Last of the Austral Highway

Before I knew what happened six days passed like a watery blur in Cochrane. Wading out to fish the crystal clear Rio Cochrane for rainbows noting the weather shift away from the warm sun of late summer to the cool of early fall. Long coffee and egg mornings ostensibly waiting for the day to warm and clear . . . Matt, Evan, Robin, and I stayed in a cozy hospedeja with a crazy cackling old woman that enjoyed harassing us in the mornings and badgering Evan into sweeping the house. We met three French women walking/hitching from Ushuaia to Quito as part of an environmental study with gear sponsorship from North Face (www.incahuella.com). Cecile, Sara, and Mathilde baked bread in the wood stove oven and made compote from fruit poached from neighbors' trees while we grilled lamb, made fettuccine carbonara for eight, and fried fresh trout and eggs for breakfast. Eventually, I received high compliments for my cooking being labeled "cordon bleu" by Mathilde - I am told it is hard to get the French to compliment your cooking. Pretty comfortable situation spending the nights warming up and drying out in front of one of the wood stoves. Eventually the French and ourselves moved to a campground and it started to rain . . . but we were not deterred from grilling more lamb with two trout bumsfrom Ashville, NC, Asher and Bob. Asher was a fly fishing guide in Montana and started a web based community forum focusing on local agriculture, www.agrowingculture.org while Bob was a mountain biking carpenter trout bum so needless to say we had plenty to discuss.
Consequently, Matt and I had a record breaking late start of 6pm (or later) on Monday to finish out the Austral Highway. In our defense it rained all morning and we were busy drinking fresh coffee with everyone made with an old scavenged t-shirt functioning as filter . . . after 4-5 cups the t-shirt flavor started to fade - still beat the hell out of instant.
The important thing was to overcome inertia and get moving down the road. We camped that night under a clearing sky on top of a rise with a fantastic view of the mountains of the Hielo Norte or Northern ice sheet.
I used our campfire to dry out some beautiful King Boletes I gathered from the side of the road that complimented our chorizo, green peppers, and onions over rice brilliantly.
The morning dawned equally beautiful.
We took advantage of the perfect riding weather to motor out 100+km on much improved dirt roads over the previous stretch. Passing along the Rio Baker through cypress forests and innumerable waterfalls tumbling from glaciated peaks towards the ocean. At times dense stands of Patagonian Cypress arch over the road stretching upwards of 200 feet. Formerly, there were stands of Patagonian Cypress as large as 40 feet in diameter but logging has eliminated most of the giants. But it is wonderful to see such huge trees filling the valley.
We eventually arrive, pleasantly beat, at the community of Caleta Tortel 22km off the Austral on the road constructed in 2003.Caleta Tortel sits on a fjord rimming the bay of the Rio Baker without roads but an elaborate series of wooded walkways constructed from the local cypress that the town was founded in 1955 to exploit. Not the most bike friendly environment of either bog or wooden stairs. We rolled in about dark in a light drizzle and realized that most of the lodging and free camping was on the coast . . . many flights down. But we found cheap lodging with a wood stove to dry out our gear while the lights flickered on/off from an an overstressed grid by the burgeoning community of 500. So we grabbed our head lamps used the family's kitchen while kids ran about and neighbors stopped by.

The morning was wet and we started late to ride over a small pass and drop down to a ferry linking sections of the road at Puerto Yungay.
Traffic was light cows were plentiful.
But we missed the ferry by 20 minutes which in the end was a blessing but with pouring rain we felt less than blessed.
We moved into an old shed own the beach and accelerated the decay of the two abandoned houses flanking our shed to gather some dry wood for a blazing fire. We were not the first cyclists to camp in the old shed as evidenced by the spokes/meat skewers in the fire pit. The dry spot was much appreciated and we bought a jar of fresh salmon for dinner from a kiosko that opened each time the ferry arrived.
I guess we were roughing it but felt pretty deluxe.
We caught the 10 am ferry to Rio Bravo about 45 minutes away - it rained.
Dog is in charge.
The rain prompted us to shoot for Villa O'Higgins 100+km away.
The day was not my most stellar performance on the bike combined with minor but persistent mechanical issues that I stopped beside the road to fix - in the rain.
I was feeling a little demoralized but resigned to grinding out the distance when I stopped at the top of a long climb up the river valley. Then over the ridge two immense condors glided by at eye level riding the thermals close enough to see their faces. At one point they dipped below me so I could look down on their 8-10 foot wingspan. I considered digging out my camera, hidden from the rain, but enjoyed the moment that quickly passed the condors cruising down the river valley without a sound over the wail of the wind.
The hills relented for the last 60km into Villa O'Higgins and the weather cleared as I rode underneath a rainbow spanning the valley giving way to perfect evening light.
Matt, Evan, Robin, and I regrouped at El Mosco Hostel in O'Higgins to take a rest day before catching the second to last ferry of the season off the end of the Austral Highway. As the only guests we cooked on the wood stove, visited with other cyclists discussing the route ahead and recounting past days.