|
The Paine Towers and the San Rafael Glacier
From "THE FLIGHT OF THE CONDOR"
by Michael Alford Andres
|
I
could not forget their vertical spires. the clarity of the light, the
raging wind, the flowers, wrote Andres. |
 |
Next to it the Horns of Paine
rose to 8760 feet in a curtain of granite cliffs that fell straight to
a turquoise lake at sea level furrowed with white by the wind. In front a stark ridge of blade-like vertical peaks rose like the fingers of a hand from a palm of snow - the 'Towers'.
I think it was the memory of the Paine mountains which drew me back to South America to make The Flight of the Condor [BBC series]
Few places that I know possess
such a magic.
To my left a 10,600-foot mountain was swathed in a storm of snow.Then to my right another black mountain met the cloud. Down beneath its cliffs fell a glacier - white with glimmers of green like an opal- which melted at the snow-line half-way down the slopes. But the peaks were so steep that even some summits were bare rock. Occasionally there was the rumble of an avalanche and a torrent of ice and torrent of ice and snow fell in a cascade down a rock face. but more often a whispering roar gave notice of a williwaw streaking white across the lake. That morning the wind was too strong to stand in but in the lulls I could hear the call of the song?sparrow and lark.
|
Young guanacos with fleecy coats stood on soft rounded hillocks of glacial moraine only 100 yards or so across but still high enough to hide the mountains from the road, which meandered between them like the road to a fairy castle. Beside it were little lakes. some as small and neat as village ponds. everyone a different colour and teeming with bird life.
Upland geese. white and grey and chestnut with flotillas of downy goslings; smart Chiloe widgeon; red-billed coscoroba swans; buff-necked ibises and |
|
coots; the list and variety was endless. Then just when I had come to terms with some small scene. if I raised my eyes the sky was full of the Towers of Paine. The wind raging through their summits brings such a varying burden of cloud that they never look the same twice. Indeed if my eye stayed on the strangely luminous pale granite wall with its splintered cap of black slate I could see the clouds boiling up like steam from a kettle. Each time the contrast of the stark mountains came as a shock.
Amidst the banners of snow streaming from the peaks moved a sharp black speck. A condor. There they were common, but I could not see one without a tingle of excitement that a bird so large could master such a place. When we flopped down on the ground they would float silently down to investigate like giant black moths drawn to the last flicker of a life.
Once there were seventeen whirling in the sky above us as I stood near a ridge, and I was suddenly startled by the whoa! whoa! whoa! of huge wings as one flapped over the rock that hid me, blotting out the sky with coffee-coloured feathers. (Only the adults are black.) It was so close that it seemed I could reach up and touch it. There was something very sinister about these great black shapes ten feet across wheeling about one's head waiting for one to die. More like aeroplanes than birds, their necks crane back over their white collars for a better look. the big wedge tails twist and they part the air with the noise of a sailplane. Eagles buck the Patagonian wind with wings swept back like a fighter's staggering in the gusts; the big condors sail on undisturbed with wing tip primaries streamed back as they head to windward, spreading them like fingers feeling for lift as they turn. I have one of those primaries. It's longer than my forearm and outstretched fingers, as stiff as a batten. and surprisingly heavy. A big condor can weigh twelve kilos. and a friend of mine measured one in Peru that was over three and a half metres in wingspan. If he was right that's longer than the greatest span recorded for the wandering albatross and the Andean condor is the biggest as well as the heaviest bird that flies. More than one sun-bather has woken up with a nasty fright to find a condor flying only a few feet above, and one Scottish girl who was waiting alone in a mountaineering base camp near the Paine was so terrorised by condors over a period of days that she took refuge in a cave. In fact there is no record of them ever attacking a living man, and they always approach prey on foot.
|
The Paine National Park covers a spread of habitats from the glaciers that descend from the south Patagonian ice-cap, through evergreen and deciduous beech forest. to the Patagonian steppe. They are an elegant example of how geology and climate dictate the forms of life that can be supported. |
|
All mountains have been built by the same geological processes, and the Andes happen to be the best recent example of how they work. The strange Towers of Paine tell part of the story.In the centre of the earth is a molten metallic core. Above that, and roughly equal in depth, is a highly viscous hot mantle of dense dark silicate rock. On top of this, beneath the continents, floats a crust about thirty kilometres thick which is mostly composed of coarse-grained granite. The higher the mountains, the thicker the crust to support their weight floating on top of the mantle. Beneath the oceans, on the other hand, the crust is only about eight to ten kilometres thick and is chiefly composed of black, fine-grained basalts. What drove South America away from Africa was the slow eruption of these basalts in a continuous spreading process along the line of what is now the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The new ocean crust is generated roughly on the mid line of the ocean and spreads out in both directions from it at the rate of about one centimetre per year. But just as South America is floating away from Africa on its continental plate. so it is approaching the Nazca plate beneath the Pacific. This. by a similar process of sea-floor spreading from the East-Pacific Rise, is heading towards South America.
The upwelling at mid-ocean is thought to be caused by convection currents within the mantle lifting heated rock to form the new crust. and at the western edge of South America the reverse takes place: the Pacific plate sinks beneath the Andes. Just to the west of the Andes is the Chile-Peru Trench. a trench deeper than the Andes are high. This is where the descending Nazca plate drags down the edge of the South American continental plate.
As one plate slides beneath the other, several centimetres a year, friction generates enormous quantities of heat, melting some of the rocks in contact. Since this molten material is hotter and thus lighter it moves up through the continental crust. Part of it reaches the surface to form the chain of volcanoes down the Andes - there are over 2000 volcanoes in Chile alone, over fifty of them active. But most of the molten rock never reaches the surface. It cools and comes to rest a few thousands of metres below the surface and crystallises to form enormous masses or intrusions of igneous rock called batholiths. It is the upward thrust of the batholiths which folds sedimentary (layered) rock into ranges like the Andes Cordillera. In time the surrounding rocks are eroded and weathered away and the batholiths are exposed. The granite Towers of Paine are the remains of such a batholith. On top of the pinkish granite is a tilted cap of black slate, the remains of the sedimentary rocks pushed aside when the batholith rose. The vertical cliffs and sweeping curves that look as if the mountains had been carved with an ice-cream scoop are the effects of glaciation.
|
|
But the ice in the Paine is retreating, backing down the U-shaped valleys that it has cut, leaving them flooded like fiords, and it is retreating surprisingly fast. The Dickson glacier is backing up at the rate of seventeen metres a year. |
As the ice recedes and the naked rock is laid bare the slow process of colonisation by living things takes place. First the lichens grow on the rocks, breaking down the smooth surface by chemical action. The clefts hold soil and moisture for mosses. and in them the seeds of herbs and shrubs can germinate, but the Andean igneous rock is impermeable. and before erosion can carve drainage systems to lower levels, extensive bogs develop, ringed by trees and shrubs dwarfed by the wind. It seems strange that the commonest sphagnum moss is the same species that grows in Scotland. but mosses are amongst the most ancient forms of vegetable life.
The guanaco, the wild cousin of the llama and the alpaca, and a relative of the camel. is one of the most successful of the mammalian invaders from North America which crossed the Isthmus of Panama when the two continents were joined. Strangely the guanaco's family has died out in the northern continent. but it survived until recently throughout the Andes and the west coast of South America from sea level to a height of 13 .000 feet. Few animals other than its enemy the puma exceed this range. The guanaco's other enemy is Man, and with the advent of the rifle its numbers were cut down so severely that it no longer exists in many of its former habitats. Only in the last ten years has there been any improvement in its numbers in protected areas, especially in Tierra del Fuego and the Paine Park.
The guanaco was fundamental to the life of the Ona and Tehuelche Indians, furnishing them meat, skins and bone for implements. Antonio Pigafetta in 1520 was one of the first Europeans to see a guanaco when shown one by the Indians which he called Patagones: big-feet - from their guanaco moccasins ?and thus Patagonia.
As the males stood in heraldic postures on hilltops, outlined against the blue cliffs of the mountains behind, we were struck more by their grace than their oddity. Their soft dark ears outlined in white standing up above their large brown eyes always looked to me like exclamation marks and made them appear permanently surprised. Each dominant male kept his family group of females and yearlings to a well-defined territory and stood guard over it, watching from higher ground. The guanaco's hearing is wonderfully acute, and I well remember in the forests of Tierra del Fuego how our first knowledge that they were there was usually when we heard the high-pitched bray like a peal of laughter. Then it was too late, as they would slip silently and invisibly away.
Twenty years ago there was not a guanaco to be seen near the Paine mountains. Now they were everywhere, and we could easily approach within about 100 yards even on foot. Our problems now were not with the animals but with the wind, whose chilling, desiccating effect is the cause of the hummocky vegetation of cushion plants. This form of growth helps to conserve heat and moisture, but we found it difficult and tiring to walk over. The guanacos had no such problem, bounding up the steep slopes with agility and grace on their soft-?padded feet.
As it was spring most of the birds in the park either had chicks or were nesting. One of the most amusing sights was to see a couple of dozen tiny ostrich chicks scurrying after their long-legged parent. These were the Darwin's (or lesser) rhea. It is worth pointing out that there are three totally different kinds of flightless birds in South America: the rheas, the penguins and the steamer?ducks. The rheas are related to the ostriches of Africa and the emu. cassowary, and kiwi of Australasia. It was once a puzzle how these birds of a common ancestry had been able to cross from one continent to another, since they could not fly, but of course it was the giant continent that split up and divided their ancestors.
The periscope-like necks of the guanaco and rhea adapt them to life in open country.
The rhea can stay 'hull-down' on the horizon with only its head appearing between the bushes, and if an enemy approaches it freezes and its blueish-grey mottled nondescript plumage makes it almost indistinguishable from all the other rounded humps that form the vegetation. The Indians and then the gauchos hunted this and the more northern, larger, species with the bolas - three round stones joined to a central point by rawhide cords. One stone was held in the hand and the other two whirled round the head and released to entangle the head and then feet of the running bird. I once watched such a hunt. The rhea is very fast and has an amazing ability to double back on its tracks just when it seems about to be caught. It raises its wings alternately as if to try to get extra speed from the wind, and can suddenly disappear by dropping into the undergrowth. The chicks were surprisingly fast and had no hesitation in dashing into and across water. The only way that Hugh managed to film them was by catching the slowest chick of a brood and then trapping it within a rampart of bushes so that its high-pitched peeping called the adult to return to it. Of course he released it back to the brood when he had finished filming.
Rheas have a curious social structure. The males tend the nest. in which as many as five or six females lay fifty or even more eggs. The male incubates the eggs and later takes care ofthe young, but the females may lay in more than one nest. A rhea's egg is big, about 125 millimetres across, with a tough thick shell. Remembering the strange creatures that peopled South America until the land?bridge formed to the north it is interesting to speculate what the rheas' enemies were while it was evolving. Perhaps the giant flightless predatory birds?One of the most beautiful aspects of the Paine was the immense number of waterfowl congregating and nesting on the lakes and marshes. It was impossible not to be moved, however reluctantly, by the sight of huge flights of upland geese against the black mountainside, sun streaming through their white secondaries and making the yellow feet of the darker females glow against the sunburst behind. South American geese, although resembling true geese, are in fact more closely related to some of the ducks such as the shelduck. They are usually to be seen grazing, and eight geese eat as much as a sheep. Throughout the temperate grass lands of the south they are so abundant that they are considered a plague by the farmers who in the past have made the mistake of shooting their enemies the foxes. One reason that there are so many is that their flesh is so tough as to be almost inedible.
Seen through binoculars at close range the plumage of these birds is very striking, particularly the ashy-headed geese, which we saw swimming with their broods on little ponds in the woods. They had grey heads, chestnut backs, and black-and-white barred sides. Out on the bigger lagoons in the open were flamingoes, and black-necked swans breasted the small breaking waves with their cygnets riding safely on their backs between their wings. There were many kinds of duck too: pintail, teal. shovellers, and the Chiloe widgeon, a dabbling duck with a lovely three-syllable whistle. This noise, with the plaintive metallic honk of the buff-necked ibises and the gabbling of the geese are for me the most characteristic sounds of Patagonia
The San Rafael glacier
Ice is the major force that erodes mountain ranges, and one of the most accessible large glaciers in Chile is also the glacier nearest the equator to reach the sea: the San Rafael glacier, in latitude 42? 42' South. In the same latitude north, Chateau Mouton Rothschild is grown. Normally it takes a round trip of a week by boat to reach the glacier for a few hours, but in the thirties the Chilean railway company had the mad idea of building a luxury hotel there. Its ruins remain and so does a derelict airstrip. I had been tipped off about this, so we flew in from Coyhaique, dodging between the mountains and the clouds, taking our inflatable boat.
The San Rafael Glacier is a mere remnant compared to what it must once have been, but it is still impressive. It is four kilometres wide at its front where the ice cliff is forty to sixty metres high. It stretches back about twenty-five kilometres into the mountains, a white river poured down the bottom of the dark forested valley. [Today the glacier is 'a mere remnant' of what Andres saw not so long ago- H.T.]
At sea-level it never snows and here the surface of the glacier was uncovered: a fantastic tumult of pinnacles and crevasses, spires and hollows, caused by the compression and thawing of the ice.
|
The glacier ended in a large tidal lagoon ten kilometres across and almost landlocked, containing very large numbers of icebergs floating in pack-ice. Were it not for the dark mountains beyond it would have seemed like Antarctica
[photo taken from deck of Ms Amsterdam] |
|
From our little rubber boat the ice was extremely impressive. It had sheer smooth vertical cliffs the deep blue of the ocean or a high-altitude sky, flecked with streaks of white like cirrus. Huge blocks collapsed suddenly into the water with no warning, causing miniature tidal waves, and geysers of spray flung high into the air. The water below the ice was turbulent with eddies where the melt-water gushed up from beneath and to add to our feeling of insecurity every now and then the sea would boil and rumble and bergs would surface from underneath the ice cliff, their jagged spires shooting high into the air, twisting and falling again in rings of white foam. These under-water bergs were as clear as glass and as greeny-blue. We made several passes close under the cliff of the glacier to film it and then cautiously made our way through the tinkling brash ice - which threatened to puncture our boat with its sharp points - towards an island at the north end of the glacier. This was an excellent vantage point from which to film the collapsing ice cliff.
A glacier like this flows some hundreds of metres in a year and grinds away the rock at about two millimetres a year - two metres in 1000 years. But 1000 years is the twinkling of an eye in geological time. Where the ice had ground over our island it had cut grooves in the rock and had sheared it away on the downstream side. On top of the island were scattered boulders, stones and pebbles, debris from the rock walls of the valley, just as they had been deposited by the retreating ice. Some were placed as carefully on the ledges of the sloping rock as if by hand. Many of them were round, which showed that they must lave been eroded in the melt-water stream beneath the ice, a wonderful mixture kinds of rock: granite, slate, marble, basalt - all colours and sizes, each from a ifferent part of the range.
We were awed by the sound of the glacier: sharp cracks almost like shots and huge booming thunder that can be heard ten miles away.
Michael Andries "The Flight of the Condor was published by Collins, BBC, in 1982
|
