By: T.C. Worley
This morning as I awoke from a hard sleep, I stepped from my tent home next to a rushing creek, stretched arms wide and squinted into the sun. Another perfect day for a race in Patagonia! I could see several teams in the transition area, preparing to climb out of the valley and towards a booming waterfall 200 meters (more than 600 ft) above the valley. After a breakfast of powdered coffee and the whitest bread I’ve ever seen—a Chilean norm, I quickly packed my gear, assembled a group of people to hike with and headed for the waterfall. It would be almost 3 hours before we bushwhacked, clawed and squirmed our way to the top.
From the top, the view was absolutely—no, seriously, absolutely breathtaking! My hiking partners and I passed time by soaking-in and photographing jaw-dropping scenery for the entire afternoon. Five hours would pass before we would see a team. Just before leaving (in hopes of making it down before dark) I yelled down the hill to see if anyone was coming up. I heard a voice I recognized answer back—amazingly, I had found Team Gear Junkie! We trekked together for a bit, passing through an area of more dead and twisted trees. Spirits were good, jokes and jabs were plentiful. And like other teams I have spoken to, they were every bit as blown away by the beauty of the place as I was, despite the fatigue of over 36 hours of racing.
We hiked off the hill by headlamp and returned to camp just in time to make it to a barbeque. A local land owner had kindly cooked a lamb over an open fire. He carved me a chunk and someone handed me a plastic cup full of delicious, red, Chilean wine. This day lands squarely in my top five best days ever. As I headed to bed around midnight, several more teams trudged into the checkpoint, trail-worn and hungry. They tented for a few short hours of sleep before heading up the hill to pursue the previous teams.
