Blue Creek Canyon Nov 30

Lara was quite eager to check out Blue Creek Canyon, a narrow marble defile notable as the only dry canyon in New Zealand in typical conditions; the water disappears underground into a cave system above the start of the canyoning section and appears at Blue Creek Resurgence at the canyon's very end. I had been through it once before and a return was not at the top of my list but it was nice enough and I was willing to give a concession as I knew there would be some other new-to-me things we would get to check out over the coming days. 

We had a late start on the long drive after packing up, handling errands, grabbing food, and a lengthy attempt to rehabilitate a headlamp. It was typical endless Canterbury Plains driving, alternating drivers through the small towns up until we finally reached Lewis Pass. We stopped briefly to sniff out our way to Sylvia Flat Hot Springs, which I was surprised to find completely missing apart from the sulphur smell (I later found out they were buried in slips around 2017 or so). We ended the day quite late at the Marble Flat Campground. I found a nice spot in the beech forest that kept me nearly free of dew in the morning. What neither of us were prepared for was a loud night of noisy truck traffic and then a random ute driving fast through the campground yelling obscenities at 3am. Well I did have my earplugs so I was partially prepared I suppose. I vowed to not camp there again.

We awoke and got moving fairly early to continue driving. I voted for a stop at the roadside Maruia Falls near Murchison, a hard feature to drive past without a stop. I knew it was abruptly formed in the 1929 Murchison earthquake but I finally got a clearer explanation since it couldn't have been as a fault scarp; a It is frequently kayaked; a landslide to the east pushed the river out of its channel and forced it to the west. Every time I look at the falls I think it is right at the limit of what I would potentially consider packrafting over.

We both were caught a little off guard at just how far it is to the north side of Mt Owen (a full 2 hour drive past the southern access) as we had to drive almost to Motueka before turning to go up the Wangapeka valley to its road end. Sandflies immediately swarmed as we tried to get our gear organized and down a snack before hiking. We had a good track to start off on alongside a noisy Blue Creek. Past some mining relics the track begin to climb with a couple steep root-clinging sections and the noise of the creek disappeared. I was dripping sweat with the humid heat that was probably record breaking for this time of year. We struggled for a few minutes finding the canyon trail turnoff, ultimately stumbling around below a bluff rather than further up. The side trail was fairly easy to follow once we found its start but it dragged on a lot longer than I thought it would as we paralleled the creekbed for quite a while before dropping down to it. Eventually we arrived at the dry creekbed below a massive overhanging wall of marble with our first drop right below us. We put on our harnesses and I ended up rigging the first drop for Lara and downclimbing after to save some rope wear.

The canyon had a nice mix of dark narrows with water-carved marble surrounded by the ever present greenery of moss and ferns. There were a few nice pothole features and a particularly nice rappel into a grotto (frontispiece). We took our time, taking turns trading off rigging the rappels, working through downclimbs, and trying different descender combinations. There were a few nice dark hallway sections and a few logjams to surmount. Occasionally we would get hints of some nice reflected golden light in the canyon. Generally the drops were straightforward and minimally awkward other than the occasional slippery rock.

Towards the end of the canyon (rappel #12?) we encountered our first clear cold pool of water at the base of the rappel. I went for a descent in my boxers and managed to swing out to hit the thigh depth part of the pool, missing the part that was well past waist depth. I attempted to give Lara a guided rappel with mixed results, mostly getting her past the deep part but hitting the water in a seated position rather than on foot. Beyond this was one more thigh depth pool to cross, the final extent of the water we would see in the canyon. 

As we neared the end of the canyon we noticed some wonderful veining and deformation patterns in the marble and after the last rappel (#17 or so) we spotted some of the cave entrances shooting out cold air and then a short distance further the end of the canyon and the crystal waters of the resurgence. 

Harnesses off and some crisp spring water downed, we briefly check out the resurgence and carried on down the track back to the car. Along the way we passed a nicely restored 4-battery stamp mill. Undoubtedly more money was spent on getting it here and restoring it than it ever produced in gold. 

Lara seemed to really enjoy the canyon, removing the moving water from the usual equation. Back at the car we debated our options among camping at Courthouse Flat (a bit early but a nice quiet spot), dayhiking the following day up to Granity Pass, or retracing the last 2 hours of our drive to try to camp at the south side of Mt Owen to set us up for a multi-day hike. Between the weather forecast and the time of day we ultimately decided we would be better off getting the driving over to the Owen River behind us. On arriving at the carpark we only saw one other vehicle; a quick snooping glance into the car suggested cavers and I wondered if it was anyone I knew. We were a little nervous about camping just beyond the trailhead paddock, but as we made dinner the farmer strolled past, said hello, and was quite friendly and relaxed about it which alleviated all our fears. He seemed quite proud of his "magic" spot with mysterious alpine karst mountain beyond. I was only slightly embarrassed to be wearing a bug net for the persistent sandflies. I slept well under the beech with a decidedly much quieter camping spot!

Seaview Beach Nov 28

Presenting at the 2024 Geoscience Society of New Zealand Annual Conference offered me a delightful opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues in Dunedin, my other side of the world home. It was a grand nostalgia tour overall with lots of long missed faces. A quiet morning in the conference schedule aligned with a low tide, giving an opportunity for a morning hike to a very rarely visited beach with Alan, one of my former PhD advisors. This Caversham Sandstone cliff-lined beach is only possible to visit by a steep grass-covered slope accessible through the active seaside Blackhead Quarry. I managed to get in touch with the quarry manager to secure us permission and the weather held out to a merciful intermittent spitting. My hope was to visit the interesting sea cave chamber at the far side of the beach past the first headland, which I mapped and last visited...in 2010! When we showed up at the quarry office it turned out the manager was quite eager to show us a few interesting outcrops and so we actually started with a quarry tour. We checked out the exposure of the Blackhead Fault which juxtaposes the Caversham Sandstone against the thick pile of basaltic lava that is being quarried. We then drove down towards the bottom of the quarry to check out a few interesting breccia outcrops and the fantastic columnar basalt that makes up the remaining headland of Blackhead. 

After the quarry tour we parted with the manager and drove up to the edge of the quarry nearest our slope to the beach. I brought my trekking poles which came in handy for both of us to descend the steep wet grass slope. We made our way slowly, soon reaching the basalt cobble beach, atypical for Dunedin. Awkwardly we clambered over the shifting cobbles towards the far end of the beach as seagulls swirled above us. 

Occasionally we came across pieces of kelp washed up on the shore that were completely coated in gastropods jockeying for a prime eating position which made an unusual sight. We dodged the occasional wave as we made our way along. When we got to the headland that splits the beach in half I was quite disappointed to see that for even this current low tide there was no way on without swimming. The headland had a sea cave tunnel through it in the past but we found this filled up to the ceiling with large cobbles we weren't going to be moving and less sand on the beach meant that it was not feasible to round the headland (which I had also done in the past). I shrugged and apologized to Alan; I wish I got to show him the cave beyond but oh well.

For our return we decided to walk across the top of the beach cobbles instead of along the foreshore slope. This also had some animal surprises as we encountered no fewer than twenty seagull nests built directly on the cobble beach, most with one to three just born chicks or eggs with beak pecks that would likely hatch by the end of the day. It was quite surprising to see them out in the open and apparently was a predator free beach.

We went back up the slope, out the quarry and drove on to the conference in time for morning tea and the rest of the day's events. I was thrilled to get to spend the time with Alan. The day ended quite nicely with a run through Ross Creek and reservoir with Genevieve and my old officemate Tammo, and then a nice catch up with my friend Lara over dinner as we worked to plan our next week of travel. The weather forecast made a very clear case for us to head north and not south! Many thanks to all those mentioned.

Volcán Láscar Oct 5

I wanted to make the most of my last day in the Atacama (Day 7), but it was still a struggle to get the early 5am start I wanted after a 4am start the day before. I did eventually get up and moving around 7am, which put me into the indigenous town of Talabre at 8am. Two days prior I had taken the B-357 turnoff with its giant modern highway sign urging visitation only to find that after about 6 miles down the road there was a locked gate across the highway and a detour sign that led to a very unwelcoming gated entrance to Talabre. I did not get good vibes from this situation so left and made other plans. Information was poor online but I did eventually manage to contact someone via email that could tell me the Talabre gate hours and no worries if you fork over 10,000 CLP ($10). So armed with the right info (but alas poor Spanish), on my second attempt I managed to talk my way through the situation, even if they were thoroughly unconvinced at the off-road capabilities of my Forester. Eventually I was cleared, drove through the town, and the detour took me right back onto the sparkling public highway past the roadblock. I'm not quite sure how I felt about it (is this not the definition of highway robbery!?), but I guess good for a struggling indigenous community to get a tourist cash infusion. I was clearly the only self-catered tourist for the day and everyone else I ran into past town was part of a guided 4x4 tour.

Though I had several scenic goals for the day, my main one was to try to climb the highly active Volcán Láscar. At the time, I knew that steam was visible from its summit every cold morning I got a view of it and from what I could see online there were a handful of tour operators offering guided hikes to its summit. And add to that the recommendation at Talabre that I wear a gas mask or particulate mask for the gases. I now can tell you it has ejected a total estimated volume of 7-10 cubic-miles over its 50,000 year lifetime, had a notable eruption in 1993, considerable activity since, and most recently created a new lava dome inside its active crater in January 2023. So the second most dangerous volcano I've been to after visiting New Zealand's White Island in 2009...a decade before its 2019 eruption that killed 22 people.

As I had come to be accustomed to there was plenty of irresistible scenery along the way for quick photo stops. I stopped at an overlook of the old townsite of Talabre, which was abandoned in 1982 due to risk from Volcán Láscar and already half buried in pyroclastic flows such that much of it looked ancient. The road then cut across Quebrada de Talabres and continued counter-clockwise around the steaming peak of Volcán Láscar. After crossing some lava flows I got some desolate views of a lonely road and sparse basin, eventually passing the turnoff for the Socaire Road I attempted a few days earlier.

Another slight saddle led me over and down into the next basin, this one with Laguna Lejía. I turned off for the short but very steep detour for the Laguna Lejía overlook, which was spectacular. The laguna has one of the most curious colors I had seen, that shifted with the light and vantage but generally was an unappealing pea soup color. Despite this, the still 14,000 ft air, created one of the best natural mirrors I have ever seen with a fascinating skyline of melty scree-covered mountains and volcanoes including Láscar and Agua Calientes directly across. I could just make out the white specks (little streaks with their reflections really) of flamingos lining some of the far shore of the laguna. It was a highlight for sure but I had more to see.

Crossing over towards yet another basin to the east, I detoured to drive up the steep incline to the crater rim of Cerro Overo, a highly atypical basaltic maar with some of the most mafic extrusive rocks anywhere in the Andes. Unsurprisingly a drone provided the best view of the incredible landscape.

Onward I drove along the western shore of Laguna Aguas Calientes to some of its spring sources. This was at least the third "Laguna Aguas Calientes" I visited in the Atacama (certainly this was the most remote). The spring water was cold and most of the shoreline marsh pools were frozen from the night before so the name choice was baffling to me. I stopped to walk past the tidy piles of vicuña poop, over the grass, and around the pools to the edge of the lagoon to watch some slightly-too-far-away flamingos for a bit. The area around the laguna also had some nice lumpy alpine plant clusters.

Following up on a area that looked to be interesting on Google Earth, I drove further along past the laguna for a drone flight. The area did not look like much at all from the ground, but from 400ft overhead it was some of the most interesting patterned ground I have seen. It is hard to describe but some of it looked like artistic teardrops or lava lamp mixtures. Another area was mud-cracked in a complex pattern, almost like a natural fingerprint of sorts. Really cool!

I then backtracked past Laguna Lejía and then headed for the turn off to Láscar. This had some deep loose volcanic sand in places and I wondered how things would go looking up at the giant volcano in front of me. Lejía is at about 14,000' elevation, but I still had a further 2500' to climb in the car! The slope got steeper the closer I got to the volcano and I could see cars seemingly plastered on the side at the "trailhead" or at least the end of the road. As the road took a turn to the right it got equal parts steep and loose and my Subaru Forester gave it all it had. I'm not completely sure what combination of elevation and traction control it was, but I had the pedal to the floor as I crept upward at a steady 1-3 mph! It grunted with pain but stayed steady, surmounting this first crux then upward sidling before a second steep and loose section. I could see five guide vehicles parked at scary angles at the end of the road at 16500' and worked my way up. I was dizzy with adrenaline more than altitude as I continued up the narrow road at a ridiculous angle. I hit the second steep and loose section (even steeper!) and grinded onward to an eventual standstill then spinout only 500ft away from the other cars. Maybe I could have given it another try or two, but I had a "make good choices" mantra in my head and was not feeling like pushing it. So I carefully backed the car 1500ft down the road to the next best (read: only other) parking option. As I backed down the steep slope looking over my shoulder out my rear window, it seemed like I was looking straight down below me. I parked and packed exceptionally light but prepared, aiming to blitz the volcano. Despite cold wind I just wore a long sleeve shirt, wanting to not overheat. I took my handicap of an extra 400ft of thin air to climb through and set off up the loose slopes with one step forward, half-step back.

Periodically I checked my progress on my phone's GPS and I also found it very hard to resist nonstop photos of the amazing landscape around me including very fresh lahar, Laguna Lejía, and peaks of many shapes, textures, and colors. Trekking poles were totally key and despite being the only time I used them, were well worth packing. This was far and away the highest elevation I had been before. Despite probably being in the worth shape of my life, I was surprised to find that overall I was feeling the elevation more as a pain in my temples than a cardio effect. Halfway up I began passing people coming down. Eventually I would find out I was the only unguided person going up this day. I got some quizzical looks from some of the guides (I suggest at the late hour of my climb) but after watching me steadily ascend without stopping for a minute or so they seemed to shrug me off and focus on their clients who were having a hard enough time working their way down the mountain. The views just got better and better.

The crude switchbacked trail steadily gained elevation but happily the middle third of the ascent ended up being the hardest. This was also about where I passed the last of the people heading down. The last stretch was mercifully without a false summit and was slightly less steep, which my body appreciated. I later found out the guided groups take 2-3 hours to go up (from the trailhead above mine) and about 1.5 hours to go down. I made it up in 1:34, which I thought was not too shabby given my elevation handicap and frequent photo snaps.

There was more elevation I could have gained if I continued around the rim to the true peak but I was content to make it to the edge of the active crater at just above 18,000', smashing my previous high point of Mt Whitney (14,505'). The view from the crater's edge was fantastically dizzying. Before me was a very deep, clearly very fresh crater! Cliffs and rockfall all around, patches of sulfur and fumeroles over a thousand feet below me. As the wind shifted I would occasionally get whiffs of acidic gas that I could feel burning my throat, something I had not experienced since visiting White Island. It really did feel like it could blow at any moment and it did feel a little unnerving being the only person on the rim. As impressive as the crater was, so was the view across it of the many isolated volcanic peaks stretching out for tens of miles towards the horizon. It was as if I could see the Andes from the ground, imagine the subduction zone far beneath me, and sense the magma plumbing systems spilling material out to incredible heights. The experience was short-lived and I maybe only stayed 10-15 minutes on the crater rim, snapped plenty of photos, and then headed back down. 

View from Volcán Láscar crater rim (18,000')

Going downhill felt amazing despite the elevation. With perfect give on the scree underfoot and my clutch trekking poles, I made it down to my car in 35 minutes. The last guide (clearly late because he got stuck with the two most ill-prepared clients) drove past just as I reached my car and very kindly offered to wait until my car started (it did!) before driving on. I made it down and out the road without incident. I made a short detour up the Quebrada de Talabres hoping to drive all the way north of Láscar, but ran into a locked gate instead. I flew my drone straight up for a quick flight despite the wind and an amazing view of some of the best volcanic geology I have seen. The view was looking across the toe of an enormous debris avalanche that traveled over 4 miles from the rim of Volcán Láscar, which in turn was covered by a wispy lahar (volcanic mudflow). I could find very little scientific literature but the debris avalanche looked to be exceptionally young (but not historic) and from Google Earth imagery I could see the lahar happened between 1984 and 2007 (so probably during Láscar's sizable 1993 eruption). Anyway it was a great last view to end with!

Debris avalanche coated in ?1993? lahar with Láscar in right background

Back to the main road I beelined for camp and spent the better part of 2.5 hours organizing gear and attempting to clean the inside of the car. Returning rental cars clean anyways stresses me out and it didn't help that this one was nearly brand new. I had another early start, drive to Calama, gas and car wash, car return, then eventually boarded my flight back to Santiago. My conference that followed went well with a great group and some neat field trips over the course of a week, though it was a bit of an endurance run with a packed schedule, late dinners, and other work things to juggle simultaneously. All in all I really enjoyed my time in the Atacama. I would love to go back someday to venture further off the beaten path, particularly with a deeper dive into the Cordillera de la Sal. By the end of my week my Spanish did improve slightly, but more than anything I came away with a reminder that improving my Spanish should be one of my most important immediate goals! I'll end with a short video of some random clips I took over the week.

Atacama Geotermia Oct 4

This would be my most touristy day in Chile (Day 6), stringing together the two most popular geothermal sites in the Atacama and the most popular drive into the fringes of the Cordillera de La Sal. I left my campsite with a punishingly early 4am start for a long 2hr/90 km drive through darkness. The whole thing felt like a cruel joke: tell tourists that 6am is the best and only time to visit something 2 hours drive down a windy dirt road from their hotels. Even as I started driving on the one-lane dirt road I thought it couldn’t be real, but sure enough, I started to catch up to some other cars’ headlights driving the same direction to the same roadend as me. All of this was to visit the Geysers El Tatio, the third largest geyser field in the world, largest in the Southern Hemisphere, and I have to imagine the world’s highest at over 14,000 ft in elevation. Needless to say the early morning temperatures closest to dawn lead to the best chance to view the steam associated with the hundred plus geothermal features. 

After passing a few slow tourists (honestly the closest thing to traffic I saw the entire Atacama trip), I ended up being the third car in line at the entrance gate and pulled up within seconds of when it opened. Brr! It was solidly cold when I exited the car to check in. Sure enough, it was all business as I filled out the standard tourist details, paid, and received the details on where to show my ticket and where to drive. By the time all this fanfare subsided, I ended up being the first to park and set out across the trails at 7am when the first light of day arrived. Out of the darkness the white wisps of steam began to assemble across the sizable basin. The air was super cold and the ground surprisingly icy in places where the streams of warm water managed to fan out enough to cool. I took lots of tripod photos until the light raised sufficiently to switch over to handheld. Most of the features are best classified as hot springs and fumeroles, but there were several true geysers that would periodically boil over and explode with a few feet of height. Probably most impressive, other than just the landscape views of the vastness of the steam plumes and basin itself, were the isolated cinter towers to about 5ft in height (like the frontispiece) and the cascading rimstone pools with their shifting steam and reflections. 

By 7:30am it started to get super busy with tour vans galore fanning out across the trail network (by far the most tourists I saw the on my trip). When I had a chance to thoroughly walk the maze of trails at the main area I drove over to the smaller cluster near the remnant of the hot pool that used to allow soaking. Though the features were less abundant here, there were a few singular sources and geysers that were among the most impressive and the slight elevation gave a good overview of the basin. I stayed until about 8am, stopped for a quick overlook detour, then began the drive back as I had another geothermal stop to check out. Fortunately I was now past the sunrise rush to the geysers and had the road to myself. 

Since I approached in total darkness I finally got to see what I drove past hours earlier. At one of the roadside ponds I spotted the best closeup opportunity I had the whole trip to view flamingos. I more-or-less stopped in the middle of the oncoming side of the road and snapped my best flamingo photos from my driver’s seat! I noticed elsewhere that they were generally quite skittish of people on foot but did not seem to care that I was less than ten feet away from them in a car. Driving onward, I got a few nice canyon overlooks and passed some nice stands of mature columnar cacti clusters. I would have expected to see more cacti in the Atacama but they seemed to be quite particular in their climate, elevation, and rock choices.

Photos taken from the driver's seat!

I arrived at the Termas de Puritama gate around 9:45am, another check-in, parked, and walked down the steep road into the red canyon. As I descended I got great views of the cliffs, pre-Incan ruins, bright red boardwalk, green strip of vegetation, and the crystal clear waters of the hot spring cutting between it all. It was a pretty spot for sure. Though it took a couple days of planning to book a reservation, I did appreciate the quite limited visitation and could tell the experience would be quite different if they got greedy and let in two or three times as many people at a time. 

Upon arriving at the bottom I was told I had seven cascading pools to choose from (#1 being reserved for VIPs apparently). I decided to go for a "pool crawl" by walking down to the bottom pool (#8) and working my way through soaking in each pool up to the top one (#2). This seemed to be the right idea because they got minusculely warmer with each step up towards the source. The bottom one firmly fit in a "warm spring" temperature category, while the top one was a fairly borderline temperature to sit in for a long time. The crystal-clarity of the water, however, was top notch, right on par with some of the best springs I've visited. The depths of the pools were comfortable and the gravel floors were quite pleasant. The clear blue waters, red tuff cliffs, and golden pompas grasses waving in the light breeze were a signature feature of every pool. Pool #5 was the scenic standout with the biggest falls and largest boulders. The dam for Pool #3 had a nice edge I almost feel asleep on. Pool #2 was a surprise as it did not look like much from the "dock" area, but once you got in you could see it had a long pompas grass-lined corridor leading up to a nice curtain waterfall. This was the pool I spent the most time in, enjoying the shade of the overhanging grasses and the warmest temperatures. Eventually everyone left and I had the pool to myself, which was great. 

Pool #5

Pool #2

I could have stayed until 1pm but was content with walking back up around noon. I ate on the drive back to San Pedro de Atacama and drove straight on to Valle de la Luna, the most popular badland tourist drive. You used to be able to hike off trail and explore some of the salt caves in this park but unsurprisingly as tourism has increased and with it greater impacts, so too have the restrictions to match them. After getting instructions I drove into the folded badlands. Despite warm midday heat I opted for the two longer hikes in the area. The first hike was a neat loop across sand and up a wash past crystalized gypsum and halite to a nice along-strike view of the same anticlinal basin I traversed on the "gasline road", then returning along a sharp ridge, and descending down the interesting dam-like Duna Mayor. The second hike had a little more up-and-down but different terrain and I had it all to myself. As I wandered around the textured badlands I found it quite hard to take a photo that did not have to perfect cone of Licancabur on the horizon- it really demanded attention. 

Valle de la Luna with Volcan Licancabur on the horizon

After I drove to the roadend and took in the other stops I drove back towards San Pedro. I guessed at a dirt road on the outskirts that I thought could have a nice view, and indeed I was rewarded with an glance at Quitor ruins and the Valle de la Muerte. After I drove up to the top viewpoint included in my Valle de la Luna ticket price. I got weird looks from the guard for not doing the standard tourist thing of waiting until sunset for the classic shot, but the considerable upshot was having the whole place to myself. Very nice panoramic views across the folds. Given my early start to the day (and plans for a full final day tomorrow), I was happy to get back to camp pre-sunset. I think I got scammed by the gas attendant at the COPEC station as I paid more for less gas than the day before, but I really can't imagine what power I would have in that situation. I ended the day exhausted, mentally preparing for another early start (5am this time). I felt like I touristed hard! I was slightly off the schedule of the tour groups to bypass most of the crowds throughout the day.  I enjoyed all three places and the flamingos were the icing on the cake.