The "Chulengos" arrive...

Today the students arrived!  Remember we are calling them the "Chulengos"?  They liked their new name.... and can you imagine this was day one of 135 days of camping for them?  And with a few exceptions, most of that time will be remote, backcountry camping--this will be a life changing chapter in most (if not all!) of their lives.

What did we do today?  Mainly we gave them a thorough orientation to the coming weeks and months, and then we dove in head first and started packing food!  We packed all the food for the coming two expeditions (sea kayaking and backpacking).  Here are a few photos from our day:

Time to eat lunch!  Some good Chilean food.  Isadora is the young woman on the left and she is our Chilean scholarship student.  She is from a smaller town near Santiago, but she has lived near Coyhaique for a few years recently.  We are glad to have her!

Sam is carefully weighing our lentils... 35 bags of 1/2 kilo... 

Packing food in the "Techo de Papas"... L to R: Hunter, Devon, Kyle, Luke.

Time to set up tents... lots of learning  happening in the next few days.

Home sweet home for 135 days....

Ok, here are the "Chulengos"!!  15 students, 3 Instructors.

Here is the instructor team for the sea kayak section:  Lloyd, Me, and Abby.

Concervacion Patagonica

Today was our second day of briefing.  We get three days of briefing and prep time before our students arrive on Monday morning.  For me this tends to be the more stressful time of a course because there are just soo many details to organize and a lot to get done in a pretty short amount of time.  But we are making good progress.  We do know that we are going to start our kayak course from the small town of Tortel which is nestled in between the northern and southern icefields of Patagonia.  Our plan is to paddle out west toward an archepelago near the open coast and near the Gulfo de Penas.  We are expecting a lot of rain, wind and cooler tempertatures (hence the Puffy Jacket!).  I will try to get a photo of my co-instructors and me tomorrow, but below is a picture of Lloyd and I--he's one of the people I'll be working with, and in fact he will also be doing the hiking course with me after the kayak expedition (if you'd like to see the area that we will be hiking go to www.concervacionpatagonica.org it is a very large private park in Chile that is working to preserve and protect a number of threatened animal species).  Lloyd has been working for NOLS since 1993, so it is great to get to work with him and learn from him.  On Monday I'll try to get a group photo with us and all 15 students.  Oh, by the way, our group name is the "Chulengos" which is the local spanish name for a young Guanaco.  What is a guanaco?  It's a mammal that is much like a llama, but is indigenous to Patagonia.  We will be seeing a lot of them on our hiking course.  Alright, it's nearly midnight here, so I need to get some sleep... thanks for reading and thanks for praying for our preparations, safety and for a succesful expedition!

Lloyd and I are looking at our route options for the hiking section we will do in November.

This little kiddo is Alana (not sure if that's the correct spelling) and she is the one year old daughter of Corey and Milenka... they are NOLS instructors who live  here in Coyhaique and work year round at the NOLS branch.  It is fun to have some little ones around to liven things up!

Explanation

This is the morning view from just outside the "Nido"... The sun is rising... In the east, just like in the Northern hemisphere.  :)

I forgot to explain why I chose to call this Blog "Puffy Jacket Paddling."  Well, often when I tell people what I do for a living and tell them that I've worked quite a bit in Patagonia as a sea kayaking instructor, their response is, "Isn't it summer down there? Must be nice to go from summer here to summer there!"  See, the thing is it is early spring here and therefore it's COLD here.  :)  Truth be told, it will warm up some eventually, but on the Patagonia coast where we do our kayaking it is fairly cool and wet year round, much like the Olympic Peninsula.  So, most of the places I've had the privilege of kayaking over the years are places that require a puffy jacket to be comfortable... And who doesn't want to be comfortable?  Anyway, there is no doubt my puffy jacket will get plenty of use down here this season.

Enjoying the warmth of the puffy.

Quincho

Thought I'd give you a few more pictures of the NOLS base here in Patagonia.  Nols has operated in Patagonia since roughly 1990, and it purchased this property just after that... But the property has had many improvements since then, including all the buildings.  The base is just about 11 km south of Coyhaique, the nearest town.

This is the "Quincho"... A traditional style Patagonia building.  Here all the meals are prepared for students and staff while they are at the Campo.  That is my reflection in the glass.

This is inside the Quincho.  You can see the wood cook stove where there is always hot water for  hot drinks ready to go.

And one more angle of the Quincho with the hillside behind it.  the Quincho was the first building built on the NOLS property, and it has expanded and been improved over the years.  It's a cozy place with a fire going and 25 people or more packed in there!

I made it!

Sunday I had breakfast with my brother, Bill, and his family in California, then I drove my rental car to the airport, turned it it and went to catch my flight.  I had a lot of flying ahead of me!  I flew from LAX to Dallas, then from Dallas to Santiago, Chile, and from there south to a small town called Puerto Mont, and then the final leg from Puerto Mont to Coyhaique.  Over 24 hours of travel!!  I arrived at the NOLS base at about 6 pm on Monday.  It was very quiet since virtually everyone had gone home for the evening--but I did find a room that had been set aside for me in the small building called the "Nido" (which means nest in Spanish).  The Nido made of bales of hay and then covered with stucco.  I'm staying in the room called "El Condor."  The weather here is pretty cold still since it is early spring.  There have been some strong winds and little sprinkles of rain off and on.  The last two days I have been resting up from the travel and connecting with quite a number of friends that work here whom I haven't seen in two years.  It is good to be here!

Flying over Patagonia:  These are the mountains in the south near Coyhaique.

This is the "Nido."  I'm in the room on the right.  "El Condor."

Time with family

I left Seattle on Saturday morning, bright and early.  Actually the sun hadn't come up when my mom graciously drove me to the airport.  The last two weeks in Seattle were great for connecting with family and friends and charging up my emotional/spiritual batteries in order to make the trek south to Patagonia.  I scheduled a stop-over in Los Angeles (Fullerton to be precise) to visit my brother (Bill) and his family.  Here are a few pictures of my time in Seattle and Fullerton with the family:

My niece, Elena, turned one year old while I was home.

Elijah and me building Lego cars.

This is Haddasah, the youngest daughter of my sister Anna. 

And here is my brother Bill's daughter, Marcella.  

Heading to Patagonia

Some of you may be wondering why this blog is titled "Puffy Jacket Paddling" and some of you have already figured it out.  I'll get to that later.  In a little over a week I'll be heading down to Patagonia Chile to work for two and a half months leading a sea kayaking expedition and a backpacking expedition.  This is not the first time I've been down there to work for NOLS.  But this is the first time I've decided to blog about it.  Lately I've been feeling like I could be more effective in my life and work by keeping my friends and family better informed as to what I'm up to--mainly so that you all can be praying for me.

So, what is this fall in Patagonia looking like?  On October 6th I will fly from LAX to Santiago, Chile.  From their I'll catch another flight down to the town of Coyhaique, which is in the southern part of Chile.  I'll have a couple of days to rest from the travel, and then I'll start my first contract on October 11th.  My co-instructors and I will have a couple of days of prep before students arrive. 

These students have signed up for the "Patagonia Year."  What is that you ask?  Well, it's the longest course that NOLS offers.  These students will essentially spend two semesters in Patagonia participating in several expeditions.  I am planning to be with them for three of them.  In October we will begin with a 25 day sea kayaking expedition.  Then the students will participate in a Wilderness First Responder course (10 days) and I will supervise them when they are out of class.  Next we will do a 25 day backpacking expedition.  At this point it will be mid-December and everyone will have three weeks off either to travel in Chile or South America or to go home to spend Christmas with family.

After the Christmas break the students will return to the NOLS base in Patagonia and participate in a 20 day rock climbing course followed by a 10 day cultural section where they will live with a rural Patagonian family.  After those two sections I plan to join them again for a Mountaineering expedition for another 25 days.  Then the Patagonia Year will culminate with a student led expedition without direct instructor supervision-- the students will be divided into teams of five and they will plan their own 8 day backpacking trip and conduct it on their own.  I will be their contact person during that time in case they run into any difficulties.  Each team will have a satellite phone and they will be able to contact me in case of emergency.  Otherwise they are on their own!!

So, that is a brief overview of what I have ahead of me in the coming months.  I will post some specific prayer requests and more details of some of the things I've been learning recently in my future posts.  Thanks for reading.