abandoned, and deeply lonely. The Ioffe had become my happy home, and the folks onboard my family, and all of the sudden I was thrown back out on the street and everyone left. Plus, I was tired, and hormonal, and worried about the fact that I was now on my third month with no period--having never missed a period before in my life. So I cried, and cried, and cried.

I was interrupted by Jan and Jim, who happened to also be walking along the waterfront, and they gave me a big hug and suggested we meet up for dinner. That gave me the relief I needed to get up, go back to the hostel, change into sports clothes, and go for a long run. The run didn't cheer me up any, but left me feeling better nonetheless.

After I showered and was able to check in officially and take a nap, I woke up and made myself lunch and was interrupted in my hermit rituals by a good-looking and utterly charming guy from Manchester, whose witty conversation cheered me up quite a bit until it turned into a bizarre, sexually-charged monologue that led me to write him off as a vaguely creepy manwhore (I don't know where guys get the idea that bragging about their exploits makes them attractive--does that work?) and excuse myself. I spent the afternoon working to recover photos from my fried hard drive with little success before meeting back up with Jan and Jim for dinner.

They are absolutely lovely people, and I enjoyed my conversation with them. They talked about growing up Mormon and distancing from the church, surprising their coworkers and friends by being "moral athiests", and how their daughter's cancer had shaped them. They apologized for the depressing conversation, but I hadn't found it depressing so much as touching, a story of how going through Hell makes people more beautiful, more gentle, more empathetic, and more human. I hugged them goodbye and walked off to meet some friends from the ship (they didn't all leave that day, it turned out) at a pub--it was great to see some of them again.

On the way, I walked down a street where the city was celebrating Carnival, and I was there early enough to catch the tail end of the parade. As I walked, I watched the kids running around spraying eachother, and me, with some sort of canned soapy foam, and the colorful dancers twirl and sing their way down the street. I noticed that the crowd looked significantly different than the pale tourists who usually fill the streets of downtown Ushuaia--the locals had come out of the woodwork. I reached into my bag to pull out my GoPro to film a snippet of the parade when I noticed that my good camera--the one I had been trying to revive--was missing and my bag was unzipped. Everything else still appeared to be there but the camera was gone. It must have been cursed.

I went running again the next morning, unsuccessfully trying to shake the blues, but at least feeling like the blues were warranted in this situation, and it was fine to feel it for now. I also went to the police station to file a police report for the camera at the suggestion of the hostel owner. It was a remarkably painless process. I managed to book my bus tickets onward, but then failed to make progress recovering the photos from my hard drive while trying to ignore Manchester, who was trying to convince me that "my problem is that you are missing a good shag". By the end of the day, I wondered where the time had gone.

My third morning in Ushuaia I was feeling very dark indeed. I was finally able to pick up the package full of Antarctica clothes that my mom had mailed me two months prior, and was charged a fee for the honor, and then told I could not send the package back home because the post office wasn't accepting packages that day. I had no luck sending the camera gear that had also come in the package and was now useless without a camera. I did manage to exchange some dollars for pesos at a stuffed animal store, but was in a sour mood when I walked back to the hostel along the waterfront again, but this time with no Ioffe. I was sad about the loneliness, upset about the camera, angry at the stupid post office, and was probably glowering when all of the sudden I heard opera floating through the air.

I looked up, and a woman dressed in street clothes was standing in the balcony of the local museum singing a piece from Carmen, she was incredible. I listened, then sat down on the sidewalk as she continued to sing three more arias that I didn't recognize before disappearing. I went into the museum to ask about her, if she accepted donations, when she walked down the stairs. She recognized me and asked if I was Italian--probably assuming I must be if I enjoyed opera, since I was the only person who had stopped to listen--and I had tears in my eyes when I thanked her as best as I could in Spanish for giving me something beautiful on a blue day. She was touched.

I had dinner alone at a restaurant called El Viejo Marino (The Ancient Mariner) on the waterfront, a plasticy diner with surprisingly good food, but the name of the restaurant and the decor reminded me of when I had read the book, years ago in the bed of someone who had fallen out of love with me, and the memory made me sad again as I watched the sun set over the Beagle Canal and said goodbye to a place that had meant so much to me.

I was rebelling inside--wanted to run back away to the hills, to those mountains with their always-open arms. I felt like my soul was screaming: "Why? Why would you leave? You came back to civilization? Why? Why would you do that?"

But I had to leave, and caught my bus at 5am the next morning, saying goodbye to my beloved South.

Navarino Part III: Paso de los Dientes and Descent into the Swamp

Part III in the story of my 7-day solo trek on Isla Navarino, continued from Part II: The hike begins. To start at the beginning or to see the full list of Navarino episodes, click here.

The night had been rough due to the wind and rain. 

I felt like I had been rained on all night since every time a drop of water would hit the tent in the right place hard enough (which was often), a tiny bit of spray would hit my face through the tent. I woke up at first light at 4:30 am to puddles of water inside the tent from condensation and a very damp sleeping bag (my most prized possession—my 0°F down sleeping bag—is wonderfully cozy and warm, but the minute it gets wet it becomes worthless as an insulating layer, so the damp bag was not just annoying, it was potentially dangerous). The inside walls of the tent were dripping wet and I spent a good twenty minutes sopping up the puddles with my little camp rag, wringing it out on the ground outside through the bottom zipper, soaking up more puddles, wringing out the rag, wiping down the walls, wringing out the rag, wiping down my sleeping bag and sleeping mat, wringing out the rag, and starting over in what felt like a hopeless case of bailing water out of my tent. Exhausted, discouraged, and frustrated, I went back to sleep. I woke again at 6 am, repeated the process, went back to sleep, and finally woke up for good at 8 am.

View from my campsite after Night 1

After another wipe-down of the tent, I cooked water for breakfast (oatmeal with generous scoops of honey, as well as some cookies and a half-moldy mandarin—you take what you can get in Puerto WIlliams), checking the water periodically through the bottom zipper. The sun came out briefly, cheering me up significantly and giving me a chance to partially dry out my soggy tent and sleeping bag while I made lunch (Chilean flatbread, which holds up well to a beating and tastes fabulous, some slices of packaged salami, smeared with butter and avocado) and studied my maps and trail guides. My goal that day was to cross over the Paso de los Dientes and head down a side trail to the north shore of Lago Windhond, some 13 km to the South as the crow flies. By the time I had eaten and packed and hit the trail, it was already 11 am.

The first snowfield, the tops of the peaks I'd skirt in a blizzard later in the day peaking out over the top.

The trail from the frozen lake climbed steeply up a creek bed at the north shore to a wide white bowl that was another frozen-over lake buried in a thick layer of snow. From the bowl of snow, the trail continued up a shallow snow-covered ridgeline. The sleet started almost as soon as I began the climb and turned to increasingly heavy snow as I continued, postholing through the deep, crusty snow all the way to the top of Paso de los Dientes, the first of the mountain passes of the Dientes circuit. By the time I arrived at the top of the pass, I was in the middle of a blizzard. Visibility was poor at best and there was no trail as any signs or cairns were buried in snow. But I can read a map and a compass and when I repeatedly ended up at places that, at least in the limited visibility looked like they were supposed to, I felt pretty confident that I was on track. Every once and a while after carefully picking my way across a steep snowfield that fell down into the end of my field of view or scrambling along slippery, rocky ridges I’d come onto an unburied cairn, confirming my choice of path.  However, due to the snow, the hike had taken a full three hours instead of the hour and a half I had been expecting.

Me in the Dientes in the sleet.

The views, I’m sure, would have been spectacular. I had heard that on a clear day from the pass you have stunning views of the mountains and ocean in all directions. As it was I could barely occasionally make out the outlines of the massive peaks that I was skirting.

It was still beautiful though.

I descended from the pass past more frozen alpine lakes and the snow turned back into rain and the cairns marking the trail gradually became visible again. I reached the turnoff for Lago Windhond (marked by a little arrow and LW spraypainted on a rock in a boulderfield). Scree gave way to peat at the end of the descent as I approached the beaver-dammed lake at the other side of the pass. In theory, there was a trail (I was in possession of a map showing a trail and even GPS waypoints all the way to the north end of the lake). But I kept losing the trail as the area was a maze of fallen logs and the beavers had run off with, it seemed, all the trail markers (which at this elevation were red stripes painted onto tree trunks). My GPS signal kept cutting out due to the heavy cloud cover, so was little help in finding the trail. Studying the map, I decided to continue straight on past the lake and through the bog instead of fighting through trees up ridges—the route the map showed—without a clear trail. At least in the swamp I could see where I was going.

Beaver damage along the shores of a lake south of the Paso de los Dientes

It was relatively good going along the side of the lake with the exception of some fighting through bushes until I got to the bog. It was like that scene in Lord of the Rings where Frodo and Sam and Gollum pick their way through the Dead Marshes, an absolute maze of soggy spongy ground snaking around eerie-looking holes (hereafter called the Death Swamp) that, I would soon find out, would happily pull you in and keep you there forever. I was soaking wet after the hike through the snow, and was not getting any drier slogging in the rain through the mushy bog, often slipping knee or even hip-deep into soft spots in the moss. It was like walking on a giant soaking wet sponge, complete with holes to fall into. Progress in the Death Swamp was extremely slow and, in the freezing rain, I started to lose my happy. And that was when I came across a line of water as far as I could see in either direction, too wide to jump across, even if it had been possible to get a running start in the moss. It was either attempt to hike around—wherever around was, which as far as I knew could be all the way back to the beginning of the bog—or choose my steps well and attempt to wade through.

Figuring I couldn’t possibly get any wetter at that point and may as well wade, I stepped…and immediately sank chest-deep into the muck.

The Death Swamp. Looks innocent enough in this photo, but beware!

My now waterlogged backpack rapidly became heavier as it started to fill with water and pushed me deeper into the mud, which seemed to have no bottom. I tried to stay calm, remembering horror stories from childhood about people struggling and drowning in quicksand because of their struggles and wondered if this could be similar as I tried to swim my way through the viscous goo to the other side. When I reached the bank, there was nothing solid to grab onto. Only sponge, and I was still chest-deep in mud with a heavy pack pinning me down.

After frantically smearing my hands around for a bit and realizing I wasn’t going to find anything to grab onto, I dug my arms as deep as I could into the moss on the bank to serve as anchors, and pulled on all of my climbing muscles to heave myself partly up so that my chest was on the bank and then, holding my chest up with my arms which were slipping out of the moss, I swung a leg up, and face and belly buried in the moss I wiggled, slowly, miserably, up out of the bog. It felt like ten minutes but in reality I was probably only in the water for less than 30 seconds. Still, it was more than long enough to get very, very wet, and enough to scare me. Dying in an avalanche while doing some epic splitboarding? Fine. Dying by hypothermia because I couldn't crawl my way out of a stinky hole in a swamp? Significantly less fine.

The hole that tried to eat me alive, trekking pole stuck partway in the mud inside for scale.

I threw off my drowned pack and unzipped my jacket as water poured out of it. My camera had been tucked away inside my jacket, and it had been submerged. My pockets, too, were full of water and I emptied those, wondering if any of my stuff: camera, cellphone that I had been using as my GPS, chargers, water treater, etc. would ever work again. I tried to dry things out as best I could by wiping them off with my undershirt, patches of which had managed to stay dry, but the patches were small and the rest of me was just as wet as the equipment, so I wasn’t able to do much good.

But mostly I was worried about my sleeping bag. Down bags are totally worthless when wet, and it was cold out, and if my sleeping bag was wet it was going to be a very rough night. As it turned out, however, the bag was fine. I had stored it in a plastic garbage bag and that had kept the water out of it. Same with my thermal camp clothes which I had also stashed inside a garbage bag inside my pack. My electronic stuff was maybe fried, but at least I’d be warm and dry that night.

Raindrops falling in pools in the forest. Photo taken while I was still un-miserable enough to enjoy the beauty of the rain...and while my camera was still working.

Shivering, sopping wet, hungry, and without a means of catching a GPS signal with soaked equipment and heavy cloud cover, I gave up on WIndhond and decided to head for the woods on the horizon in an attempt to find a somewhat sheltered, not-waterlogged, somewhat flat place to pitch my tent for the night. I walked as fast as I could (mostly to warm myself up) across the bog, focused on stepping on safe spots and praying for no more long uncrossable lines of mud. About an hour later, at around 6:30 pm, I made it to the woods. In the first semi-level spot I found big enough to set up my little tent I dropped my pack and attempted to build a fire, no easy task given the downpour and how hard I was shivering. Miraculously, I succeeded, and as the fire grew I hung my clothes and soggy boots on branches around it to try to dry them.

I was shaking hard from the cold, too hard to get my tent out of its bag. Remembering stories about the island’s natives who had preferred nudity to clothing because the place was always so damned wet and wet clothes are colder than bare skin, I stripped naked next to the fire. I felt immediately warmer. The natives were right, standing next to the fire with the rain falling on my bare skin, I was far warmer than I had been all day, and was able to stop shivering long enough to set up my tent.

Campsite. Yeah, camera wasn't working too well after its swim in the Death Swamp.

I could see steam coming off of my boots and clothes and hoped that the flux of water out of my clothes via steam was greater than the flux in by rain dripping in through the trees. Item by item as my stuff went from soaked to merely soggy, I tossed things into the tent. There’s nothing quite like snuggling with wet gear, but I didn’t want stuff to get any wetter.

As I arranged things in my tent I suddenly smelled smelly sock…smelly sock…SMELLYSOCK! I bolted out of the tent and saw one of my socks on fire. I snatched it and the other clothes items away from the fire, but it was too late for the socks. The toes of one had burned clean off, and there were large scorched holes in all the others. Shit. I had brought my only two pairs of good hiking socks, planning to switch them out each day and wear one pair while the other dried, and now both were burnt. I had brought one other pair of thinner socks, and although the thinner socks were much harder on my feet and I had meant them as dry camp socks, they would have to do.

My sad-looking campsite the following morning.

I didn’t even bother to cook dinner. I ate the rest of my open pack of cookies, my second sandwich that I had been too wet to eat before, and a few handfuls of cold Garbonzo mash instead. It was damp in the tent but at least I was out of the rain. My phone hadn’t died during the swim, but I still wasn’t getting a GPS signal. Still, after looking over the maps again I thought I had a pretty good idea of where I was and figured I was within an hour or two of the refugio that supposedly existed at the northern end of the lake. If I could make it to the refugio in the morning, I could hang out there and dry my stuff. Although I had heard that the place was infested with giant somethings—the Spanish word wasn’t one I had understood sounded like some sort of rodent but could be mosquitoes. Also, I had seen a few fresh-ish footprints of a group of three or so men on the way down from the pass earlier that day so it could be infested with humans as well. Being alone I was even less keen on seeing a group of unknown men than giant rats or mosquitoes. So as I curled up in my sleeping bag wearing every item of dry clothing I had (including, thankfully, my down jacket) I prayed for a dry day, at least a day without any more dunks in the Death Swamp, and that the refugio would be empty when I arrived.

Despite the wet, I fell asleep early and slept well that night, no doubt completely and utterly exhausted.

But I survived, and the story continues in better weather: Navarino Part IV: Refugio Charles and Lago Windhond