a while back on PBS i saw this special about the Patagonia mountains.
i hate to admit it but as i started watching i was surprised to learn i knew so little about them.
they are in south America along the border of Chile and Argentina and very few people have actually photographed their western and southern sides because they are so inaccessible.
a photographer by the name of art wolfe set out in this episode that i watched with the goal in mind of capturing shots of these breathtaking but elusive cliffs.
the northern, more photographed side of the mountain is beautiful in its own right. it reminds me more of the mountains in New Mexico than the steep Rockies that one might imagine. platoes and rock formations that glow red when struck by the sun jut out in all directions.
as the photographer and his team travel along to the back side of these beauties they begin to traverse the very glaciers that formed these ranges. he said in the film that scientists say that a single snow flake that falls here will remain three hundred years before it will be released from the glacier.
he is able to actually go inside one of the crevasses inside the glacier itself and what he captures with his lens is amazing. you think that you have seen the color blue in its natural state. you have not. underneath this glacier below some two hundred feet of ice as the sun pierces through the layers, you truly see the hue in purest form. it glows with this intoxicating light that i can only imagine what it must be like to see first hand.
next the crew travels by foot hiking around to the south western tip of these mountains on the southern most edge of the Americas. as they photograph the last remaining mountain faces of the western side a storm moves in and very quickly the clouds and the snow make sight almost impossible. the vast range that they photographed hours earlier is literally vanished before their very eyes and before mine as the viewer too. all that you can see for what seems like miles and miles is this blanket of white.
the photographer says that he is reminded of when he worked in Antarctica; that no where else that he has ever been on the planet has seemed so vast, stark white and barren.
it comforts him, he says, that in this seemingly endless emptiness, the only faces that he can see are of those that he recognizes and that he knows.
the team is doubtful as to whether or not it will clear up enough to shoot the range that they have traveled so far to see.
as i watched it with my completely non scientific eye i am amazed. there is no way that they can be anywhere near the mountains. the guide has told them that if they set up camp at the destination where he has led them through the white wasteland, that if the weather clears, they will get the shot that they have so long sought after. i do not believe him. surely in the blizzard like climate he has led them astray; inadvertently they have gone the wrong way. this mountain range is no where to be seen!
they set up camp in tents amidst the snow and clouds. the wind is really moving. it blows uninhibited for some 2000 miles across the ocean before slapping into the mountains and the crew can really feel it. they build a wall out of ice and snow to protect their little make shift camp and bed down for the night, hopeful.
i do not see any way possible that they are anywhere near the range, much less close enough to shoot it in the morning. even if the weather changes.
but sure enough, just as it always does, the sun comes up.
and lo and behold, the Southern Patagonia Mountains. not 100 yards from where they made their camp. if they had kept walking just a little more they would have practically run into them!
they are able to shoot a side of these mountains that very few people have ever even seen in pictures, much less in person.
i am in total shock! they were right there in front of them the whole time! for three days they walked around seeing nothing but white, and all of the sudden, they are there, right where they have been headed all along, only now the veil has been lifted and they can see.
walking by faith and not by sight.
i think that this program hit me so hard, becuase i feel like in many ways i have been walking around looking for the mountains i have been promised for quite some time.
just keep walking.
just keep walking.
i have been telling myself that for awhile now.
i have seen things along the way in a new light.
i am thankful for the faces that i recognize who walk with me, even on the most difficult of journeys.
i am trusting that my guide knows where He is leading.
i am hopeful that i will get my long sought after shot.
i have built my little hedge of protection and set up camp where i believe that i have been told to rest for the night.
i pray that maybe it all will clear in the morning and before my eyes...
the peaks!
--MOUNTAIN sat upon the plain
In his eternal chair,
His observation omnifold,
His inquest everywhere.
The seasons prayed around his knees,
Like children round a sire:
Grandfather of the days is he,
Of dawn the ancestor.
--emily dickinson
