180° South Page #5

I have spent a lot of time in

places I thought were wild,

but I've never seen anything like this.

This is probably the craziest part of

Chile that I've seen so far, I think.

I don't think very many humans have been up here.

I think we can do the all thing on this ridge

and not even touch snow.

- On the ridge to the left of the snow ?

- That we're looking at, yes.

- Moving on snow will be easier than

moving on that loose pebble.

- Yeah, yeah.

I mean safer, essentially. But the problem

is that if you fall on snow, you slip down

- You could die.

- And die.

I know, snow kind of scares me a little bit.

Have you done much on it ?

I've done none !

- Zero ?

- Zero !

Why am I finding this out now ?

I told you this a long time ago !

A long time ago, that was

a long time ago ! I forget.

It's like Makohe has an excuse, she's from Rapa Nui,

it's a really remote island in the middle of the Pacific.

- Your excuse is just ignorance, I guess.

- Yes.

- And that's not an excuse, Jeff !

- But I've told you of my ignorance,

so you're not ignorant of my ignorance.

That doesn't absolve you of it though, dude ! That

only makes me knowledgeable of your ignorance.

What I am saying Jeff, is that this is serious.

We got to camp last night around dark

and woke up at 2 a.m. to push for the summit.

Now, after months,

years really,

I'm finally approaching my goal.

Keith is somewhere below searching

the Corcovado coast for surf.

From up here I see fresh swell on the horizon.

Even if the surf is small, I know

he's finding what he came down here for,

solitude.

Ensuring!

At the edge of the ice field,

my worries have become a reality.

Our delay in Rapa Nui has pushed this climb

deeper into the Southern hemisphere summer.

There's no ice left on the summit

and from here the rock doesn't look solid.

This climb is going to be a lot

more dangerous than we thought.

It looks like we have 10 pitches of really rotten rock.

It looks like all the rocks are just going to fall down.

- It's gonna be a little sketchy, I think

- Yeah!

You know, we got to get the team open.

You guys are the fastest so,

you guys have to just go,

go for it.

I'm happy.

- Are you sure ?

- Yeah !

We rope up and prepared to make our move

from solid ice to crumbling rock.

We are unsafe here at best.

Timmy and I hope the rock will get better as we got higher,

but three hours later, I felt like we were standing on a slanted

roof of a high-rise with nothing but marbles under our boots.

We're only 200 feet from the top,

but we had to face the facts.

I'm not sure if we should continue,

because it seems literally like,

the next pitch above me is the worst

unconsolidated nightmare I've ever seen.

We've climbed about 500 feet of this bullshit,

and the worst is right in front of me.

These loose boulders here, hold

Oh my Lord...

holds this block, which holds this block,

which holds our equipment in the crack.

Oh whoa whoa whoa, rock !

This isn't a good option.

Hey, Jeff!

It doesn't seem like it's worth risking my life,

but we still have to get down.

I've come all this way,

and I've given myself to this trip completely.

I pictured myself on top of Corcovado,

just like those guys I saw through a telescope

in Yosemite Valley when I was a kid.

And now, I'm backing down,

just a couple 100 feet short of the summit.

I wouldn't take back anything

I experienced along the way,

but it's hard to shake it.

Those last 2 pitches that went unclimbed...

When those guys came back they were pretty shot

and pretty discouraged that they couldn't climb it.

Any mountain, at certain times is safe

and at other times it's super dangerous,

we just happened to be here at the wrong time.

Maybe Jeff and Tim are still bothered

by the idea that they couldn't climb it.

So it's kind of like the quest for the Holy Grail,

well, you know, who gives a sh*t what the Holy Grail is ?

It's the quest, it's what's important.

The transformation is within yourself,

that's what's important.

It's been nearly six months since

I left home to climb Corcovado,

but getting shut down

doesn't mean my trip is over.

The biggest project for Conservacion

Patagonica is even further South

and that is also where the dams are to be built,

but the locals are getting more

and more organized in their opposition.

They have created a grass roots

organization called "Sin Represas"

which means:
"Without dams".

We've been seeing their signs and banners everywhere.

I'm humbled by this place

and inspired by its people.

The gauchos work with Doug as park rangers,

and I've asked Yvon if we could spend

our last few days here working with them.

The protest started with 1 gaucho

and the little town of Cochrane.

He heard about the power companies' plan

to build these dams

on the Baker and the Pascua river,

so he decided to go to the capital and demand

the Government to stop this construction.

Word got out as he passed each farm and ranch,

and in just 2 days,

hundreds of riders had joined him.

Four days later,

when they arrived at the steps

of the power company and protest,

they were over 300 riders.

This new park used to be a sheep ranch

but the livestock was removed from this section

so the wild life can come back.

The gauchos have been taking down the old fences

and we volunteered to help them in their work.

When we started,

we had 400 miles of fencing to take down.

That's a lot of fencing.

Now it's down to less than 300 miles.

Hopefully, in a few years that will all come down.

Almost immediately the guanacos and all the other

wild animals come back and take over the territory.

It's a small but satisfying restoration

of the natural order of things.

In a few days, Makohe will head home

to her family in Rapa Nui.

Timmy will head back to Yosemite,

and Keith will head north to live for surf in Canada.

This journey was like going back in time,

like seeing North America before

it became dominated by industry.

But for these people,

it's not some nostalgic trip into the past,

it's their present.

Their hard work and ability to live simply with the land

is proof that we can learn from tradition.

These people have shown me that if you love

a place you have a duty to protect it,

and to love a place, you must know it first.

This is one of the rivers the gauchos

have been trying to protect,

and where one of five dams is supposed to go in.

The plan is to have power flow from here

to big cities hundreds of miles away.

I'm certainly no expert,

but those fallen statues in Rapa Nui

are seared in my memory,

lying face down in the dirt,

it's like they're trying to tell us something.

I left home 6 months ago to follow on

the footsteps of my heroes,

a bit of surfing, some climbing,

lots of unspoiled terrain.

Pretty simple really.

Well, I got all of that,

but along the way, I've also begun to make

connections that I never thought much about.

In these far corners of the world,

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