Does a Butt-kicking 6000 Feet Get Me Into the Mile High Club?

In an effort to seek out some aspects of Minnesota life, a few friends and I decided to go camping this last weekend. We’d heard of a National Park about an hour east called La Campana and decided to give it a shot. Assembling the troops was a task on its own as what started out as three of us turned into nine overnight, without anyone truly knowing what to bring or to expect. But I felt we were decently prepared after having purchased necessary camping gear such as 4 boxes of cookies, 3 kilos of clementines, 2 pounds of hotdogs, and bottle of whiskey that cost more than the tent. And besides sounding like a verse in 12 days of Christmas, this list surprisingly sufficed.

We hopped on the metro out of town, graced by troubadours who should probably be recognized more than they are. After a half hour or so we caught a bus from Limanche to the small town of Olmue, all the while having this adorable little Chilean girl show off her English skills by counting to ten. We then waved the little girl goodbye and trekked to the campground. As I was drenched in sweat before the mile hike was over (it was uphill and I was wearing a pack, okay!), I knew this whole mountain adventure was about to kick some serious jota booty.

At the park entrance we were stopped and told there were no more sites available, but that we could wait for one to open up. We waited with another group of gringos who we found went to a university in Viña’s neighboring town, Valparaíso. One campsite opened up, and the four of them generously shared their space for the night. We stood the whole night, as there was nothing to sit on, an unfortunate happenstance which I took to be a cruel trick on the part of the park rangers in order to tire our legs before the hike even began. So, after a weenie roast dinner over the fire we decided to hit the hay. But not before discovering that three guys from our group brought a tent bag that did not in fact contain a tent, simply the rain fly, and we ended up squeezing five guys into our humble 6x6 abode.

We broke it out of camp at 9:30 to begin the hike. The beginning wasn’t terribly exhausting, and we made it to the halfway point—some old mines—in a couple of hours.

But the mountain showed its teeth soon enough, and we were mostly crawling rather than walking the last hour or two over angles of loose rock that one would be crazy to call an established path. We reached the top in less than four hours, but my heartbeat pounding through my eardrums let me know that I wasn’t in the physical shape I once was.

We also saw a bull

The second half of the path: sure footing and safety

When one normally has a good view, it’s usually only when looking in a particular direction. Rarely do we have the chance to be above everything and be able to turn in a complete circle and examine everything below for miles. It was in this collective moment of awe that I noticed a palpable silence come over the group. This was then replaced by a noisy call for some lunch, and we proceeded to throw ourselves over the rocks strewn about the peak and feast.

View of the Andes mountains to the east

View from the top looking down at the town of Olmue

Ecstatic and energetic me

Scaling La Campana back down proved to be harder than climbing it, as every knee in the group was being tested. Since I had a knee that had been held back a few grades, that test was hard. I had a welcome walking stick on the ascent to reduce the stress on my old man joints, but offered it to a fellow gringo who had somehow injured his knee to the point where he could barely bend it. What made the descent even more unbearable was that our crew mainly talked about the different kinds of food we were going to eat when we get home to the states including Buffalo Wild Wings, Chipotle, popcorn, and everyone’s favorite home meal.

All in all, I’m fairly certain my attitude that day spanned the full breadth of possible human emotion and it became much more of an accomplishment than I previously thought it would be. That being said, for how long it took and arduous an ordeal it turned out to be, that long day already feels like it happened months ago. Like most of my dwindling adventures in Chile, the reminders are fading. Some, like pictures, can stay forever, while there are others I hope would fade faster like the seeming inability to move my legs