Hiking Cerro Guanaco – the windswept ridge and angry peak.

I love to climb mountains. Hiking up through thick forests, into a peat bog and onto the windswept, barren ridge, Cerro Guanaco was a beautiful hike, yet contained many challenges – as most mountains do!

I’ve read a lot about why men climb mountains, about how they love the conquering part, and standing on top of the beast knowing they’ve won, that feeling of achievement and pride in completing the task at hand. Ive thought about what I love most about climbing a mountain, or hiking a trail, and it doesn’t lie in the conquer and sticking my flag in the peak category I guess. It’s more about the journey (corn alert). It’s about pushing yourself past a moment of weakness, lifting your legs until they hurt, and then some more, taking breaks and soaking in all the wilderness that surrounds you, moving from environment to environment, and immersing myself in the wildness around me. It’s the way that when you’re hiking, you feel like you’re getting sucked into this private bubble emitted from the mountain, you’re in a place that is so special and hard to reach that only those who really want it, get it. I’m not sure if any of this makes much sense out loud, but to keep it simple – I like to be in the mountains, where the air is pure and the wind is free, and your heart is always curious to see what’s over the next ridge. I like to get to the top, but it’s the whole being there in the wilderness thing that’s my real reason.

So Cerro Guanaco was to be my last hike in South America, and it was definitely a beauty!

Here are some pictures of the day (though it rained a bit and the wind was so strong at time I thought I’d blow off the mountain, let alone my camera, so I didn’t get as many pictures as I’d hoped).

Some pictures of me dancing on the top like a lunatic:

And to end the day we found feeling back into our fingers as we wrapped them around hot chocolates at the cafe in the Park.