La Campana

Sitting on the rocky mountain peak, 1,900 meters above sea level, with the fog bellow me flowing and rising like a river into the sky, I could see the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific ocean to the west between the billows of clouds. The hike up took about four and a half hours, but the sensation of complete solitude and acomplishment made it so worth the while. As I lay on the rocky ledge above the cliff I felt like my belly was one with the rock, completely united with nature. This was the high point of my backpacking trip this weekend.

On Friday five friends and I rode the metro train to the end of the route for an hour, and from Limache took a bus to the La Campana wilderness area, then hiked in for about 45 minutes to set up camp in near darkness. The fog was so thick I could hardly see five feet in front of me with a flashlight and the forest felt like a scene from a horror movie. I took about an hour to get the fire lit because the everything was wet. Despite the weather, the six of us, Laurel, Kyle, Shawn, Daren, and Keith stood around the campfire and had a great time telling stories, and singing songs.

Saturday we woke up with the crack of dawn to start off on our 8 hour round trip hike. Right at the get go, Keith slipped on a rock, hrt his knee and had to turn back. The path was nearly vertical the whole way, at first a muddy trail which turned into a rocky path, and eventually near the top, Daren and Shawn split off to rock climb the cliff face and the rest of us followed the markings on the "path" up an hour and a half of climbing boulders to the peak.

Half way through the hike we came to a plack comemorating Charles Darwin~s treck along the exact same trail and we saw hundreds of distinct species of wild flowers, plants, vines, and trees. Animals were sparse however. I only saw two birds, one fox, one huge tarantula (lots of webs larger than a human chest), a small harmless looking snake and a couple boney cows.

We only spent about an hour at the top before we had to start hiking back down, but by then the fog had nearly all evaporated into the sky right before our very eyes and the views were spectacular of the jagged mountains rolling with vegitation, the city of Olmue, the coast... Finally made it back only about a half hour before dark. I took a quick skinny dip by myself in the cold river to clean off, then after building a fire much more easily than the night before, we all toasted to an amazing hike and an amazing group of people.

I woke up first in the morning to the same thick fogg and light rain drops on my tent (which I scored for forteen dollars)and the birds singing and laid with my door open, enjoying the nature, reading, writing untill everyone else woke up and we took another hike up the bouldery creek. Didnt see any wildlife, but saw some humoungous spider webs, swung on vines like monkeys, climbed some trees, and all the vegitation was so fresh and green from the moisture.

Packed up the camp, went for lunch and a milkshake in Olmue, then parted ways, the boys went for another night of camping, but Laurel and I had to come back for school tomorrow.

What an amazing and beautiful experience. Makes me realize how beautiful and diverse the Idaho landscape is. The whole time at La Campana I was just wishing for a hotspring, which is pretty much the point of hiking in Idaho. Cant wait to see the rainforest and South America then make it back to Idaho in time for my third spring time in a row and more camping!