Navarino Part V: Bahia Windhond, or the day I stood naked at the end of the world

Part V in the story of my 7-day solo trek on Isla Navarino, continued from Part IV: Refugio Charles and Lago Windhond. To start at the beginning or to see the full list of Navarino episodes, click here.

I am the queen of late starts. Despite waking at around 7 am I didn’t leave camp until around 10. I first spent around two hours trying to mend the giant holes I had burned in my socks at the fire at the previous camp—an attempt that later proved futile, at least in part because of my terrible sewing skills. I didn’t bother with breakfast and just ate some cookies and one of the sandwiches I had packed instead. I put on my damp socks and boots and took off with a little fanny pack with food and a poncho, leaving my tent up in case of bad weather, and thinking I’d be back from the bay—which was right there—by lunch. Ha!

Frankensocks

First, less than two minutes in to the trek my bowels made the sort of gurgle that means “DO NOT IGNORE ME” and I barely had time to drop my pants before I suddenly became a full two pounds lighter.

Not long after that, I was stopped again, this time by a large river that was not on the cheesy whole-island map that I now had to rely on (this part of the island falling well off the edge of my halfway decent topo maps). It was, I realized, on my GPS map which if I had seen before should have warned me (my excuse: my phone screen is nearly impossible to read in the glare of the light of day, and with all the rain over the past few days I didn’t often want to take it out of my pocket). None of the creeks that had been very difficult to impossible to cross that I had been hopping and wading through and skirting before had been on the GPS map, so the fact that this map showed up should have clued me into the fact that this would be a large obstacle. Indeed, this was no creek. It was a legitimate river. I walked along its banks for over a mile, trying to see if there was any chance of a shallow spot I could wade across or a series of logs or something, but there was nothing, no way to cross without swimming, which I might have considered if not for my cold (I had woken up with a sore throat, headache, and full sinuses), it being very cold, and not wanting to dunk my camera for a second time in 30 hours.

My campsite. Camera was still a little soggy (hence the fog)... didn't want to get it any wetter.

The river did not go straight to the bay, which as the crow flies was less than 4 km away. It went instead another 12 km to the east, increasing the distance I needed to walk by at least 3x (or 16 more km out and back). I mentally came to terms with the reality of my not making it back by lunch, needing to camp another night in my little hilltop room with a view, and it being now extremely unlikely that I’d be able to make it back to the Dientes circuit in time to make a quick go at it.

But damnit, I was going to make it to that bay! Over the next four hours I marched through forest, peat bog, spiny death bushes, and beaver swamps that in some cases I was only able to get through by tightroping across their dams—in two cases breaking them (sorry beavers, but you did make the route impassable, plus, you are a non-native species…so I didn’t feel too bad).

But this guy was a native species. He can stay.

Most exhausting of all were the chest-deep mounds of beachgrass on the dunes when I finally approached the bay. Where hiking through the peat bogs was like walking for hours on a mattress, the beachgrass involved lifting my leg to my chest, scrambling up, sinking back down, repeat. When I arrived at the beach I was exhausted and my tendons hurt.

More bog.

But I made it.

To the end of the world.

The beach at Bahia Windhond

At least as close to the end of the world I could get without passage on a yacht or a trip to Antarctica, as close to the end of the world as I could get without a whole lot of money I don’t have. The farthest south anyone I know has been who hasn’t been to Antarctica.

Yay!!

I had a glorious ten minutes in the sun when I finally arrived. I ate my sandwich, stripped naked and had just started to wade into the water when I saw the giant dark storm cloud heading straight for me. I thought the better of going for a frigid swim with a storm coming and a four hour walk back to warmth before me. So I waved goodbye to the end of the world, threw my clothes and poncho back on, and hit the chest-deep grass again just as the hail hit.

Where on the hike there I had had many moments where I’d grin and laugh when I’d see some vista and remember where I was and what I was doing, on the way back my brain switched off and I just marched, too tired and cold and wet to enjoy the scenery. I marched back through the mounds of beachgrass, back through the beaver swamps, back through the peat bogs, through forest and plains, through meadows and over hills, poncho on, face set, trying to keep up a good clip to stay reasonably warm in the cold rain.

A sampling of the scenery I marched through.

I marched for hours like that until suddenly, at the top of a ridge forested with tall, slender trees, a gentle wind made the trees sing at the same time that a cloud opened up, sending soft green light dancing around me. I was dazzled.

The moment hit me like a shock, a reminder of where I was, of all that had brought me there, and I was floored with gratitude and happiness. It was like the God I had loved as a young person had appeared in front of me, held out his arms, and said, “See? It was all okay in the end.” I looked around me, bathed in the dancing light and singing trees, filled with the feeling of everything being okay.

In that moment I realized that all of the struggle and torment and tedium and heartache (and good times as well) that had eaten me the past decade and especially the past few years had, as a culmination of forks in the road that my life had taken, brought me there, to this magical grove of trees on an island on the cold, sweaty, southern toe of the Americas. There, to a place and on an adventure of which my self a decade ago would never have dreamed. That it had been okay in the end. More than okay: Incredible. And there I was, standing outrageously happy at the end of the world.

Forest

I was moved to do something I hadn’t done in over a decade: I prayed. Dropped to my knees, face to the sky, surrendered myself to the universe, and prayed. I prayed to no deity in particular, having long ago become disillusioned by and walked away from the religion of my childhood, so I was simply talking to the air. But the feeling was the same as when I used to pray in my youth; I felt connected to the universe, felt my soul bursting inside me. It was a prayer of thanks, and a prayer for forgiveness: forgiveness for my lack of understanding and appreciation of all these years, and forgiveness for the anger and bitterness that I had been refusing to give up for so long.

And finally I forgave, in words out loud to the wind, those people against whom I had held the anger that had been eating me alive.

I forgave my German ex-fiancé who, I was finally able to accept, did what he had to do to protect his own happiness and sense of self. In that moment I realized truly that I am happier now than I could have been with the real version of him that I had refused to see and refused to accept. That his leaving was, even though the circumstances were terrible, in the end a gift. That my heart was broken but was returned to me, and that it was in my power to heal it, because my heart is a big heart, a strong heart, and a good heart. In that moment I was finally able to let him, and the rage and disgust and fury that had been rotting me from the inside these past few years, go.

I forgave my beloved sister who, also in making decisions to protect her own happiness, had burned to the ground her own relationship—a relationship that I had held onto as a lighthouse of hope in the wake of my own falling apart as proof that true love was possible. If true love like hers was possible, I felt some hope that I might also find it someday. When her marriage ended I was devastated, because I saw it as proof that I would never find a lasting relationship because real and lasting love does not exist. In that moment in the trees I realized that my happiness does not depend on my finding a soulmate, if such a thing even exists. I realized that I am the happiest I have ever been right now, and I am alone!—and my happiness certainly doesn’t depend on the relationship status of my sister, who I adore and wish every joy in the world.

I forgave the friend who had been my buddy during much of the time I was struggling through the former two hurts who, without word or explanation, threw me off in a way that ripped open the wounds that were just starting to scab over. I realized that although I may never understand why he did it, that I was okay now, that I could be grateful for the happiness he brought me in a very dark time, and that I hoped that whatever he is up to now, that he is happy.

Stream

And finally, I forgave myself for my shortcomings and the hell I put other people through during these dark years. I forgave myself for taking so long to get over the other things—for the hell I put my own self through. For being small and bitter and jealous and angry and needy and an imperfect human. I had been furious with people for ruining my life. I needed to see that my life wasn’t ruined, that it was, in fact, better than it otherwise would have been, before I was able to let go and forgive. That was not big of me, but it was human of me, and sometimes we have to forgive ourselves for being humans, not saints. Whatever the path, in the end I had fought through the darkness and clawed my way up from the deep well I had fallen into. I had been brave enough to throw a middle finger to expectations and go on a quest to find where my soul had run off to and to try to heal my heart. I hadn’t done perfect, but I had done good. “It’s okay, Carie,” I thought. “It’s okay now.”

The wind and light wrapped me around me as though the universe was also saying, “It’s okay, Carie, it’s okay now,” and giving me a hug. I stood, feeling if not fully healed at least a whole lot closer. And I felt at peace in my heart for what very well may have been the first time of my 20’s.

The rain started again and the magical huggy wind spirit wasn’t going to take me back to camp, my feet would have to do that, so off I went again. My GPS was acting screwy but I was pretty sure I could find my way back to camp without it. Sure enough, an hour and a half or so later, I laughed out loud when I rounded a corner and almost stepped in my giant, now half-melted turd from the morning (bad pootiquette, I know, but I figured nobody would be around this area until long after the weather had taken care of it, and I didn’t have a trowel on me). I was home!

Home sweet home.

For dinner I cooked a noodle soup and then promptly knocked over the pot and spilled it all over the ground, so I ate dirt-coated noodles picked off the ground and cookies for dinner, enjoying the view for about twenty rain-free minutes before the rain returned. It was a cold night, not only because I had a cold but because it was a cold storm, and I curled up inside my tent bundled up in several layers including a down jacket inside my down sleeping bag and still felt cold. Cold, but content and happy, and whole.


Spoiler video from the trek:

I woke up to patches of snow around my tent, a preview of the weather to come. Continued in Part VI: Bushwhacking North

Navarino Part IV: Refugio Charles and Lago Windhond

Part IV in the story of my 7-day solo trek on Isla Navarino, continued from Part III: Paso de los Dientes and Descent into the Swamp. To start at the beginning or to see the full list of Navarino episodes, click here.

I woke with the sun at 5:40 am (later in the darkness of the woods than out in the open), but despite the window of good weather I let laziness get the best of me, justifying it with feeling a cold coming on and needing the rest to stay healthy, and went back to sleep. I didn’t wake up for another three hours.  I shoveled in a handful of trail mix for breakfast and assessed the water damage. My sleeping bag was dangerously damp and I would need to dry it if I was going to sleep the coming night. My hiking socks all had holes burnt in them from being put too close to the fire the night before. Everything was cold and wet. It was a cold morning. But I wasn’t going to get any warmer staying put, so I braced myself and put on my cold, wet clothes, my cold, wet socks with holes in them, and my cold and still very soggy boots, and packed the rest of my cold, wet things into my cold, wet pack.

View from inside the damp sleeping bag.

I soon had something to cheer me up when I finally picked up a GPS signal and was within 500 meters of where I thought I was, within throwing distance of the official “trail” (which thanks to beavers didn’t actually exist anymore), and very close to the refugio, which I reached after an hour and a half of slogging through more bog (but no more swims, thank God).

More bog to wade through, but I didn't almost drown this time.

I arrived at the refugio—a rough log cabin with a corrugated metal roof—feeling uneasy, having seen boot prints from a group of men again and having in my head the unsettling parting advice of the Carabineros that “if you meet other people while you are out there, say you are not alone, okay?” I really didn’t want to run into a group of strange men out deep in the middle of nowhere. Most people are great and these men were probably nice people, but I just wanted to be alone. So I snuck up on the refugio, listened as I approached, listened at the door, and didn't go in until I was satisfied that nobody was inside. I was much relieved when I found a notebook inside that served as the guestbook and read that three men had just left the refugio the day before—no doubt those were the bootprints I had seen. They had either gone out by the other valley trail to the refugio or we had passed by each other without realizing it. Regardless, I had the place to myself.

The refugio guestbook.

Flipping through the notebook, I was only the fourth “group” to have arrived at the refugio since May, and the only person alone in, it looked like, almost a year. Most of the people there were there to fish, it seemed, and fishing gear was scattered around the refugio. There was a wood stove inside and dry firewood and I set to work building a fire in the stove and hanging my dripping wet things around it. As my stuff dried, I amused myself by collecting wood from the woods around the refugio to replace the dry wood I was using, stoking the fire, sweeping out the refugio, attempting to take as much of my camera apart as I could with the rough Swiss Army Knife tools I had to dry it out. I made lunch, and looked over my maps to plot my next move: How far was it to the bay? I was disappointed that it wasn’t in view from the refugio, having thought it would be.

I wandered off to get water. The nearby river was red with humic material that, having just slogged through the nasty-ass bog it came from, I was reluctant to drink without treating. So I brought out my UV pen to sterilize the water, and of course promptly dropped it right into the river where the protective rubber cap covering the electronic bits popped off and—fried. Shit. So I filled my cooking pot with water and put it on the wood stove to treat it by boiling.

View from the refugio and the red river that killed my water sterilizer.

I lost half a day drying things at the refugio and had underestimated the distance to the bay which was beyond the range of my topographic trail maps. If I wanted to go there versus just turning around at the refugio, it was going to be at least a full day, maybe as long as two and a half days out and back, to get there. Would I have time afterwards to still do the rest of the Dientes circuit as I had planned? There was a chance if I was lucky with weather and a good path and I was fast, but “lucky” with weather seemed very unlikely and having better luck with speed in a place with an off-map place with no trails seemed unlikely. Was I willing to potentially give up on hiking the rest of the Dientes circuit to make it to the bay?

For me, the decision was easy. More time in toothy snowy mountains (which I love, but had already spent a few months doing elsewhere) or go dip my toes in the Antarctic Ocean (I know I’m using that term extremely liberally, but I’m just going to go ahead and call it the Antarctic Ocean because the water is neither Pacific nor Atlantic and is really far damned south)? I didn’t come to the end of the world to not go to the end of the world. Plus the Dientes were wrapped in what looked like a pretty fierce rain cloud and I was not anxious to go right back out and into that again.

So I decided to extend my planned side trip to Lago Windhond into a hike all the way out to Bahia Windhond. I figured it would require an overnight out and back, maybe two if my bad luck with weather and terrain continued. I decided to stash a bunch of stuff (food mostly, and my now-fried chargers) in the refugio to lighten my load. I re-packed and waited for things (especially my sleeping bag, tent, boots, and socks) to dry.

The wood stove in the refugio

And I waited and waited and waited. Meanwhile the weather had gone from cloudy to sun to drizzle to hail to downpour and I was starting to wonder if I’d ever be able to leave and move on, but when the red river water had spent what I deemed long enough at an almost-boil to be safe to drink and my boots had gone from soaked to just damp, the sky cleared briefly. And I was off.

There was no trail—not even a theoretical one now, as I was now venturing off the southern end of my island topographic trail maps. The only paths were periodic little muddy lines that the beavers had left as they shimmied their way out collecting wood around the lake. I mostly followed the shore of Lake Windhond for three and a half hours in a drizzle as the boulders gave way alternately to fine sand, skipping stones, and sharp eroded layered rock to round pebbles, softball-sized pebbles… I wondered what caused the differences since the landscape itself was relatively consistent. Wind direction? The geology of the rocks being washed off the hills to the shore of the lake?

My footprints on the shores of Lago Windhond

The views the entire time were spectacular and despite the misery of the day before and the spitting rain I was very happy and had to stop every once and a while to look around and laugh and grin at how lucky I was to be where I was. When I finally reached the south end of the lake and turned to look back at the Dientes my heart stopped. The light—the sun filtering in beams through the clouds on to the lake and the mountains—was incredible. It was the most beautiful vista I had ever seen.

No photo could truly do the view justice, but this gives you an idea.

After taking some photos with my fingers crossed that I had properly dried the camera out and it wasn’t going to be a foggy mess (which is how it looked in my camera viewfinder) and standing and soaking in the impressiveness of it all for a bit, I hiked the hill that separates Lake Windhond from a smaller bog lake to the south. On the other side of the hill I found a place in a meadow to pitch my tent and was treated to a light show as the sun set over views of Bahia Windhond in the distance and the mountains of the Cape Horn archipelago beyond. It was amazing.

The weather was dry for a change, so I was able to sit outside and watch the sunset while celebrating with a feast: my standard spaghetti but this time with a package of tuna (the luxury!), a packet of pesto seasoning, another cup of runny pumpkin soup in my leftover pasta water, and the special treat: one of the super-dense cookies that Anneke had packed me for this trip before I left Bariloche and that I had hidden in my gear so that I wouldn’t be tempted to eat them before the hike.

Dinner and a show looking west from the south end of Lago Windhond

It was an evening I hope I will never forget. I had the feeling that I had been permitted an early glimpse of heaven, but allowed to stay on Earth to show the photos. I was alone, completely alone, in every direction as far as I could see from the south side of the Dientes to the north to the bay to the south and the last chain of islands beyond that, to the mountains to the west to the hills to the east, almost certainly the only human in all that landscape. I had all that beauty to myself for that night. I felt like the luckiest person on Earth.

I fell asleep at around 11 pm as dusk finally started to settle in to the sound of waterfowl squawking in an amusing sound like a poorly-oiled rotor. At least it was amusing for the first twenty minutes, after which the earplugs went in.

Another Lake Windhond view

And the next day I hiked out to the bay: Navarino Part V: Bahia Windhond, or the day I stood naked at the end of the world