A part of the Andes mountain range, Aconcagua is the highest mountain outside of Asia and, at 22,841 feet, is the highest mountain in both the Southern and Western Hemispheres.

Brad Fain, CEO of Fain Signature Group in Prescott Valley, and fellow hikers Mark Peterson and Sean Fain began their journey up the mountain on February 5, 2020 with their two guides, Argentinian Gustavo, and American Will. Their journey started, however, long before that first step in February. Months of preparation were involved to be prepared for this journey as anyone who hikes this mountain must be prepared for several days of strenuous exercise and be ready to carry a 33-45 pound pack.

The crew also learned that gear was to be an important part of this journey. “My wife took one look at me in my down jacket and said ‘You look like Kenny’” said Brad Fain as he described some of the gear he’d need. Brad went on to describe the layers of clothing he would need and the different types needed as the hike started in a hot moist climate then cool as elevation levels rose; finishing at the peak with temperatures averaging around zero degrees (before the wind chill!).

The trio began their trek up the mountain on February 5th. At the end of the first day Brad shared “Day one complete. 8.8 mile trek. Hot and rocky. Team is glad to be moving finally. Tomorrow we get to see Aconcagua for the first time.”

On February 16th, twelve days after they set out, the team summited the Aconcagua at 22,841 feet!

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In late 2017, German engineer Jan Dudeck was just completing a decade-long quest to create a new long trail through South America. The Greater Patagonian Trail (GPT), as he named it, would come to be 1,900 miles, stretching through the southern Andes from Santiago to the Argentinean climbing mecca of Mount Fitzroy. “This trail rewards the humble,” Dudeck says, “and humiliates the proud.”

Stories were emerging from some of Dudeck’s collaborators of glacial river crossings, trailblazing, and frontiersman-like bushwhacking on the GPT. These challenges were compounded by the fact that Dudeck’s creation has no trail markers, nor official recognition. It passes through isolated arriero cowboy country and the settlements of indigenous people.

Resupply points are up to 120 miles apart and separated by 10,000-foot mountains. Several sections are reached by culturally sensitive negotiations at restricted access points. Only a trio of adventurers so far have had the sufficient linguistic, logistical, and technical skills necessary to thru-hike Dudeck’s labyrinth.

Dudeck and his Chilean wife, Meylin Ubilla, spent ten years hiking the few established trails in southern Chile and Argentina before beginning to knit together the GPT. Dudeck got the idea for a single trail after returning home from a 2012 horse trek; once back in Europe, he deciphered the route his guides had taken him on using satellite imagery.

“You don’t see it continuously,” he says, “but you see enough to know there should be a connection.” The 12-inch-wide depressions made by the arrieros and Pehuenche people driving animals could be seen in images captured from space. It was a eureka moment, enough for Dudeck to start creating his massive Andean thru-hike.

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The world’s driest desert is flooding and some of the planet’s wettest woodlands are burning. Welcome to summer in Chile.

Rains high up in the Andes Mountains have led to torrents of water pouring into the Atacama desert below, sweeping away houses and roads. Meanwhile in the south, blistering temperatures have fueled forest fires, leading the government to declare some regions a disaster area.

President Sebastian Piñera declared a “zone of emergency” in northern Chile after heavy rains devastated the country’s El Loa province. Flooding caused six deaths and destroyed nearly 100 homes, the National Emergency Office sai. Alerts for heavy precipitation were in effect in Arica, Parinacota and Tarapaca.

The disasters are part of a pattern of increasingly extreme weather in the country that stretches for 4,270 kilometers (2,650 miles) along South America’s south-west coast. The capital, Santiago, hasn’t received its average annual rainfall in a decade, while temperatures in the city beat the previous record by a whole degree Celsius last month. It was the third time in three years the city has set a record high.

“Chile needs to be thinking about how to adapt to climate change, as it has such an isolated climate that makes it more vulnerable to droughts,” said Park Williams, a hydroclimatologist at Columbia University in New York. “For the last several decades, temperatures have risen and precipitation has declined in central Chile, making it more susceptible to wildfires.”

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