Cuando el pasado noviembre subimos hasta la cima de Sierra Contreras, el conjunto montañoso en el que se encuentra AWASI, vimos un pequeño lago helado en su extremo este. Era un lago pequeñito al que acceder se presumía arriesgado con toda la nieve que cubría la cima de la sierra.
Hace unos días, ahora a finales del verano austral en febrero, estábamos en el campamento con ganas de salir a ver el paisaje. Así que salimos a dar un paseo.
Como en principio íbamos únicamente a dar una vuelta corta antes de cenar sólo llevamos una mochila con una botellita de agua. En principio íbamos a volver en una media hora.
Íbamos a empezar a subir por el camino habitual, pero a mí me dio una pereza tremenda y sugerí investigar el bosque.
En esas estábamos, caminando entre lengas ancianas, cuando llegamos a una alambrada de esas que delimitan los prados de las vacas. Decidimos seguirla un poco, a ver hasta dónde iba.
Al final a lo tonto salimos del bosque justo en la falda de la montaña que delimita Sierra Contreras por el este, la del lago.
El terreno, ahora sin nieve, era de piedra suelta y arena, bastante parecido al de las montañas rocosas canadienses pero con otro tipo de roca y un color diferente.
Como si fuésemos Forrest Gump decidimos que, ya que estábamos ahí, podíamos seguir hasta la cima. Así que subimos, en algunas zonas ayudándonos con las manos, hasta la cima de la montaña.
Y efectivamente en la parte trasera del pico estaba nuestro lago, esta vez con agua líquida. No nos había costado mucho llegar hasta él y ahora que no había nieve en la Sierra Contreras se empezó a fraguar una aventura en nuestra cabeza… pero antes había que investigar el terreno un poco mejor, cosa que hicimos al día siguiente.
Enrique & Marina
English version
THE HIDDEN LAKE
The time in October when we climbed to the top of Sierra Contreras, the little range just behind Awasi, we saw a frozen little lake at the East end. At that time of the year the crest was completely covered with snow and we didn’t feel comfortable traversing those peaks without a reliable knowledge of the terrain but knowing that there will be sections that had more than a meter of powder.
A few days ago, already in February and pretty much at the end of the Austral summer, we were at the camp willing to go for a stroll with views. So we started walking up the hill behind our place.
We were only going to stretch our legs so we only took a little backpack with an only bottle of water. It was going to be half an hour and we were going to be back for dinner.
We’ve done the trail up the hill about 20 times, maybe 100 times myself as it’s my usual running route! Enrique suggested to go across the river and then through the forest up towards the top. Sure!
Walking through ancient lenga trees we reached a fence of those that stop cattle from going from one paddock to another. The wire fence went parallel to the hill’s slope so we decided to keep going up following its line.
We reached the end of the forest line to realise that we were on the slope of the very East end of Sierra Contreras, so just by that lake we saw.
The terrain, now completely uncovered, was mostly composed of loose rocks and some sand. It was a very similar slope to Tower of Babel (in Morraine Lake) although the material wasn’t the same.
Like Forest Gump, we thought, “well, now that we’re here let’s keep going up to the top”. And we scrambled to the top of the mountain.
As expected, behind the peak there was that small lake. The water was liquid this time and it looked even smaller due to the little water we got over the last month. From there we could see that the crest was completely clear. Getting there wasn’t too hard and that made us think about a few other points we wanted to check out of our backyard. We just needed a little bit more of research.
Enrique & Marina
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