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In 2005 my wife and I planned a two-week trip to Chilean Patagonia. I decided to sell my beloved Nikon N90 body and lenses to invest in a digital camera. I chose a Canon EOS 20D, which came with a 17-85mm kit lens. I also bought a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 for the trip. It would prove to be an awesome adventure.
On our last day in Torres del Paine National Park, Linda and I got up before sunrise and drove to a spot we had scouted above Lago Pehoé (Pay-oh-AY). The spot overlooked a breathtaking panorama of Los Cuernos, a striking group of glaciated Andean peaks. In addition if I were lucky, the glacier-blue lake just might provide a reflection of the peaks, conditions permitting of course.
Conditions however could be tricky. Patagonia is one of the windiest places in the world. We had been in the park three days, and the wind hadn’t stopped blowing. But as the sun rose that morning everything came together. The clouds cleared enough to show the peaks, and alpenglow flooded the east face of the mountains.
I had gone there with a vision of returning with a striking panorama of these mountains to hang in our living room. The view I had before me exceeded my every expectation. Then magically the wind calmed just enough to reflect the golden light of the peaks in the lake. It was the perfect morning.
I took multiple series of images so that when I got home I could stitch them into a pano. As the scene unfolded I kept shooting to make sure I had the perfect material for my image. Finally I filled up one of my memory cards and switched to a second one. But by then the scene was winding down. I took a few more images and then stopped to enjoy the scene before we had to leave.
Later that morning we needed to catch a boat to Los Penguinos National Monument, a penguin colony on Isla Magdelena in the Strait of Magellan. We went back to the hotel, retrieved our luggage and checked out. On the way out of the park we stopped to take a few pictures of some wild Guanaco. I needed something from my camera bag and realized I was missing the CF card from that morning. I searched every square inch of our vehicle, my gear bag, my pockets and our luggage. No card. We drove back to the hotel. They were nice enough to let me go back to the room, but no card. We retraced our steps to the spot we had been that morning watching the ground the entire way. We thoroughly searched the area, but still no card.
I was sick. It was a long drive back. We had taken so long to search for the card we missed the boat to Isla Magdelena. We were still able to visit the Seno Ottway penguin sanctuary, a lesser-populated location on the mainland. But the loss of those images was difficult for me for a long time.
I did end up with a single image that did justice to that scene. It is still one of my all-time favorites, not only for the image, but also for the memories it invokes of that morning. Looking at it I can still imagine what the whole panorama would have looked like.
Recently I’ve been organizing my images and going back to find the originals of my best ones. While searching for the original of this one, I found three images that I never stitched together. They were taken that morning as the light waned, and were the last ones on that second memory card. I think I didn’t like them because in my mind’s eye I could still see the ones from earlier that morning. But now that the sting of loosing those shots has faded, I was quite taken with the image when I stitched it together. It’s not as spectacular as it might have been, but it’s a pleasant reminder of a beautiful morning in one of the most spectacular places on earth.
#patagonia, #chile, #lostphotos, #flashback, #shafferadventurejournal
