Self-sufficiency

The last two days of the first ration we only had 17 or 18 kilometers to travel and based on the map it looked pretty straight forward.  There would be about 400 meters of elevation gain the first day, but after that it looked like a gradual decent to our re-ration point.

However, as per usual, we would be travelling in small groups of 4 or 5 including instructors and we always make sure each small group is self-sufficient with a tent, stove, fuel, cooking pot, first aid kit and emergency signalling device.  In the last five years since I've been a backpacking and mountaineering insturctor at NOLS I've never had a small group not make it to the "x" for the day.  I've finished the hiking day well into the evening, but never not made it to camp before dark.

Kevin enjoys watching an Andean Condor pass by several times.  It probably thought we smelled like carrion.

This course was different.  On day seven of the first ration we started the day with a small river crossing.  My group was the first to get going after the crossing and we trudged our way up through a steep forested hill side in the afternoon and broke out eventually into alpine tundra.  We worked our way west and skirted around a beautiful lake bordeered by a glacial moraine that piled those rocks there many years ago.  We continued walking over fairly flat terrain and rounded a valley corner and began hiking north.  Eventually the terrain got a little more rough, but not terrible and we arrived in the vicinity of our agreed upon "x" at about 7:30 pm.  My group was the first to get there.

Probably 30 minutes later another group arrived, and then a third group.  Hmm... this is sounding familiar from the day before.  Only this time the fourth group didn't arrive.  We waited until it was fully dark and half expected to see some headlamps decending the slope into the stream delta that we were camped on.  But no headlamps appeared.  By 10:30 pm we figured they had for sure chosen to stop and camp along the way somewhere and we told ourselves we needn't worry until noon the next day.  If they didn't arrive by noon we would put a scouting party together and walk the valley in reverse to look for them.

In the morning we woke up and cooked breakfast.   We decided to pack up camp and be ready to go by 10 am, because we were assuming they would arrive at about that time and we would be able to make some more miles that day.  Sure enough about 9:30 am we see and hear them a short distance back coming down a steep rocky hillside--everyone was just fine.

We welcomed them happily into camp and found out they had just camped about a kilometer back--they had been hiking kind of slow and ran out of daylight.  Four people took shelter that night in a three person tent--Jim, the instructor, slept in the tent vestibule.  They were in good spirits and chalked up another story to tell!

We decided to go ahead and hike some more and try to get to our reration site which was still 8 or 9 kilometers away.  By the time we got re-organized and packed up it was mid-day, but we felt like it would be a good opportunity to have the students hike in small groups without instructors.  They had already done this in the backpacking section a couple of months ago, and we were 8 days into the mountaineering section, so it seemed like appropriate timing.

A couple of kilometers ahead on the route was a possible river crossing, but we could also follow along the same side and not cross the river if for some reason the crossing seemed sketchy or anything.  We instructors decided to head out first and then wait at the river to let the students know if they should cross it or not.  We travelled through some more tricky terrain and eventually got to the river.  It didn't look like something we wanted to attempt and the travel on the east side of the river was going pretty well.  So once a couple of the student groups arrived we told them we were planning to stay on the east side of the river and that they should do the same.  We parted ways again and walked over fairly flat terrain for a couple of kilometers and then smelled smoke and saw some colors in the distance ahead.  It was a person... and a tent... with a campfire.  Huh?  That wasn't exactly what we were expecting to see out here in the middle of remote Patagonia.  We walked up to the person and said hello.  It turned out to be two Chilean guides who had two American clients with them.  The owner of the company they work for is the person who owns the property we were crossing at the moment.  His company was also the one who we'd arranged with to bet our food to us for the second and third ration.  They said our food was there, down valley, at their base camp.

They also said their was a little-used trail along the river where we were heading.  We had seen signs of trail the last kilometer, but it had come and gone.  So we were happy to hear we might find a trail to follow.  They said it would probaly still take us 3 1/2 to four hours to get to our destination which was only 3-4 kilometers away.  That seemed hard to believe that it would take that long, especially if we found and followed the trail--but we didn't say anything.

We got going since it was already about 4 pm and we wanted to make it in before dark.  We did have some trouble keeping the trail, but after losing it here and there we always seemed to find it.  Kevin was particularly good at following and finding the trail.  We seemed to be making ok time, and then all of a suddent the trail shot up hill.  What is this?  The river we are followingn is way down there... hmm.... but this definitely seems like a well travelled trail.  We followed it.  Up and up... then down...  down... and back up and up.  Then it was gone.  Where did the trail go?  We spread out and looked for it.  Is this it?  Maybe... lets see where it goes.  Wait, no, over here... I think this is it.  Eventually we were back on it... going up and down just barely hearing the river in the distance below.

An example of Patagonia bushwacking.

Around 8 pm we came out into a semi-clearing and there were trails going every where.  Which one do we follow?  We were now in an area that is grazed by cows and the cows have made numerous trails all over through the bushes.  Again we dropped our packs and scouted around looking for the most likely trail.  About 8:15 pm or so we found an area close to where we'd chosen on the map that was campable for us.  We set up our tent and listened and waited for the students to arrive.  The travel on the "trail" had been slower and more difficult than we'd anticipated, so we were hoping the students would make it before dark-- but it was not looking good.

Then all of a sudden I heard what I thought was a voice in the distance.  I listened.  Yep!  I hear someone!  I called back... then listened.  Within a couple of minutes a group of 4 students exploded out of the woods.  Yes!  We hi-fived them and welcomed them to camp.  I asked if they'd seen the other two groups, but they hadn't since leaving the river 4 hours ago.  So, we waited.  And waited.  Eventually it got dark and we decided not to worry.  We won't worry until noon tomorrow. Fortunately it is a clear night--doesn't look like rain.  A good night to sleep out under the stars.

I went to bed that night knowing the students were probably just fine but also praying that they hadnt''t had any accidents and that they were working as a team with any challenges that might arise.

It was hard to just wait in the morning.  But we did...we tried to wait patiently and stick to the plan that they would arrive by noon as a contingency.  Then some-time late morning, 10 students with backpacks on came crashing out of the woods!  Yes!  We were so excited to see them!~  And they had some stories to tell... around dusk ooone of the groups stumbled into a yellow-jakcet nest and two students got stung badly.  Once they were a safe distance from the bees they decided it was getting dark and they might as well nrse their wounds, cook some dinner and take care of themselves.  The other small group also caught up to them so they were ten strong.  They slept out under small tarps and thankfully it didn't rain that night.  They finished hiking the rest of the way in the morning.  Don't worry... the Patagonia adventures didn't end there.

Hot and a lot

After our first day of hiking we were already just barely above tree-line.  The good thing about that is no more bush-whacking for a few days!  We did take the next day, though, to hike back down just a little ways into the forest and string some ropes up into the trees in order to practice 'fixed line ascension'.  Fixed line ascension is when you use two pieces of cord that are tied with a prussik hitch and used for ascending a rope.  The primary purpose in the mountaineering context is to self rescue in case of falling in a crevasse while on a rope team.  If a person were to fall in a crevasse, the rope that they are tied to would prevent them from falling very far into the crevasse and then they could use their prussik cords to climb their way out.  Even in the trees it is a lot of fun to practice and it was nice to have a rest day after such a grueling first day of hiking.

Ben's night to cook..."hot and a lot"-- he also won the beard competition.

Our next travel day we moved up about 500 more meters into a basin that still had a couple of relatively small glaciers in it.  We camped at the base of one of them, but it was not snow covered down low.  We spend another day there learning to use crampons and walk around on bare ice glacier.  We also got the ropes out and went a little higher on the glacier where it was snow covered and practiced getting in rope teams, and roping up with our full glacier rigs.  With 18 people we had a total of five rope teams.  At the end of the day two teams hiked up to a high saddle to look out at the terrain we were thinking we would travel the next day.  Unfortunately the terrain out that way was not snow-covered enough and was too steep and 'slabby' to make travel reasonable.  We had an alternative path to take but it was also very steep, but less so... so we planned to go that way the next day.

We were now approaching our halfway point of the first ration... but we had a considerable distance yet to travel to get to our food resupply point.  The morning of day four we hiked in small groups to the west until we rondezvoused at a small glacier that led up to a saddle that we were pretty sure we'd be able to decend and continue toward our re-ration.

We did make it to the saddle without problem and Kevin scouted the other side looking for a good route to descend.  Once we were all ready to begin our hike down it was roughly 2 pm and at this time of year it is getting dark at 9 pm.  That means we had seven hours.  Plenty, right?  Not so fast.  The descent we were looking at was more than 1000 meters and about 3 kilometers.  However we had already travelled 3 kilometers and gained 500 meters in elevation--so we weren't exactly fresh when we started going down.  The first leg of the descent that Kevin had scouted went pretty well.  Eventually we got to the tree-line though and it took us a while to find the best way into the trees.  The trouble is that at the top of the tree line the trees' growth is stunted and inhibited by the annual snow pack, therefore the trees in that zone are kind of bush-like, intertwined and extremely stiff... almost impenetrable.  But, the time we spent scouting paid off and we found a gully that was bush free, albeit quite steep.  We descended that gully in small groups with five or 10 minutes of dispersion in order to avoid being below each other with the potential of rockfall.

A good looking small group of hikers.

Eventually all four small groups were in the trees and could travel a little more freely, but as we traversed and descended we ran into more thickly vegetated areas and even some cliffy areas that we had to find a way arouond.  The first group made it down to the lake where we intended to camp at about 8 pm, then 30 minutes later the second group, and shortly after that the third.  Where was the fourth group?  While we waited for them we got tents set up and some groups started cooking dinner. It was fully dusk and beginning to get dark.  Still the fourth group hadn't arrived.  Each day we plan for the potential that a group or two (or all the groups for that matter) might not make it to the "x".  So each hiking group carries a tent, stove, pot and food just in case they have to spend the night away from the others.  Those of us who had made it to camp this night were beginning to think the fourth group might have to do that.  Then all of a sudden we saw several white lights bouncing up and down in the distance.  Yes!  There they were... hiking the last few hundred meters in the dark with head lamps.  We were very happy to see them!

Once they got into camp we helped them set up their remaining tent and get dinner going.  It had been a long day and turned out to be a windy, rainy night--so it was good they made it!  That night was my night to cook dinner for the instructor team, and if I remember right, I think I made "hot and a lot."  That's the universal name for a any quick meal, usually with pasta and cheese, and enough to satisfy a ravenous hunger.

GLOF -- Glacial Lake Outburst Flood

Here is Jimmy "flaking" out a rope to get ready for glacier travel.

Jake here is excited for the day!!  About to rope up.

When I was finishing up in Patagonia last semester, I crossed paths with a fellow named Jim Furgeson at the NOLS branch near Coyhaique.  I had heard he was going to be the Course Leader of our mountaineering expedition in February.  He and I had met and talked on other occasions down here at the Patagonia NOLS branch, but we'd never worked together.  So, on this occasion when I saw him and told him we would be working together he went on to tell me about the route he had in mind for our expedition with the PY3 Chulengos.  Already (in early December) he was working on the logistics and trying to get all the details in order to make this route work.  When I told him it was my first mountaineering course in Patagonia he quickly replied, "Wow, jumping in on the deep end!"  At the time I wasn't totally sure how to respond since I figured it'll just be another NOLS course, and I've done many... but now, in hind sight, I would say that his statement was correct.  The route he'd carefully and meticulously chosen was the "deep end" as far as mountaineering at NOLS is concerned.  It was a great expedition, and challenged all of us, instructors and students alike.

This is 'Ventisquero Pared Norte"  -- a big valley glacier.

So, when I arrived back down in Patagonia after my Christmas break, the students had already been here for three weeks doing their rock climbing section.  The three other instructors and I had two or three days to get prepped for the expedition before the students came back to the NOLS campo to transition.  When the students arrived we had just a shade over 24 hours to get them ready for a 35 day mountaineering expedition... it was a little crazy!  But the students hit the ground running and we began packing our rations of food and going through their clothing and personal equipment to make sure they had all the necessary items to live comfortably (as possible) in the remote backcountry near the Northern Icefield.  Bright and early the next morning we loaded the bus and were driven to a small campground near the Baker River.   When we arrived at the campground we set up tents, cooked some dinner and went to sleep.

Part of our logistics was to cross the Baker River the next morning, and Jim had made arrangements for a local "Poblador" rancher to use his boat to ferry us across the river.  BUT we needed to do it quickly in the morning because a GLOF had released and the river level was rapidly rising in the morning.  What is a GLOF you ask?  GLOF stands for Glacial Lake Outburst Flood... you can click on this link to read a little about them.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_lake_outburst_flood

So when we woke up that next morning we were in a hurry to get down to the river where Enrique Sanchez was waiting for us to give us a ride across the river... four persons at a time.  Fortunately, while we could see the river had risen some and the current was faster than normal it was still safe to cross, but we needed to do it quickly.  We didn't want to have half the course cross and half not make it... so we were hustling.  Within an hour we were all safely on the north side of Rio Baker and we moved away from the river and camped near Enrique Sanchez's house.  His house was well above the  potential high water mark, so we set up camp there.  After dinner that day we walked back down toward the river and the water had fully flooded over the banks of the river and was more than 3 meters above normal water level.

The next morning we cooked breakfast, packed our backpacks and started hiking to our next camp up an unnamed valley to an unnamed lake.  It wasn't very far... only six kilometers, but we had to gain over 700 meters, traveling for the most part off trail.  So it was a big day of hiking.  Since there were 18 of us in our expedition, we divided each day into small groups of 4 or 5 people to make hiking more efficient.  And, as could be expected we all arrived at the lake at different times--anywhere from seven hours to ten hours after starting.  Whew!  But we all made it!

Here are four of the Chulengos on a spectacular hiking day.

Rodeo and Autonomy

Hello my friends!  I flew back down to Patagonia, Chile, in January after having a great time at home with my family and friends in Seattle.  One notable highlight while home was getting to spend time with my girlfriend, Kristin, whom I just started dating in September before starting this string of NOLS work in Patagonia.  She has been super supportive and patient with my vagabond life and work-- so thanks Kristin!  Can't wait to see you in 10 days!

Enough about my personal life... let me get back to the PuffyJacket Blog... At the moment I am in a little town in Chile called Cochrane.  I am staying in a budget hostel, that for me is very comfortable and I set up a little work station in my room that you can see on the left.  I've got all the Chilean essentials here: maté, milo, hot-water, and some potato chips.

I've been here in Cochrane for just two and a half days now, while the Chulengos (my students) are out on their final section of the Patagonia Year.  They are backpacking in the nearby mountains close to Cerro San Lorenzo-- it is their ISGE which stands for Independent Student Group Expedition.  In the last six months we have taught them all the leadership, risk-management, navigation, first-aid, and camping skills that they need to competently travel on their own without direct instructor supervision--for a week.  Pretty cool!

 Here is a local tourist map of Cochrane.  Because this is a pioneer mountain town and there are so many trees (well, used to be a lot more, but still are a lot) almost everything in this town is made of wood.  Wood is definitely one of their main natural resources.  If you look closely at the sign on the right you will see a Lago Cochrane and a Lago Brown.  The PY3 students are currently hiking in that area... one group of eight is backpacking around Lago Brown and the other group is starting near Lago Brown and crossing the small mountain range called Cerro Esmeralda and will finish their route near Lago Cochrane.  The weather has been mixed the last few days.  It has been kind of rainy and stormy at night but then cleared up and has been sunny in the day.  Today is no exception.  Partially cloudy and partially sunny.  I'm quite sure the students are having a blast being out on their own without me...  :)

 This weekend happened to be the 60th anniversary of this little town of Cochrane.  I didn't realize it until I stumbled upon a bunch of Chilean Huasos (Cowboys) who were warming up for a rodeo.  I had been walking around town thinking I might find a church to attend since it was Sunday... and I heard some music and a loud speaker in the distance.  The weather was nice, so I thought maybe there was an outdoor service or something... when I eventually found where the music was coming from, it turned out to be a rodeo!  I hung out for a little while and watched

the caballeros warm up.  It was pretty intense, actually.  They would let this medium sized calf out of a gate and then two of the Huasos would chase after it on their "caballos" and try to get it to go where they wanted it to... it seemed like there was a pattern to it... they would chase the calf two or three times around a small circle and then a man would open up a gate and they would chase the calf around the bigger circle and eventually back into the smaller circle.  It was impressive.  Here in Patagonia the cowboy culture is mainly "gaucho" culture, which is strongly influenced from Argentina.  I never did figure out why the cowboys were dressed as Huasos and not as Gauchos.  Anyone know?

So, that ended up being my Sunday morning.  I eventually found the local Catholic Church and went in for a little quiet contemplation, but the service had ended a while ago.  It has been nice to have some free time and solitude these last few days after 40 days or so of straight work.  Oh, and did I mention the mountaineering section was pretty demanding?  It was probably my most challenging NOLS course so far.  But, a note to all the parents of PY3 students who might be reading this blog: your kids did awesome and they were all very successful at mountaineering.  They have some good stories to tell!  In my next blog post I will give a little rundown of the mountaineering section from my perspective and post some pictures.  Stay tuned.

Foot travel in Patagonia

Our second day of backpacking was the most challenging.  Since the students had learned a lot of leadership during the sea kayaking section, and because they had already been 'leader of the day' we decided to throw them back into that role right from the start of the backpacking section.  I would like to hear from the students what they think of that in hind sight, but they were eager to be leading again, so we let them go for it.  The challenge, though, is that while backpacking has some similar components, there are a lot of new skills to be learned and implemented.  Navigation is a great example.  There are many some aspects of sea kayak navigation that can be transfered to backpacking but on the whole it's quite a bit different. For one, there's this whole topographic line thing that has to be mastered.  While navigating by sea kayak you sometimes use the topographic lines on a nautical chart to identify major terrain features, but in the backpacking world you often have to identify much smaller terrain features and read into the topographic lines as you get familiar with the area.  'Micro navigation' is a term we use to refer to the process of finding your way through the small terrain features after you've determined where you are and where you want to go in the big picture.  To top it all off you have a heavy pack, streams or rivers to cross, brush and trees to fight your way through etc.

 Betsy is the young woman in the middle of the stream pictured above.  She was ready to quit at the end of backpacking day two.  My hiking group arrived into camp only about 20 minutes after hers and she was lying down on the forest floor exhausted and nearly in tears.  I asked her how she was doing, and she said it had been a rough day and that she would like to talk to me later.  So after dinner we met and she told me she didn't think she could do it.  She was thinking she wanted to quit--she wanted to go home.  In my mind I knew she was just hitting a mental block, that she was fully capable of continuing, but just didn't believe in her capabilities.  I told her the decision to stay or go was ultimately hers, but that I knew she could do it if she just made her mind up that she wouldn't quit.  I also told her that she coundn't exactly quit now--the road was still three days travel away--but once she got there she could go home if she chose to.  I asked her why she came on this huge NOLS expedition to  begin with. Her response was that she had been having trouble getting through college--she would get to the middle of a semester and get overwhelmed with the amount of work to be done and she would give up.  So she came to NOLS to overcome that tendancy.  Here she was, though, ready to do the same thing.  We continued to talk about strategies to make tomorrow a better day and then she went back to her tent area to get ready for bed and ready for the next day.  I don't know what happened that night, but the next morning she was rearing to go-- and she hiked strong all the next day!  Somehow she got over the mental block that was holding her back and she pushed through.  It was amazing.  One of the leadership skills we teach at NOLS we call 'Tolerance for Adversity and Uncertainty.'  There are things we encounter on an expedition or in life that we don't have any control over, so we do our best to make the most of them and enjoy life as best we can despite those hardships.  It's good to go through challenging times and to have adversity enter our lives every so often if for no other reason than to help us appreciate the blessings we take for granted.

Backpacking Begins

 We had a quick transition from the Wilderness First Responder section to the backpacking expedition.  After the students finished their testing on the last day (everyone passed!), we began sorting through what we wanted to take backpacking and what we wanted to send back to the NOLS basecamp.  We also had to sort through our 14 days worth of food and divide it into a five day ration and a 9 day ration.  The five day ration would be the portion that we would start with and the remainder would be brought out to us at our resupply point.

Our first day of hiking went well.  We chugged our way up a trail that was 3 miles long but gained 2,000 feet of elevation.  The weather that day was cool, dry and windy--pretty good overall for hiking in Patagonia.  When we reached the area that we wanted to camp we sent some scouting teams out to see if they could find suitable places for all of us to set up tents and kitchens.  Our desire was to have each tent group within a couple of hundred feet of each other but far enough apart to spread out our impact.  At NOLS we do our best to follow the seven Leave

No Trace principles which are guidelines to help backcountry travelers to make choices and conduct themselves in a way that minimizes their impact.  The second LNT principle is "Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces."  We were able to find some areas in the forest that had very little vegetation or were just plain dirt and duff.  Once our tents were set up we started cooking dinner and then met in the evening for a group debrief of the day.  We also had the students think of a couple of goals that they wanted to accomplish during the backpacking section.  Pedro then led an exercise where he had them write their goal on a small piece of paper and place the piece of paper a few feet outside of a six foot diameter circle.  Then all the students stood inside the circle (close quarters!) and had to figure out how to reach their own slip of paper without stepping foot outside of the circle or even placing a hand outside the circle.  After two or three minutes of discussion, Pedro (who was facilitating the exercise) told them they couldn't talk anymore and had to continue the exercise in silence.  They used hand motions to continue to communicate, but also just started trying things and learning what works by trial and error.  In total it took about 15 minutes for all 14 students to "reach their goals" and became a nice metaphor to illustrate the importance of teamwork to overcome the challenges that lie ahead.

Wilderness First Responders and Guanacos

Hello everyone!  Sorry I've been slacking on my blogging, but I have a pretty good excuse... I was out backpacking with the Chulengos (the PY-3 NOLS students) and therefore didn't have a wifi signal.  So I've got to back track a little to catch you up to where we are at now.

As I mentioned one or two posts back we were camping at Estancia Chacabuco while the students did their Wilderness First Responder course taught by the Wilderness Medicine Institute.  Estancia Chacabuco used to be a huge ranch that raised sheep -- one of the biggest sheep ranches in all of Chilean Patagonia.  A few years ago, however, a man by the name of Doug Tompkins purchased it and some surrounding small farms to create a wildlife preserve that connects two other national parks in Chile.  It is an ongoing project, but we were privileged enough to get to spend ten days there studying first aid.  One of the coolest parts of the Chacabuco Valley are all the Guanacos that are roaming free.  Guanacos are in the "camelid" family and are related to llamas and alpacas.  A young guanaco is called a "chulengo" and is the name that the NOLS PY-3 students were given.  Since it is spring down here we saw several newborn chulengos.

 Here the students are working through a scenario where they are practicing building splints for a tibula or fibula fracture.  The students were "in class" from 8-5 pm with a one hour break for lunch, but probably half of their class time was spent outdoors doing practice scenarios like this one.   After a month of kayaking the first aid training was a welcome change of pace, and the food that was served to us by the dining facility was very good and very welcome!  Our metabolisms were still in high gear, so we appreciated the tasty Chilean food that was served.

The picture above shows Hunter getting worked on by Will, and as you can see the guanacos were also very interested in what was going on.  In a scenario like this the person who is a "patient" is supposed to act the part by moaning and yelling in pain until the medical responder begins to do proper treatment.  I think the guanacos were wondering what all the commotion was about.  In the photo on the left is Kyle receiving care from Alex and Peter. The WMI instructors put "moulage" on the patient's leg to make it look and feel more realistic.

Here is Isi working on Jimmy.  At first he was looking at the camera and smiling, so I told him that didn't look right in the picture... he needed to get back into his role.  So, here he is looking like he's really in agony.  Pretty good acting huh?  The Wilderness First Responder training teaches the students to go through some basic steps to first treat imminent life threats such as airway obstructions, lack of breathing, circulatory problems or severe bleeding etc.  Once they've stabilized the patient then they move on to treating other injuries such as a broken bone or laceration.

 Well, Sarah looks like she's hurting, so I don't know why Betsy thinks it's so funny!  The next steps after treating major life threats is to go through a "head to toe" physical exam to make note of any other injuries or physical abnormalities, then take a full set of vital signs and, if the patient is conscious, ask the S.A.M.P.LE. questions.  "SAMPLE" is an acronym that stands for Symptoms, Allergies, Medications, Pertinent Medical History, Last food and fluid intake and output, and Events leading up to the incident.  By asking all these questions the rescuer can determine if there is a illness or other cause to the medical situation.  By the end of the ten days of WFR training the students' brains were full and they were ready to get back into the wilderness and see what backpacking adventures lay ahead.  Their new first aid skills will come in handy for treating minor cuts, scrapes and blisters, but also allow them to look after one another in the event of a more serious accident or illness.  The goal in the backpacking section is that they will be able to hike on their own for a couple of days without immediate instructor supervision, so they will need these skills.

Luke and Devon are taking good care of Jack... while the guanacos watch inquisitively.