February 2020: Leaving Talca, Maule, Chile toward pass Pehuenche and Argentina. For Matt, this would be a 3500+km return trip before the end of the Chilean spring break and I will hop off at The Ojos Del Salado (Argentina route) and return by hitchhiking and busing.

as with the last post, due to covid and few camera/sd mishaps there are some photos missing from this post

Google maps led us to a parallel road along the highway 40. The first lesson of Jeep-riding is that you can’t simply lift your jeep over a washout.

Day 2, we are covering multiple days of riding in mere hours, met a cyclist along the way to Rodeo. He was pretty loaded and especially on water. We topped him off even though I let him know there is an army post in 20km but I can closely relate to overstocking on food/water like that, my guess was that he ran out recently and is just being more careful.

And out of all the places, we found Jesus at a 2600m pass along the way

Maybe we shouldn’t have joked about finding Jesus, flats are also harder to fix than vehicle than on a bike. In such a remote area, the chances of fixing that flat in town were slim but eventually one almost fit the rim.

The rest of the day took us through the flat, hot and treeless Argentinian countryside though some very interesting rock formations and contrasting colors. Something I would have never seen on my bike in my effort to stay as close to the continental divide as possible on the way down.

Matt surprisingly happy after filling up. The jeep uses a lot of gas

Doing the DJI dance as usual, the mavic air’s compass would just never stay calibrated requiring at least 1-2 sets of 2 spins per boot up plus the usual blowing on the gimbal in order to work.

Waiting for the sun with my new friend, so that he can go back to napping in the shade

We pass by Fiambala and toward Laguna Verde/Balcon de Pissis, the start of Los Seis Miles Sur route.

Matt having a better look at the rugged ridges along the way:

We take the same way up to the numbered mining refugios and the windy cold Puna. The Jeep not only protects from the wind but goes up and down these high altitude roads with ease. On a bike you may not even be able to ride on flat because of the winds (like my time here in January 2019)

We can both definitely feel the altitude and our previous highest camp was 2600m and the rest much lower. We made it to the turquoise blue colors of Laguna Verde

Laguna Verde with backdrop of Mt. Nacimiento (6436) and Volcan Walhter Penck (6173), I will be walking by their bases but on the other side later

Being in the jeep is all the wind protection you can need for cooking or just for not being out in the wind. Matt decides to sleep in the jeep instead of his ultralight tent, good idea. I sleep in a friend’s 4 season tent that I was borrowing for the climb but begin to wonder if I would be able to return the tent as lightly used after 2 weeks at such altitudes and climates.

after a night at 4200m, altitude sickness is no joke and we were both under varying levels of it. We head over to the Monte Pissis base camp and about as far as you can (or should) drive at 4800m.

on the way back we stop and Matt takes out the high altitude/range drone and flies up against the winds that make it hard to walk. The war of the Wind:

On the way back we decide to camp at Laguna Celeste despite the altitude of 4200m.

and it is rare but not impossible, the wind can actually stop!

My Mavic Air’s new battery just died midflight and the drone took a freefall from about 90m. We detour in the morning to overlook Laguna Verde and to possibly get closer to Cerro Del Nacimiento.