Five Months in Patagonia

A couple of nice Fish

daleratliff — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:03:49 +0000

Had a beautiful float on the Rio Simpson the other day that included these two beautiful browns as the highlights.

And while Rex’s fish may have taped a little longer than mine, I showed how we get it done in the Roaring Fork Valley two fish at a time.

El Condor Pasa

daleratliff — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:49:08 +0000

Had a couple of killer condor encounters recently and thought I’d share.

The first happened on a recent excursion to the Argentine border east of our lodge. Though the trip as a whole was ultimately unsuccessful, not far from the border, somewhere in the middle of a giant sheep estancia, I happened upon two condors soaring not very far overhead. They were more or less as low as condors get, so I stopped and took a couple of pictures and just basically checked them out for a little while.

After about five minutes back in the truck, I crested a small hill and watched about twenty caranchos (eagle type birds) and two condors flush out of the fied right off the road. Sheep estancias are big draws for condors due to their propensity towards having dead sheep, but it is still pretty rare to get the chance to actually see one up close and on the ground. This pair flushed right in front of me, but not wanting to leave their food, landed again only a little ways out. I was able to hang and watch them for a bit and get a couple of photos as they bounced around the field.

Then, just yesterday, Rex and Tonio, and I had the opportunity to visit a large estancia outside of Coyhaique that is known to have some phenomenal condor viewing. The best condor viewing is at day break and it didn’t work out that we were able to camp out there. So, we headed up in the afternoon just to check the place out.

We hung out amongst the pastoral ranch houses as we waited for the owner.

Then, we drove way out into the estancia and hiked out onto these cliffs that over look an area called the Valley othe Moon. It looks a little like North Dakota.

Like I said, daybreak is kind of the best time to be there if you want a chance at seeing the condors actually hanging out in the cliffs but we were still treated to a group of five or so that circled not far overhead for quite awhile. It was mellow. We just lounged on the rocks and watched the condors fly.

chao.

La semana de Los Frances part Deux

daleratliff — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:42:51 +0000

On February 13th, our crazy and fun-loving French friends invaded the Inn of the Brown Trout for another season of Patagonian adventure, this time for nine days. Out of the group of six, four were part of the original group and two were new faces. They arrived the first night, duty-free bags in tow, and as dinner stretched late fueled by wine, conversation, and excitement, I knew we were in for a good week.

As I reported before, the El Nino has been wreaking havoc on the Patagonian Coast and one low pressure after another has lined up to deliver us rain, clouds, wind, and even some snow. But our French brethren brought the sun and we were able to show them a killer week.

Here are some highlights.

One of many bluebird floats on the upper river. Where the sun, bugs, and calm created some of the best dry fly of the season.

And allowed us to go on a killer overnight float to our beautiful camp, right next the best evening dry fly stretch on the river.

photo: Rex Bryngelson

On the way to the upper river there is an overlook, at which we always stop and take pictures. Here are some of the crew checking it out on a beautiful morning.

photo: Rex Bryngelson

While on the upper river there is a big rock formation that we call the Moi, due to its likeness to the famous statues of Easter Island. Since the weather was crazy and the fishing was good, all floats past the Moi seemed extra beautiful this week and he loomed over the trip like a mascot.

photo: Rex Bryngelson

Gerard was the unofficial spiritual leader of the group. So, here he is finding his peace on in front of the spiritual leader of the Cisnes.

Due to the high water this year, we haven’t been able to do the float on our lower river. It is a phenomenal float with some truly unbelievable scenery. With the dry weather that accompanied the Frenchmen we were able to get after it.

photo: Rex Bryngelson

The only issues with the float, however, are the takeout

and the shuttle.

On the last day we took a crew of the guys up to a lake that we don’t get to fish that often. It was a great treat for all and was super beautiful.

photo: Rex Bryngelson

There was a minor mistake involving a changed lock on the gate while we were still fishing. Not really out of the ordinary for Patagonia and it ended up costing us only about twenty minutes and we were able to check out this sweet sunset.

Oh yeah. We also caught some nice fish.

Chao.

Chilean Chrome

daleratliff — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:28:37 +0000

Unfortunately this fish was not fly caught, but it was chrome. And soon after it was dinner, and it was delicious.

Chao.

Happy Gaucho New Year

daleratliff — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:06:05 +0000

Feliz Ano Nuevo. I know it is a bit delayed, but I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Antonio and I spent ours out at the campo where Heraldo, the Ranch’s caretaker, invited us over for some oven cooked lamb.

Happy 2010.

Chile 09-10

daleratliff — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 22:48:57 +0000

Hola all, sorry for the delay in the first blog post of the season but I have been pretty much shacked up out at the campo since arriving this winter and have done only very limited stints in Coyhaique thus far.

Summer 09-10 in Southern Chile is off to a good start though. Clients have been a little light, but we have had a few and they have all been wonderful. The first client of the season, Chad, came down solo and arrived only a few days after my own arrival. The weather was absolutely phenomenal while Chad was here and we had a great week.

We took him on an overnight float on the upper river.

And we took him up to Rex’s Lake, where I was able to see my old buddy Jose for the first time this season. Making fun of me still seems to be one of his favorite past times and it is even a little exacerbated this year due to the fact that Antonio, the new guide, speaks fluent Spanish. Which just seems to make my overall gringoness even more apparent.

We ended Chad’s week with a trip down to the coast. The drive down there was as beautiful as I remembered it and while there we enjoyed by far the best weather that I have experienced in that area.

The fishing was not super hot but the weather let us run out a little further into the actual ocean and the beginning of the fjords. We had lunch on our own little private island and enjoyed the views of this sweet waterfall/glacier combo.

After Chad left we entertained four guys from Brazil for two days. They operate a fishing magazine there and were on a government sponsored trip to write an article on the trout fishing in this region. In other words, they are good at talking and scammed a free two week trip down to Southern Chile, hats off gentlemen. And while they were super nice and fun, they brought the rain, which has not really stopped since they left.

Apparently, this is an El Nino year and we are all now grappling with the fact that it may rain for the next four months straight. I, however, don’t mind. I need a little break from the sun, the rivers are chock full of water, there is still plenty of snow in the high country, and the fish seem to like it.

Starting tomorrow I am back out at the lodge until sometime in February, so here are a few more pics just to remind you what it is all about down here.

Chao.

south on the carretera

daleratliff — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 23:41:36 +0000

Just got back from an eleven day road trip from Coyhaique to Villa O’Higgins. O’Higgins is the last town on the Carretera Austral, Chile’s Southern Highway. The actual end of the road. Here’s the report.

The client who went with us is named Bob. He is a good man from Kentucky. We met Bob at the airport on the afternoon of April 26th and began our journey.

We we were not on the road more than an hour or so when we ran into this guy. He is a huemul. One of only two types of native deer in Chile. They are beautiful, elusive, and notoriously rare to see. Things were off to a good start.

A little further down the road we stopped by the town of Cerro Castillo to eat lunch. There is a sweet bus there where they cook up delicious greasy sandwiches.

It kind of felt like being at home.

We camped close to Cerro Castillo that night, woke up in the pouring rain, and started driving. Stopped by the Rio Baker to take a look. It is the largest river that flows into the southern Pacific. It is huge and beautiful and the blue green glacial colored water is like nothing I have ever seen. We would be back.

News Flash. The man is currently trying to build some giant concrete walls that would turn this canyon, amongst others, into a lake. Then they are going to build giant metal towers and string them together with really big electrical wires and line them up through the most beautiful parts of the country all the way to Santiago and the copper mines of the north. Existe Alternitivas.

This guy basically just ruled and had a long trip in front of him, and we had a mate going, so we shared.

The next day it started raining again. Only a little harder. We were headed from Cochrane to Puerto Yungay, where you catch a ferry across a little chunk of ocean in order to meet up with the last stretch of the carretera down to Villa O´Higgins. Cochrane is the closest town to Yungay and is about a three hour drive away. We went to the tourism office the night before to get the ferry schedule. As it turned out, we got some kind of bad info about the ferry schedule. I mean, it had only been changed for a week or so, so you can’t really expect news to travel that fast.

Only three people live in Yungay. They work for the military. We got to hang out with them for a few hours.

It wasn’t all bad.

We caught the ferry and made it to the last stretch of the road.

It didn’t take long to run into another one of these guys. Did I mention that they’re rare?

The road to Villa O’Higgins was literally one of the coolest stretches of road I have ever been on in my life. Had to stop at a small landslide not far from town.

It gave us a chance to check out the condor above our head.

Villa O’Higgins is a small little town at the end of the road, so to speak. Often times there is no gas and you don’t really want to plan on having to make any phone calls.

But it is extremely beautiful.

And the people that live in town and in the surrounding area are very cool and very nice.

Not to mention, nearby waters have dense populations of big slabby brown trout. We chose to spend our time there sticking hooks in them.

This place will forever be deemed laguna el slabo. Not to be confused with the original lago el slabo.

Even I caught one. (photo: Rex Bryngelson)

And here’s a few more just for good measure.

Well, I kind of alluded to the fact that often times Villa O’Higgins has no gas. And by often times, I meant pretty much every week. The problem is, you kind of use all your gas getting there. So, long story short, we got our boy Alfonso on the scene and he scored us 20 litres of some black market bensina which, combined with the rest of the two cycle mix we had for the boat, was enough to get us out of town and up to Cochrane.

But first, we were forced to make an impromptu diversion to fish and camp at a little lago we had heard about.

The boys both caught super piggy rainbows.

I was just happy to boat this little brown trout. (photo: Rex Bryngelson)

Our camping diversion made it possible to skip spending a night in Cochrane, and instead we just grabbed gas and headed up to the Baker.

The float on the Baker was quite cool. It was cold and the fishing wasn’t phenomenal by any stretch. But, as I mentioned earlier, it is the largest river to flow into the south Pacific, it is beautiful, and floating it was one of the highlights of my river career thus far. And even though my time on rivers has not been long, I guarantee I will always be grateful for having pushed some oars around on this river.

There is a place where the Rio Baker meets the Rio Nef, it is called La Confluencia. There is a big beautiful rapid there. After our float we went to check it out up close.

La Confluencia is not very close to anything. Seriously, it is in the middle of nowhere. There is a ranch there that is very peaceful and beautiful. The woman who caretakes it is a friend of Rex’s. She is from Carbondale. The other employee who was there is a chileno. He worked the top shack on High Alpine two seasons ago. He wants to be a ski patroller. I told him everyone that works at Snowmass is a jerk.

The day after the Baker float. We packed up the truck and started north once more. Camped one more night on the way, took in some scenery, rolled into Coyhaique, and called it good.

Fue un buen viaje.

Chao.

New Blog Site

daleratliff — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:53:33 +0000

Thanks for visiting the new blog. I moved it over here to wordpress because they make it easier to work with photos. I haven’t revised many of the old posts yet, just the gaucho post, but I will be going through and updating some of the old pictures when I have time.

Dale

the last month or so

daleratliff — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:40:38 +0000

A Brief Photo Recap of the Last Month or so down here.

It was beautiful. As always.

There was a ground level rainbow.

and cool bugs.

A rain storm that lasted for three straight days and nights.

Homebrew.

And of course, fish.

photo: Rex Bryngelson

Gaucho Steeze

daleratliff — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:33:00 +0000

The Cisnes River valley, where I work, is ranching country. That means there are cowboys. The cowboys down here are called gauchos. The gaucho lifestyle and culture is actually Argentinean at its root. However, since the first settlers in this area came from the East instead of the North, and Chilean Patagones in general feel more connected with the rest of Patagonia than with Northern Chile, the cowboys here are gauchos.

In the remote parts of this region of Patagonia, like the Cisnes Valley, the gaucho culture and way of life is still very much intact. These guys are cowboys. Some are caretakers of larger ranches, some have their own little campos, and pretty much all of them do freelance work. In the spring and in the fall they run cattle drives up to and then from remote grazing areas in the mountains. They live very simply. They don’t own cars, and some don’t even know their own age.

Though I still have a lot to learn about the history and culture of the gauchos in the area, I enjoy the aesthetic feeling their presence brings to my daily life at the lodge. They are a unique and interesting culture of people living a lifestyle that is largely non-existent in the United States anymore.

Here are some photos of the gauchos of the Cisnes Valley.