Walking Home

reveries of an amateur long-distance hiker

In Tasmania Day 3 Junction Creek to Watershed Camp 20 km

January 25th, 2020

In Tasmania Day 3

Junction Creek to Watershed Camp 20 km

Solitude! A full 24 hours and a long walk without seeing a single human (or mammal for that matter). My misanthropy rejoiced; my knees and feet did not. Today was a quintessential bog hike, slogging through shoe sucking ankle deep muck mile after mile. The landscape was magnificent when visible, but it also rained most of the day, so it was no surprise when late in the day I finally encountered people, coming out of the densest of jungles. An Italian couple, the woman leading the way. She asked if I were hiking the trail, then immediately said “It’s not pretty.” She and her partner were clearly exasperated by the conditions and disappointed in their choice. I nodded, wished them well and struggled on. I was to later learn they had left from Huon campground, hiked a few days and turned back. She staying at Huon while her partner did part of the Western Arthurs’s loop. Once I got used to walking a nearly non-existent trail —the path only the faintest of tracings—I just ground it out, setting up tent in the rain and slept like death.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Tasmania Day 2 Huon Campground to Junction Creek

January 25th, 2020

Day 2

Jan 15 Huon Campground to Junction Creek

Becoming reacquainted with real sweat. Today’s trek was short but hot and in the mud. The swamps teem with insects. I sit here writing this in a cloud of huge buzzing flies. They don’t bite, don’t even land much, just buzz around my head. I could get angry and swat at the, ineffectually, or adjust. I’ve decided to just talk to them today. Jay Griffiths In Savage Grace talks of visiting the outback near Alice Springs and discovering these same flies: “They droned with a dull and horrible persistence. They hunched themselves into your nostrils, they swarmed in their hundreds, stupid squadrons of dumb nuisance. The only two things which made them desist were wind and sunset.” She spoke the truth, though I could only confirm over the next days—up on a ridge in the wind, the buzz stops. In the evening, they crowd the tent screen humming so loud they sometimes sound almost like humans talking in the distance, and only sleep when darkness arrives.

I’m reminded of hiker filth— about three days out, you stop feeling sticky, smelly or bothered by insects, it is strangeLy liberating. Tasmania doesn’t have a long-trail, but at least according to the maps, it has some amazing 5-10 day treks out in the bush. Yesterday was mostly organizing food and transport to the trail head and back from the end. The first leg is the Port Davey trail, 40+ miles in the Southwest. Amy at Wilderness Adventures drove me out. Like most Tasmanians I’ve met, she was engaging— a strong concern for the environment and its history. Born in Hobart, she knows the island well, particularly hiking and rafting, but she was also deeply engaged Tasmanian environmental movements, particularly protests of the many dams built in the interior and the clear cutting of old growth forests. The eucalyptus here are fascinating, Seuss-like on the horizon. In particular I want to learn of the Huon Pine—native to this place and currently endangered, it was prime building material with amazing rot resonance. She drove me to the northern trail head of Port Davy which I hope to cross in five days, and at Melaleuca airstrip pick up a resupply box I left at the local small plane airlines to deliver there. There was an old tin mine at Melaleuca and apparently it is an important bird habitat. There I plan to continue on the South Coast trail for another 60 or so miles, following at times the beach back toward Hobart.

Today’s hike was low key— only 7 km across fairly easy terrain. Lots of deep mud holes and blazing hot field crossings but nothing difficult. Had to stop early as the next campsite is a full day’s trek which is just as well. I’m completely out of trekking fitness and still testing my newly replaced knees on uneven terrain. I was happy to arrive at the campsite early afternoon to rest some already sore legs and get my gear organized in a way that suits the trek Anticipating rain and a lot of mud, some difficult stream and river crossings over these next days, but also looking forward to solitude. All of the people I met today are doing an 8 day loop hike of the Western Arthur Range, some steep climbing which is definitely out of my skill set just now. Unlike them, I turn west to follow the river valleys eventually to the coast, and will probably make that part of the trip alone.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Tasmania Day 1

January 14th, 2020

Day 1 Jan 14

Woke to cool overcast skies, stark difference from yesterday’s bright shocking Tasmanian heat—the transition from Seattle weather was abrupt as well. After many visits to Wellington NZ, Hobart has a familiar feel. A harbor stocked with boats—wooden sail and fiberglass glitz—ringed by old trade buildings: stone warehouses near the water now storing tourists and selling fried sea creatures. Monumental stone government/insurance/medical institutions piling up as the land rises from water’s edge. Charming is both a quaint and condescending term, but here it is spot-on. A flat white on water’s edge at the fully-licensed award-winning Harbor Lights Cafe reminds me to start the day and the trek at a walker’s pace. There are preparations to attend, but first comes the slow, due attention demanded by place—Tasmania, another end of the world.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Patagonia Day 44

April 3rd, 2018

In Patagonia Day 44
Valparaiso

Tomorrow ends another extended wander as I begin that long slow passage via bus, plane, and train back to the place my passport calls home. My final, non-airport evening demanded a visit to Altamira, a fine brewpub down the hill from my hostel. Just like my favorite Castro pub, it was not open when advertised, so, not wanting to climb back up all those dogshit covered steps, I drifted down to the square with Neptune’s statue, turning into the Bar Cinzano, one of my best random choices this trip. Established in 1896, the Cinzano is a classic bar, straight out of a Hemingway novel or a Chilean version of The Godfather. Fake wood formica counters with the pattern worn off, a line of wooden stools showing decades of sitting, little attempt at decor, just the slow accretion of objects— posters, boat models, a wall with 2014 World Cup brackets. It is a sports bar in the old-school sense. Not some space crowded with TV screens tuned to multiple games selling watery beer and hot wings to a clientele whose best days were in college and who still use the word “bro” without irony. No, the Cinzano has one, not-so-big screen and I am sure is crowded with long-time patrons and fans on match day.

Many years ago I was in Paris for a conference, staying in a small hotel before the days when the rooms had televisions. It was during the EuroCup, so in the evenings after shedding my fellow conferees, I sought out a place to watch the matches. Across the street was a narrow bar filled with elderly Parisians, clearly their neighborhood spot. Against the wall was an old, big-screen tube television— a little grainy, but definitely fitting the decor. I entered to not particularly inviting stares, found a seat in the corner and quietly drank whatever beer they served (the French version of Budweiser). I sat through every game shown, returning nightly throughout the week, cheering for France and the Netherlands (which was at the time my adopted home). As the nights passed, I was greeted with familiar nods, and, toward the end, the patrons were all cheering for my Orange—Hup Holland! unless of course they were playing France.

Clearly I was an outsider at Cinzano, ordered a Quimera pale ale (Santiago brewery), and watched the regulars pass through, as familiar to each other as the worn counters. If I lived in Valparaiso, this is where I would stop at the end of the day, and definitely is where I’d watch football. So grateful this last little wander gave a glimpse of old Valparaiso.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Patagonia Day 43

April 1st, 2018

In Patagonia Day 43
Valparaiso

In Valparaiso, the first time in a city for six weeks. Wandering Patagonia took me through a litany of fascinating but small towns—Punta Arenas, Puerto Natales, El Calafate, El Chaltén, Castro, Puerto Varas, Pucón. Valparaiso is a true port, touched by the Beagle on its cruise with Darwin and visited by Herman Melville as a young sailor and also the port of origin for his fictionalized account of a slave ship uprising “Benito Cereno.” Today there are acres of concrete piers with multistory cranes casting long shadows over shipping containers stacked 10 high. The main part of the city is on a fairly flat band of land following the coast, looking very much like the earthquake uplifted land banding Wellington. There the high rises, corporate and government buildings, and warehouses fill in blocks relieved by the occasional park, including the imposing memorial in Sotomayor Square in the shadow of the Naval palace. I wandered through some of that area early Saturday morning from the bus, dodging the relics of some serious Good Friday debauchery. The port also accommodates tourists, and on this busy Easter weekend they swell the crowd.

I took the dollar harbor tour on one of the many elderly wooden boats (in some parts the paint was thicker than the wood). Though probably a city safety rule, it is a little disconcerting to see everyone wearing their life jackets before the boat pushes off from the pier. We coasted along the city to a point across the harbor where a decaying concrete dock provides habitat for some well-fed sea lions.

I’m sure they are oblivious to the fate of their ancestors at the hands of 19th century “sealers” like Amasa Delano, the other captain in Melville’s “Cereno” or the many inhabitants up and down the coasts pursuing skins and boiling blubber. Seeing the city from the water — as Ezra Pound would say “not as land looks on a map/ But as sea bord seen by men sailing”—shows how the city is formed and how the people live. Rising up from the lower level are a series of ridges, all covered with houses. Between ridges are deep ravines that effectively divide the city into segments. I walked up from the pier, climbing long steep stairs as the trolley was being repaired—many steep places are serviced by old vertical trolly cars—finding myself one ridge over from where I wanted to be, requiring my climbing to the very top of the high ridge and descending back into my neighborhood. Clearly affluence varies in relation to these different sections.

Superficially, this place that reminds me of Lisbon or Porto. Big fishing towns facing an ocean to the west, built on cliffs and steep hills making interesting levels. But some cultural differences make the comparison complicated. As always I found the best brew pub, and later a good seafood restaurant. The beer was great (including Jamaican Dream IPA which was green, really strange tasting and maybe a real 4/20 beer). And the fish was wonderful, but the staff in both places moved at a frenetic pace. Of course this is a holiday weekend and the city is packed with visitor (primarily from Santiago), and I understand the need for good, quick service, but both places made me nervous, wanting to finish quickly so the jumpy staff could fill the table with the next party. In Portugal, your table is yours—no one will hustle you out the door. The pace of life there is human, not economic. Perhaps I’m being unfair as it was a busy time, and I do love this city, particularly its out-of-kilter structures, sidewalk life, and of course the murals—pure delight.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Patagonia Day 42

March 31st, 2018

In Patagonia Day 42
Valparaiso: La Sebastiana, Pablo Neruda’s house

There were no seashells, there in Neruda’s house. Maps, boats, and bottles, but no shells. Pablo, where did you leave them? And why is there no trace, except a mother-of-pearl inlaid table which I’m sure didn’t come from your beachcombing? They said you thought water tasted best when drunk from green glass, so there is plenty of that, even an oversized bottle of Brut by Fabergé cologne which made me think more of Joe Namath than the words of a great poet. Joe in a full-length fur coat would be out of place next to your jar-shaped fireplace, French carousel horse, or your chair of the clouds. But the words, those you traced in green ink every morning high upstairs in your study were of that same color—distinctive and flavorful. And there in that room is an American from New Jersey —the looming photograph of Walt Whitman containing multitudes even in Chile. William Carlos Williams, another poet from Jersey, old and partially blinded by strokes wandered the beaches of Florida collecting shells thinking of you, straining after the rhythm of the waves perhaps like his friend Wallace Stevens whose Key West apparition “sang beyond the genius of the sea,” striding by the shore, but for him “it was she and not the sea we heard.” Stevens listened to the she/sea with Ramon Fernandez, Williams with Pablo: “the/ language also of Neruda the/ Chilean poet—who collected/ seashells on his/native beaches.” La Sebastiana, your house, echoes still with the sounds of dinners of conger stew, French wine, and politics—that which could never be ignored. But the sea also cannot be ignored, and Williams heard it in your words, trying in his own: “the/ changeless beauty of/ seashells, like the/ sea itself, gave/ [your] lines the variable pitch/ which modern verse requires.” William Carlos Williams, looking to the language of his mother and his own middle name, came to your poetry and in his declining years wrote for you a poetic tribute that, for unforeseen circumstances was not delivered until you too were dying and soon dead.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Patagonia Day 41

March 31st, 2018

In Patagonia Day 41
Pucón—Valparaiso (this one gets a little academic, sorry)

Good Friday in Chile is a Catholic holiday where mass seems to be held on the street with everyone crowding sidewalks and restaurants enjoying food, drink, and sun. What I love most is how all the young children are part of the parade, squealing, laughing and sometimes crying but never for long (the person with the baby stroller franchise is wealthy). Really beautiful day.

Yesterday on top of Villarrica, I could look down and see the lahar paths of recent eruptions—‘64, ‘71, and 2015. What look like tangled river valleys are masses of slowly eroding lava, or tailings of basalt and andesite gravel mixed with ash. Also clearly visible is natural reforestation. Driving out of the park, the roadcut was a textbook crossection marking out the recent eruptions with thin bands of dense rock between thick layers of loose material. From the van, I could see stages of regrowth, mostly nothafagus with some Araucaria interspersed. There were island stands of old growth nothafagus alpina, but most were young, regenerating the forest fast.

A few months ago I attended a panel at an academic conference where some theorists and artists who had been working on animals were engaging in a discussion of plants (fields known these days respectively as Animal Studies and Plant Studies). While each presentation was interesting and intelligent, I kept feeling that something was missing. I think the emerging field of Plant Studies can be viewed as extending the principles of Animal Studies to other forms of life. By re-articulating the historical construction of the human, Animal Studies has figured prominently in scholarly engagement with the idea of the Anthropocene. While Plant Studies can be enrolled in the same effort, it is important to see what else it brings. For Michael Marder “Plant-Thinking starts with the explosion of identity.” While this can be read as another critique of the traditional humanistic subject, Marder is also pointing toward an explosion of individuality. In Animal Studies, the unit of analysis is primarily a semi-bounded biological entity defined at least in part by a central nervous system, but Plant Studies doesn’t focus on the individual. Plants insist on being studied as a complex and tangled relation with biological others (and actually confounding many senses of the word other—e.g, Lichen Studies). One of the talks focused on a planting in a gallery, essentially potted houseplants (which in some ways is monoculture writ large—well, actually in this case, small). While the artist might be commenting on objectification through gallery presentation, the plant itself, isolated from its own co-conspirators, is also being objectified in a traditionally humanistic way—a single entity to be named and counted. One of the other presentations was on large scale drawings of individual plants, a sort of scaling up of 19th century botanical illustrations. Again, while fascinating, this foray into Plant Studies treats them as individual monads, in much the same way that European explorers scoured the globe for specimens to send back to Kew or other repositories. Our treatment of plants as isolated individuals (defined, categorized, counted, and patented) is fertile ground for biopolitical critique.

What I thought about while traveling off the volcano through a regenerating forest were the multiple actors in that scene. The birds and mammals, and a complex tangle of insects, microbes, fungi, and minerals along with a fairly constant rain of ash and chemicals, which with the trees makes up a forest. Plants in the wild are always multiple. I have long admired and read animal studies scholars. In fact I’m friends with many of them and this is very much a straw-man argument, drawing as it does on one non-representative conference panel. But that helps make a distinction which, while not absolute, has a level of stability. What is exciting about Plant Studies is the multiplicity it demands. Regarding semi-closed biological systems such as mammals can point back toward a residual humanism, comparing like with almost-like, while plants require a much more open and fluid mode, what Marder and Irigaray term plant-thinking. Jannice Ray’s classic Ecology of a Cracker Childhood helps bring humans and their detritus directly into that mix, including, in her case, Long-leaf pine, gopher tortoises, red-cockaded woodpeckers, wiregrass, barbed wire, junked cars, snakes, and young playful children. You can’t talk for long about a single tree or plant; instead you have to think the forest.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Patagonia Day 40

March 30th, 2018

In Patagonia Day 40
Pucón—Villarrica—Pucón

Over the years I’ve made innumerable hikes—day hikes, long weekends, or multi-month treks—and used a lot of different equipment, but never have I had to carry a gas mask until today. Pucón is a tourist town, with hot springs and winter skiing, but the main attraction is Villarica, an active volcano looming over the town, almost constantly smoking and occasionally erupting. Also known by its Mapuche name “Rucapillán” which means “spirit’s house,” its elevation is 2860m, so the peak remains snow covered year round. Almost exactly two years ago, I climbed Kilimanjaro which clocks in at 5895m, so a stroll up to Rucapillán’s peak seemed in order. Even though on clear days hundreds of people make the climb, it is anything but a stroll.

Not close to the height of Chimborazo, the volcano that pulled Alexander von Humboldt with such force, or Kilimanjaro for that matter, Villarrica does not require precautions for altitude sickness. Instead, because of its active status, care must be taken on the peak regarding the fumes which contain sulfur dioxide and hydrochloric acid. The climb was rigorous for a couple of reasons. In order to go up, you have to work through a tour company which provides the necessary gear including boots, crampons and ice axes. The first half of the climb is on fairly steep loose scree—basalt and andesite ranging in size from powdery sand to knee-high boulders—and big boots can be clumsy, particularly while using an ice axe as a trekking pole instead of standard height sticks. The last part is up the ice field and requires wearing crampons and following closely the hacked steps of the person in front. The day was perfectly clear—really one of the best days I’ve had on this whole wander—but the report called for higher winds later in the day, so the guides wanted to hustle to the top early and kept a strong pace. The group was small—some Israelis taking their post-military service world tour, some Chileans from Santiago on holiday, and Chloe, an Australian environmental scientist squeezing every last bit of excitement into the remaining hours of her trip. Though I’m in pretty good trekking shape just now, crampon walking uses muscles in a slightly different fashion, so I was hurting near the top.

All discomfort dropped away at the summit as the sky remained clear and the winds held off. From the edge I could see the lines of Andean volcanos stretching both north and south, helping me to understand Humboldt’s attraction to these mountains as he wanted to determine if volcanos were isolated peaks as they seem in Europe or part of a much larger geological system. Standing on top of Villarrica on a clear day shows just how big that system can be. A loud rumbling, banging sound prompted a turn away from the view out to the one in. Villarrica is the model for every child’s science-fair paper mache volcano. A perfect cone rising out of a flat plain with a nearly circular crater at the peak, spewing gas, occasionally showing a lava lake (though not today). Regular bursts of steam and gas came from a vent near the bottom, and once a large cloud of dark heavy material belched up, but most exciting or disturbing was the sound. I suppose Dante could provide some good descriptions but to me, it sounded like there were workmen in the basement taking apart a big furnace, which is guess is sort of what Villarrica is.

As if staring into the maw of hell wasn’t enough for one day, the tour group had another card to play. Descending from the crater’s edge, we gathered at the ice slope, put on heavy pants and coats along with a slick nylon “diaper” and proceeded to slide down the ice slope through tracks like crude bobsled runs. Braking with ice axes, we lost all that hard fought altitude in a matter of minutes, then trekked the last bit down soft, loose volcanic ash. It was a little over the top, but hey, it was a volcano.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Patagonia Day 39

March 29th, 2018

In Patagonia Day 39
Pucón

A rainy day in Pucón. Annie, a woman from Frankfurt I met in Valdivia and then ended with on a bus to the National Park (such meetings between us wanderers is common—I talked a long time to a French couple today who I first met in Puerto Natales) recommended a coffee shop where the owner roasts his own beans. Coffee is a common conversation among wanderers of Patagonia, with everyone initially having assumed that, since much coffee is grown in the region, it would be delicious. Generally speaking it’s not. Often instant Nescafé or, if drip, it has an almost indescribably bad flavor. Clearly (for those who have been following my travels) I have found wonderful places for a cup, but they remain the exception. All Annie could recall was that the cafe was near a Subway—yes there are Subways here but they have trouble competing with the little stalls selling empanadas, and the restaurants selling sandwich “completos” (more on those in a bit). Pucón is not large so Google Earth landed me at a Subway in a Chilean version of a strip mall, and there was the Madd Goat. Turns out it is run by an American from Minnesota who went to Colorado College, found himself spending a lot of time in Chile and got tired of bringing coffee in from the States. Taking matters into his own hands, he and his wife bought a roaster and now make some of the best coffee in Patagonia. What I found unusual though was how this shop magically attracted Americans (probably in lonely planet or something), the first that I have encountered. To be honest, I’ve met very few Americans on this trip—the dominant non-Patagonian people are German, but I shouldn’t label them all visitors as there is a very large proportion of the population of Chile and Argentina from Germany (dating back to the 19th century) and in places they maintain their language and culture. There are German schools in Puerto Varas for example. So I ordered a cafe con leche, settled in working on some abstracts and listening to the rain, only to find myself listening instead to some whitewater instructors from the NOC in North Carolina at the next table. Other Americans drifted through and some English speakers from the UK and Australia. It was disconcerting to sit in a place where I understood the neighboring conversations, reminding me how much I enjoy the hum and buzz of a coffee shop where I have no idea what is being discussed.

Of course all countries have slightly different ways of doing things. In good cafes in Chile, the coffee comes with a small cookie (like so many other places in the world) but they will sometimes include a shot glass of cold, sparkling water. I wish other places would catch on to this, as it is refreshing, though I remain unsure when to drink it—first while it is still cold, or after as a palate cleanser, or in sips in between? I need more empirical research to answer that question. An other thing they do here (which makes Subway’s business difficult) is serve sandwiches or hot dogs “completo ”. Now, just to be sure, even with a strong German heritage, the hot dogs are not brats, but instead are those gray centered, bright red casinged, artificially colored tubes just like those sold by Ignatius J. Reilly in John Kennedy Toole’s masterpiece Confederacy of Dunces. Whether dog or sandwich, “completo” includes a number of sauces, chopped tomatoes (and they are great tomatoes), chopped onions, sliced avocado, and god knows what else. There is more material than could fit into any bun, roll, or bread, and it is then held together with a mass of mayonnaise layered on in exactly the way a bricklayer butters a brick. The result is physically almost impossible to eat, and those wonderful individual ingredients tend to loose a lot in their “completion.” You may ask about hamburgers and the answer is the same. A region known for amazing beef (and the Parilla restaurants with their burning logs stacked in a grid between two large flat grills, providing coals and all ranges of temperature for grilling which rewards the carnivore) decides for some reason to bury that meat in layers of “completo” such that it cannot be eaten as a sandwich and the burger itself cannot be tasted. (I’m looking forward to a Littles burger basket on my return to Atlanta).

It is the flavors in isolation and reticence that the Puconians excel. The aforementioned grilled meats are served with little embellishment, and on the streets you find fruit, vegetables, nuts, fresh farm cheese, simple uncluttered empanadas and sopaipilla. This region, blessed with fertile soil from all those active volcanos, is one of the country’s largest producers of vegetables as well as beef and dairy. It is there, on the street, where the people live and eat. One place where that all comes together is the delivery system for the many restaurants. Instead of trucks from corporate food distribution systems, the restaurants take delivery from people pushing grocery carts piled with the food you find in the street stalls. So even in the upscale joints, you can get a taste of the local produce, and you can taste it if you avoid ordering a “completo.”

T. Hugh Crawford

In Patagonia Day 38

March 28th, 2018

In Patagonia Day 38
Pucon—Huerquehue National Park—Pucon

Some years ago I spent a year living with my family in Maastricht, Netherlands. While walking Umbro the dog around the neighborhood, I always stopped to puzzle over a tree that was strange to me—contorted branches covered with thick green scaly leaves. On the one hand, it resembled a really bad artificial Christmas tree, but on the other, it was a truly fascinating plant. My neighbor called it a Monkey Puzzle Tree. From then until now, I always assumed it was an interesting if odd ornamental landscape tree. Today I learned different.

I caught the early bus out of Pucon to the Huerquehue National Park, one of the oldest such parks in Chile. My plan was to hike a fairly short but still rigorous trail up out of the valley to a series of high Andean lakes, and return. In hindsight, I should have planned to camp there, but I was to meet back up with my German geographer friends in Pucon that night, so my trekking speed was determined by the return bus departure time. Even though my pace remained constant, time itself slowed considerably. I was walking primarily to see high lakes and granite upthrust, but I soon found myself in an ancient forest. There were the by now familiar Nothafagus Alpina, but they were growing on a scale I had not encountered. Indeed, I probably wouldn’t have recognized them except the path, just as in New Zealand and southern Patagonia, was layered in that carpet of dry brown leaves so perfect for old knees. The higher I climbed Alerce started to mix in. Not a tree I recall ever seeing, the Alerce looks a lot like a sequoia—huge tall trunks, limbless until the tops which are green with short thick needles. The steepness of the terrain and the mix of large trees made it difficult to separate out an individual tree for contemplation. It was even hard to connect visually the base of any given tree with its crown, so none stood out as the perfect isolated specimen. Instead I was invited to see them all as part of an incredibly diverse and complex forest, which by the way, is how we probably should regard trees. I appreciate the notion of individual “Champion” trees—most states or cities in the U.S. keep a register—but to know trees is to see them as forest.

Which brings me back to that isolated Dutch Monkey Puzzle tree. On gaining the plateau with the high lakes, I entered an area with a concentration of Araucaria araucana (Monkey Puzzle) in their actual habitat. Here the trees are not strangers in a strange land, but instead have long made their home. Not garden specimens, this ancient forest contains trees well over 1000 years of age with trunk diameters of 5 feet or more. At one point the trail went through a recently fallen trunk that had been cut through to enable passage. Its diameter was easily greater than three feet. The living trunks can be distinguished from Lenga and Alerce by an almost rectangular bark pattern with a grey-green moss growing in the interstices highlighting the shape. Of course a glance up gives glimpse of the distinctive branch/leaf pattern, but even then, they are clearly part of a forest, albeit a forest of giants.

T. Hugh Crawford