A hike with Stu and family

We met Stu in camp come morning. Our modest cozy home on and off for the next couple months, wood framed and walled in paramo grass, dirt floors and old swinging warped doors. A sink, a stove, some pots and pans, unbalanced candle wax smeared table and chairs, old dust covered books and forlorn raincoats hanging by the door nail. Humble and honest shelter, our own Walden cabin of sorts 12,000ft in the Andes.

The day was a long and memorable one full of ridiculous bushwhacking and anectdotal stories. Descending with Stu and his sons from the paramo nearly 3,000 feet lower into dank pines and misty cloud forests far below. Eventually meeting the stream at the bottom of this deep valley that marks the boundary of Sangay. Pushing, trudging, picking and at times crawling through so many transitions of green jungle. Tall spiky puya plants of the paramo transitioning to thick stands of hairy primeval ferns and yellow blooming Astercaciae. Passing through gloomy pines and wet spongy cloud forests dripping with bromeliads, mosses, and wild orchids. Pushing through dense clinging, angry bamboo jungle and crawling under labrythine tangled mazes of man high nekron grass amongst irate wasps and looming Podocarpus trees. There and back again.

Day one exploring in the most honest sense, by foot. Intimacy with the landscape is learning to appreciate it eye to eye, foot to path, the senses immersed. Looking down into the green monster from on high is easy, on foot it is another world wholly unto itself worth all the trouble to unravel.