Cerro Provincia

Only a few days ago we blogged on the subject of how to work out your dog. Of course we also like the good old loooooong walk. Here is the story of the one we did last Sunday, which took us to the summit of Cerro Provincia.

Those of you who have been here before may remember that we enjoyed 'climbing' Manquehue and Alto del Naranjo over the last few months, which are amongst the closest hills from our house. Of course there are plenty more and with the advance of summer the higher peaks are becoming more and more tempting.

The three of us left the house at 8 o'clock in the morning and after a 20min taxi ride we found ourselves at the start of the trail. The first part follows the route we took on our last outing to Alto del Naranjo, climbing about 850 or so vertical metres over the course of 2 hours and a bit.

This time our progress wasn't hindered by the snowy and muddy conditions we found in August. In the contrary, the sun was baking us and it was clear that water had become a precious commodity around here. Good thing we got going reasonably early in the morning.

Continuing on from Alto del Narajo, the path levels out a bit for a kilometre or two and provides some good views of Cerro el Plomo, the tallest mountain one can see from Santiago.

Despite it's 5300m it still a fairly smallish mountain considering that we are a mere 100km from Aconcagua and a few other 6000+m peaks. Having said that, none of these can be seen from the city as they are hidden behind the lower, closer hills and ridges immediatelyh to the East of Santiago.

After this the path steepened again, and it became clear fairly soon that we weren't going to make it to the top by lunch time. So we lightened our packs underneath a lonely tree we found close to the path by tucking into the bread, almond butter, strawberries, carrots and home-made vegan muffins we had brought along.

Onwards and upwards, after 6 hours of walking (including our little break) we made it to the top (ca. 2720m above sea level) around half past two in the afternoon. Spirits were high despite a few blisters bugging some of us, but our water supplies were beginning to run out now.

The way down turned a bit into a dilemma between i) find some water, get out of sun and avoid heat stroke and ii) knee pain slowing down the descent. But we found out that blisters and knee pain have a common work-around: walking up the mountain backwards reduces blister pain, walking down the mountain backwards reduces knee pain. Not sure if there is a category for this in the Guiness Book of Records but some of us ended up walking quite a lot backwards that day (o:

Mario did really well, although during the hottest phase of the descent he sometimes looked at us from underneath some rock, shrub or other source of shade with a face that clearly said "... why can't we just stay here for a bit?!" For a short while this resulted in below arrangement, but not for long as the subject carrying those 12kg of extra weight was overheating as much as him...

Anyway, we made if home safe and sound, after 11 hours on our feet. All three of us were sore the next day(s), to an extent that we struggled to convince Mario to go for a more than a short stroll around the block with us on Monday.

Dog tired and calm - mission accomplished!