WildernessCourses

 Wilderness Horsemanship and Life Skills in the Cordillera

January 3-16, 2009
February 10-23, 2009

Meet your instructor, T.A. Carrithers

The Patagonian cordillera is as unique a place as any to be encountered. It is a place of enormous distances, ancient mountains, surprisingly abundant water, fierce winds, stark shadows, and strong, large hearted people. By bringing together horsmanship, primitive-living skills, and an excursion into a cultural landscape, this course offers a window into oneself and the fundamentals of life, in its most profound and most basic.

On this course you will learn to travel through rugged country on horseback, and how to saddle and care for your horse. You will also learn how to load and lead a packhorse. In the mountains, you will learn some of
the basic skills intrinsic to human life; navigation through a landscape, friction fire making, shelter, finding water, and survival priorities. The landscape and culture the we will be immersed in coupled with the human-horse relationship offer the perfect backdrop for these skills.

Day 1: We'll meet on the morning of the first day in the town of Zapala.
From there, we travel four hours by van to "Buta Mallin", an outpost on our land, and the end of the road.  The rest of this day will be spent getting to know your horse, setting up a camp for the night, and eating an "asado" (roast goat) with the gauchos.

Days 2-4: The second day we'll pack our gear on packhorses and ride three hours to the Ranquilco lodge where we will will spend the next couple of days getting familiar with the horses, the tack, and the landscape. You'll learn to saddle and care for your horse, and also to help tack and load the packhorses. During day rides, we’ll talk about trail safety, extended horse travel, and specific considerations of the local geography, weather, and culture. There will also be time to enjoy the river, the lodge, and the scenery. Finally, we’ll go over personal gear, group items, food, and pack gear as we prepare to ride off into the mountains.

Days 5-11: We then head off into the cordillera for a grand tour of the
peaks and high valleys that make up the spine of the Andes range. This is the longest mountain range in the world, and our trip will take us right
into the heart of it. We'll visit some of its most remote valleys and
ridges. We'll camp on the shores of a pristine lake, on mountainside
terraces, and on the edges of alpine meadows. Our route will take us right up to the continental divide with sweeping views to the west into Chile.

We'll intersperse long days of riding with base camp days for primitive skills lessons, swimming, day-hikes, fishing, and lounging around. We may even climb a high ridge one evening to watch the full moon rise over the steppes of Argentina while the sun sets behind a Chilean volcano. The only other people we'll see are the gauchos that follow their goat-herds into the mountains for summer. One of the highlights of a trip out there is to stop at a twig hut and sip mate' (tea) with these wonderful people.

Days 12-14:  The last few days will be spent relaxing at the lodge and
enjoying all of the comforts and joys of this amazing place. On the final
day we'll head back to Zapala, arriving in the late afternoon.