The Evergreen Forest

Día 9: A change of climate, inspirational runners and a lonely horse (50km)

Chapter 2 Live forever in your dreams (3/8)

Komoot GPX Lago Aguirre Cerda to Refugio Río Cisnes

We’re immersed in a new climate zone. One that ushers in rain year round, sustaining the evergreen forest that carpets the lower reaches of every mountain. Through the low flung cloud we catch glimpses of a red band of trees that has surrendered to autumn, forming the central stripe of the flag between deep green below and blinding white snow above, flecked with shards of blue ice.

Perhaps it seems from the outside that this journey is unforgiving. A day on day slog for the wicked. With little luxury to speak of save for the odd hot meal. But such is the way of this stimulation-rich travel format. The views are endless. And although the way can be long, these are not sights to endure but sights to relish.

Inspirational endurance efforts are the fuel for my long distance fire that has burned steadily these past years. Runners and cyclists alike have decimated records, steamed through races and mastered outstanding solo efforts that have captured my imagination and pushed me on.

In the trail running world, Kylian Jornet remains the leading light. His feats of mountain running are downright flabbergasting. Jack Kuenzle’s Bob Graham round in 2022 (66miles, 42 Lake District Peaks, 24 hours). Courtney Dauwalter’s career change from teacher to pro-ultra distance runner hit home particularly hard. She’s just won two of the most famous (and most difficult) American 100 mile races within 3 weeks -Western States and Hardrock. Breaking the men’s record for her combined time. All of this with baggy shorts and, or so she claims, a lack of dietary or training plan. I’ve rewatched Billy Yang’s perfectly executed film about running Hardrock 100 at least five times. It effectively poses the question - what can’t we do if we put our mind to it?

For literary inspiration, McDougall’s Born To Run, Askwith’s Today We Die a Little and the happy go lucky tales of Vassos Alexander served to demystify this world a little further. Each gently encouraging further adventures into the pain cave that bring the reward of treasures not available to those who seek to grab from their armchairs. You have to dig, and who knows what you’ll find. But it’ll be worth it. Anna McNuff certainly found joy in her 3,000km jog along the spine of New Zealand. Backpack and all. She found a little bit of what I hoped to discover right here.

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Back in Western Patagonia, towns are rare. Villa Améngual the only one we pass by today. A veggie pasta feast served with amber and blond beers in a varnished, wooden, ranch style house. Prior to that, a beaming coffee shop owner offered two origin stories behind the upcoming bridge, Piedra del Gato (Cat Stone):

a) the bridge was so difficult to construct that military men hung from a series of suspended ladders and ropes to lay dynamite on the rock face. Dangling like the playthings of a kitten. Several perished in the process and are immortalised by iron crosses thrust into the mountain.

b) the previous road was so narrow that horses had to walk on tiptoes, arching their backs like felines to squeeze through.

You decide the truth.

We set up the tents early to avoid the rain, sharing our lodgings with a morose horse. One who, judging by the amount of caballo poo in his fenced-off field-forest enclosure, had been abandoned for several months. Unlimited food but no-one with which to share it, a heinous torture.

We stayed reading by the riverside, lying beneath hanging boughs to stave off the worst of the showers as the river gushed onwards below. Robert McFarlane’s Mountains of the Mind charging my imagination with tales of early geologists: something I had not previously taken an interest in. I learned that the early 1800s Royal Geological society were perceived as iconoclasts for their earnest theories of a globe millions of years old, a true departure from the teachings of religious institutions of the time. They named themselves the Knights of the Hammer and set about chipping away at our understanding of the natural world.

The words of 16th century Zurich School member Conrad Gesner also made me smile.

‘Men dull in mind find no cause for wonder anywhere; they idly sit at home in instead of going to see what is on view in the great theatre of the world. Therefore I declare that man to be an enemy of nature who does not esteem high mountains worthy of long study.’

The opportunity to learn and the chance to go long distance will always be there in some form. I hope that more people will leap for the joy attained through the toil needed to reach endurance satisfaction. The rewards are enormous.

The horse chewed thoughtfully, contemplating his fate.

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