True Grit

Three weeks ago I helped seven riders repel off a horse down a fifty-foot cliff into the crater of Sollipulli volcano. They gripped a lasso of crude leather and scuffled their feet, searching for firm footing among the loose shale and igneous rock. The inched their way down the nearly vertical drop and tried not to think about the very real possibility of the earth beneath them sliding away in an avalanche. Next to me, on the lip of the crater, Luis’ horse turned his back to the chilling wind, closed his eyes to the dust, and leaned away from the crater, anchoring himself against the weight of the multiple women who descended on the lasso attached to his saddle. One woman sat resolutely while the others silently prepared for the descent and said we were dumb, dumb and stupid for attempting such a dangerous stunt. Another rider dug out her cell phone, turned it on and thrust her arm vainly in the air, searching for nonexistent signal to call her kids and say goodbye.

We arrived to the rim at 4:00 in the afternoon after six hours of riding over the vast volcanic landscape of Sollipulli. It was at times arid, at times snow-capped, but always unforgivingly steep. Sollipulli is an amalgamation of several small, long-dead volcanoes and its geography is accordingly varied. Harsh conical formations rise to a flat top or a hollow crater; great undulating ripples of earth bend and flow, as if complex, monstrous waves of lava hardened to form this severe landscape. The high altitude keeps most parts of Sollipulli covered in snow through most of the year, but in some places the sun strips the cliffs, outcrops, plateaus, and hills of their white blanket and exposes feathery veins of hardened lava in the rock as well as red iron deposits. Through the morning and afternoon we cut tight “Z”s up mountainsides and even tighter ones down snowy slopes. We held our hats as the horses tiptoed across the five foot wide, razor’s edge summit line. I hauled a horse, an older gelding called Rebelde, off its knees when it fell in an ice patch and slipped dangerously to the edge of the earth. Then I watched in numbed shock as my own horse, Tornado, bolted wildly, galloping across the snow and skidding to a stop only inches from the edge of bottomless crevasse.

Such was our morning. But in my memories of that day I often overlook the first six hours. The climax of beauty, terror, danger and emotion was our descent into, and the time we spent within, the great crater. Once the women reached the end of the rope, they stepped off the sand and shale and onto the firm, snow-capped glacier which fills the crater. Luis calmly herded them behind an outcrop where they wouldn’t be able to see our next stunt, then struggled back up the cliff to me. He removed the lasso from his own horse and fixed it to the bridle of another, then turned to me with an inappropriately flippant grin and asked, “Ready?” I must have hesitated, glimpsing the cliff again and imagining what we were about to do, because he stared at me harder and said “Nervous?... Don’t be. This is easy.”

Luis is a wizard with horses, but his blind confidence comes not from faith in the certainty of a positive outcome. It comes instead from his inability to entertain the possibility of a disastrous outcome. It is his strength and weakness. When you are on the lip of a crater, in deafening wind, with ten horses you have to somehow get to the bottom of the crater, it is not an “easy” situation.

With seven riders and ten horses to care for, my worries flared ferociously at that moment. What if the snow in the crater was soft or hiding huge crevices? The landscape had been unpredictable all day, what if we couldn’t get back out of the crater? What if, in the struggle, I slipped off the cliff under the hooves of the horses, as had happened once earlier in the day? But my thoughts had to wait because suddenly Luis was standing halfway down the cliff, buried to his calves in the loose rock, hauling on the lasso and shouting for me to start. I moved behind the first horse, Palomo, and slapped him with all my force. Two minutes of slapping and tugging finally overpowered him and he slipped over the edge. I took advantage of horses’ herd mentality and pushed the next horse, Chocolate, over the cliff before he could figure out where he was headed. The rest followed, stepping off the lip before their self-preservation instincts set it, and stood watching ten horses plunge, slip, fall and slide their way down the rock river to the bottom. I lost sight of Luis in the eruption of sand and dust, and had to wait until the roar sliding rocks quieted before I could call out to him.

I was the only one left on top. I gathered the remaining ropes and jumped, surfing the shale to the bottom. Once on the snow I noticed the pervasive tranquility of the glacier. The women sat quietly, half-traumatized, half-exhausted; the horses stood calmly, only gently shuddering from shock; the wind was gone, the air was still and it was silent. It was as though we were in a vacuum. The glacier was vast, blindingly white and stretched out for hundreds and hundreds of meters before us. The sky too breathed tranquility, with an easy wash of baby blue and a few stretched cotton strands of cloud. And, but for a few bright drops of blood dribbled across the snow, fallen from the horses nicked legs, it seemed that everyone was safe.

In all, we rode for twelve and a half hours that day. Two weeks earlier Aldo and Luis successfully crossed Sollipulli on horseback- the first riders ever to do so. In an ambitious, and ultimately ill planned decision, we decided to cross it again with seven riders as part of their twelve day trek. The seven riders and I laugh now, and brag that we survived Sollipulli. But, it was the most extreme day of my life and I don’t want to forget that. Up there, on the volcano, it seems things are only given in vast dosages. It was too beautiful, too dangerous, too exciting, too steep, too magnificent, too stressful. I felt my insides compress and cried from the beauty. As a rider, I might do it again. As a guide… It is a changing, unpredictable landscape which changes quickly and intensely. I’m not convinced that the unimaginable sights we saw, the entire volcanic landscape of southern Chile stretching out in purple peaks and snow-capped cones before us, were worth the risk.

I have more to write about the rest of that day… (how we couldn’t get out of the crater, how we rode through the dark on exhausted horses…) and more to write about the past few weeks as well, including an eventful four day ride I led. But for now I’m leaving, taking a short vacation from Antilco to recharge and give my nerves a rest. I head today to Bariloche, Argentina and from there will continue south, deeper into Patagonia. There are links below to my pictures from Sollipulli which capture nothing, but are pretty. Check them out!

Hasta Luego!