November 1, 2016
Tue 1st Nov: near Lago Wintter to near Rio Pico
It is hard to imagine the anxiety someone would go through out here if they were unable to move and knowing they're going to freeze to death.
I will say more later, but first...
There were a billion stars in the sky last night; bright stars and huge white clusters beyond. I couldn't stay though looking up at the sky as there was a sharp frost in the air, and I returned to the tent quickly, into the warm sleeping bag.
This morning in that warm sleep-bag, I wasn't moving until the sun shone its warmth upon the tent. The first thing I'd to do was to collect a bottle of water from the icy river. The sky may have been cloudless and the sun now well up, but there's an icy cold wind straight off the snowfield visible between grey rocky peaks that rise beyond the forest around my campsite.
I spend the usual half hour daydreaming ritual over morning coffee, snug in the sleeping bag. Eventually taking down the tent and packing all on the bike and set off at half nine. I think, oh no, its going to be another horrible day like yesterday-evening; not being able to see further than a hundred metres ahead, as the road continues uphill to a level horizon. Then cresting the rise, I see the road dip a little before another rise: the small stones scattered everywhere road-surface, like riding on ballbearings.
It must be well over two-thousand metres altitude here. The snowy mountain peaks beyond aren't much highter. Further, I crest what is the final rise and the view opens up ahead; dwarf forest spreads off to the cordilera. But the view is cut in half by a great body of water, aquamarine of Lago Wintter; though still ten or more kilometres ahead.
There's an awful lot more traffic on the road this morning; pickup trucks which float over the loose stones. When I reach Lago Wintter, I find out why: there are forty or more pickup trucks parked on the lakeshore. There is a marquee tent and lots of small tents by the nearby river flowing into the lake. And lots of fishermen about in olive green and camouflage trousers and coats.
The road on skirts the south-east edge of the lake, with big waves rolling in on a stony shore to my right. The wind which had been headwind is now crosswind and is getting stronger, making it hard to balance the bike on the loose stony road.
The way on, when the road turns south, away from the lake, is extremely exposed, but I'm lucky to reach a pine-plantation by lunchtime where I huddle underneath a pine tree to eat and nothing more as I'm foundered by the time I've finished, and need to get going again to warm up.
Shortly after starting, the road improves to a greyer gravel road with stone-free car tracks. So my pace goes up a notch and I could if I want be in Rio Pico by evening, but I prefer to stop early and be there in the morning.
I reach then what I mentioned at the start, remember. A memorial by the roadside, where a fisherman perished in the cold. There is a plact which translates: On the 2 August 2002 at 8am, I set off from my campsite at Lago Wintter in snow a metre deep. And at 4 pm, I could give no more and I died here of the cold.
There is a path past the memorial, down a grassy bank to a grove of beech trees among which is what remains of a wood frame and corrugated iron outhouse, perhaps where the doomed fisherman took shelter for the night.
A few kilometres on, the road drops into a valley with a hill to the west giving good wind protection, with a grassy strip between the road and stock fence dotted with dwarf beech trees and strewn with fallen trees and dead wood, where I find a place to pitch the tent. For the first time today, I can take off my windproof jacket and enjoy the warmth of the afternoon sunshine. I have tea and the last of the bread with honey. The last of the cake. Now all I need is a good day tomorrow; stock up in Rio Pico, and hopefully route 64, a turn off a bit beyond town is rideable, so I can remain going south, close to the mountains, and not have to ride east, out to route 40.
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