"Wasting Away in El Chaltén", The Song

As the short weather window was coming to a close on Saturday, we knew our friends would all be making their way back into town. Isaac & I had a chill day, a good chunk of which was spent at La Esquina drinking coffee, reading, writing a bit, and just hanging around enjoying the cute coffee shop vibe. I had sent Evan some photos of the Austral parakeets I'd seen up near Laguna Torre (he does awesome water color paintings of birds) -- once he was back in town after climbing up on Fitz Roy & saw the message, he asked if we'd want to come over to The Hem that night for an asado. We had nothing else going on & doing some socializing with the hem crew sounded fun, so we picked up some beer & a bunch of chorizo and bread for the grill and wandered northwards towards their place.

The typical Hem front yard scene was present upon arrival: gear strewn about to dry, familiar & unfamiliar faces hanging around, and someone getting the grill going. We found Evan & Will up in their shared bunk room and all popped outside together to see who else was around. The property at The Hem is a funny sight: tents in the yard, a few trailers for people to stay in, and a couple A-frame cabins all surround the yard on the sides opposite the main hostel building. One of the trailers, which had been being worked on last time we were there, had been transformed into a bar in the days since we'd last stopped by. The guy who built it was working the bar, making drinks & pouring beer for whoever wanted to buy a drink. I saw Mat ordering a beer & gave a wave. He wandered over our way & we all sat down to chat, and for Isaac & I to hear what they'd all gotten up to during this last window (some photos below of the Hem yard on a different day).

Evan & Will had been climbing on Fitz Roy while Mat & Flavie were over on Poincenot, but all of them had bivied at Paso Superior together. It was pretty sweet hearing the tales of their respective routes and about the Paso hanging the following morning. By this point, the grill was ripping & all sorts of meat were getting cooked: chorizo, ribs, blood sausage, and various types of beef & pork. Tuva had joined our little circle, as well as Franzi, and we just hung around drinking Quilmes (cheap beer) as it got dark & meats started rolling off of the grill. The asado norm is that you bring some type of meat and ideally some loaves of pan comin (essentially a baguette) -- as the meat comes off the huge charcoal grill, grab a piece a bread & some meat, along with whatever salsa or other toppings the Hem crew has whipped up that night, and keep doing that as long as more food is coming out. Such a fun way to hang & eat with a group that really feels like it prioritizes the socializing, with eating good food as an epic bonus. I've really enjoyed the few evenings there just chatting & getting to know everyone who's around. People from all over the world who I'd otherwise likely never meet or get to know, like Tuva from Norway who is an absolute CRUSHER. She's hilarious & totally unnassuming, tiny with a blonde bob cut, and has a more impressive climbing resumé than most people around. A cool juxtaposition to the classic macho-man climber many people envision in their heads.

At some point in the evening, Tyler & his crew made it back to the Hem from their outing in the Torres. We heard some about their climbing, but mostly about a different story from their outing: they had found Toni Egger's leg(!) partially buried on the glacier below the Torres and given it a proper burial. Toni Egger was an Austrian climber and mountaineer born in 1926 who is a legend in the climbing world. He had first ascents all over: Peru, Patagonia, the Dolomites, and one of the Torre's (Torre Egger) is even named after him. He famously died in 1959 while attempting the first ascent of Cerro Torre with Cesare Maestri and Cesarino Fava. The store is rife with contradictions and questions, many of which are discussed in the absolutely incredible book "The Tower" by Kelly Cordes. Long story short, Maestri claimed to have summitted Cerro Torre with Egger while Fava had descended. Egger was killed by an avalanche on the descent from the peak, and Maestri made it out alive. With no camera and no partner, his word was all he had to go off of. To this day, there are still debates about whether or not they summitted (seems likely that they did NOT), but Maestri has forever held steady to his claim.

Some of Egger's remains & equipment were found below the peak in the 1970's and again in 2003, but apparently one of his legs had never been properly buried alongside the rest of him. Tyler and his crew were descending in the area where they knew his leg had been seen at some point years prior. They somehow found it and decided to give it a proper bruial high up there in the Torre Valley. The above photo is not theirs, but of the remains found in 1974 -- though from Tyler's description, the leg they'd found matched pretty darn well to the leg in the above photo. Although this is a tangent, I was pretty mind blown by this experience they had up there. Especially since I'd read so much about Maestri, Egger, and the history of Cerro Torre and was well aware of the tragic history surrounding the peak's first ascent.

The very cute chocolate shop down the street from our place

Once we'd had our fill of meat and beer, we wandered home for a good night's sleep. The following day, Sunday, was another pretty casual one. We attempted to go sport climbing at a roadside crag on the north end of town -- I climbed one pitch in absolutely ripping wind & we decided to call it. The route was fun, but the wind made the overall experience pretty unpleasant. Instead, we finally checked out the Waflería and split an order of waffles with homemade whipped cream and raspberries, which was delicious. That night, we watched the movie Eternity and both really enjoyed it (although it left us feeling very emotional as we drifted off to sleep).

I went for a morning run on Monday to move the legs a bit, which I ended up cutting shorter due to the fact that the wind was absolutely horrendous and making it hard to run at all along the river lol. Regardless, it was nice to get out & move. I actually can't remember which day, but one of these days we watched a YouTube documentary called "LISTERS: A Glimpse into Extreme Birdwatching" and it was an unbelievably fun watch. A couple of normal dudes from the midwest with no experience birdwatching attempt to have a Lower 48 "Big Year" to see how many individual species they can find in one calendar year. It's hilarious, unexpected, and honestly pretty educational to guys like us who knew nothing about serious, competetive bird watching. Because of this documentary, we'd downloaded Cornell's Merlin app to identify and log the birds we'd seen on our trip so far (which have been some pretty cool ones!) including the Andean Condor, a few types of massive Caracaras, and more.

We took some naps, had a lot of Kindle reading time, and ate plenty of alfajors and montecol while lazing around to feed our sugar addictions. Isaac had wanted to check out La Lomiteria, a restaurant in the north of town, so around dinner time we braved the light rain & wind and wandered up that way for a steak sandwich (me) and a lamb burger (Isaac). We played some NYT word games while eating dinner & stopped to grab some dessert (cereal and milk) on the way home to eat while we watched La Haine, a french movie about police brutality in the projects/suburbs outside of Paris. It was a wildly interesting and engaging movie & we sat up for a while afterwards chatting about it before settling down to read our books for a while before bed.

It's now Tuesday and I'm hanging at the bigger Lo de Haydee location drinking maté and writing/thinking about the past days. Definitely a bit bummer that the weather is bad & we haven't been able to get back into the mountains, but it's been pretty awesome having this time off of work, away from "normal" life, to just relax and read and get to know this town a bit better. It's small, but it's also full of people from all over the world, cute bakeries and cafés, and wildly beautiful scenery. I've been thinking more and more about how rare it will likely be for the rest of my life to be able to spend a month outside of the U.S. and, although our plans have had to change a bit, I'm incredibly grateful to have this time here.

This trip has also made me REALLY want to find a way to be able to do this more often. Whether that be once a year, or a big trip every few years, there's something about a long trip that is hard to find on a shorter trip. As the weeks have gone by, I've been finding it easier & easier to relax and to enjoy the little things, like a few hours in this coffee shop with nothing to do but write down some thoughts & drink maté. I'm sure I could find a way to fit this into life in Boulder, but it's much harder when every day is filled with 8 hours of work & the "fun" parts of life have to be puzzle-pieced in around those hours. For now, I'm enjoying the freedom to do whatever seems fit with the day. Eating, reading, movies, hanging with Isaac in the kitchen, walking around town, or going for a run. The schedule-less life here is pretty damn enjoyable.