How a Bottle of Malbec Lured Me Off the Mountain

"I don't think the clouds are going to change color," Kiersten said, her voice barely audible over the wind screaming across the ridge.

I grunted, a non-committal "Hmmmm," that hid the battle raging in my mind. We were at 1,276 meters on Loma de Pliege Tumbado, a spot I’d called my favourite viewpoint in all of Patagonia. We had sweated for five hours to get here for this overnight bivouac. Sunset was in three hours. And now, my wife was offering me a way out, sealed with a single, magical word: Malbec.

"OK," I said. "Let's go."

This is the story of how a bottle of red wine trumped a night under the stars on a frozen mountain plateau.

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We had taken 5 hours slogging our way along the 11km trail ascending 1000 metres through seemingly endless broken, wind destroyed forests of Beech and Lenga. Eventually emerging onto the high, barren open scree and snow slopes that led us to the viewpoint at Loma de Pliege Tombado. This was to be our overnight bivouac location, with it's fine views into the Torre valley with the Cerro Torre group to the left and the FitzRoy group to the right. This is probably my best and favourite viewpoint of all in this area. It's stunning.

The objective was not only to see this view but to capture the sunset and sunrise over the mountains and the changing colors of the clouds forming round the summits. It wasn't certain from the weather forecast just what was going to happen. The weather window we had enjoyed for the past eleven days was closing in rapidly. Anyway, we took a chance all would be well and we would collect our sought after images.

We had started early at 9 am, but took plenty of breaks along the way including replenishing water both at forest streams and from trickles below snow slopes. Kiersten also managed to take images of a beautiful red headed, Magellanic Woodpecker. We arrived very early at the bivouac area at 2 pm though. Sunrise was to be at 9:11. A long time to "chill out".

We passed the time searching out the best bivouac places, finding one behind a gigantic boulder that took a bit of labour clearing stones and boulders, but eventually we carved the shelter from the scree behind the boulder. This gave us plenty of protection from the increasingly strong wind gusts. Provided we didnt stand up!

Kiersten found a secret spring. By dropping down 50 metres a small spring of fresh mountain waters was discovered. We were set. But as the afternoon wore on, the cold seeped into our bones. The majestic Cerro Torre and FitzRoy groups were now shrouded in an impenetrable, colourless grey. Our dream of capturing alpenglow was fading faster than the light.

At 4 pm I made us a cup of coffee and this was quickly followed by a cup of soup each. At 5 pm we ate our evening meal - Adventure Nutrition dehydrated meals, very tasty too. A brief encounter with a couple of fascinating, funny and bold White-throated Caracaras gave us some entertainment. By 6 pm we were all done and dusted with eating and drinking. It got colder, the wind gusts continued to rise. Only 3 hours until sunset and the wind was no longer gusting; it was a constant, violent shove.

The conversation then went something like this ...

"I don't think the clouds are going to change colour" Kiersten suggested

"Hmmmm" I replied, thinking she was probably right

"I think they are too thick. Probably will be the same in the morning too"

"Hmmmm" I said, thinking fast

"You want the sunset and sunrise images. What do you want to do?" she pressed.

Another "Hmmmm." Sunrise is at 9:11. That's over 15 hours in this freezer. For what? A photo of the inside of a cloud?

"We could still get back tonight," she said, a note of hope in her voice. "To a warm apartment. A comfortable bed."

I stared at my boots. The mountain man in me was shouting "Weakness!"

Then she delivered the knockout blow: "And a bottle of Malbec."

The mountain man was swiftly gagged and tied to a chair.

"Ok," I said. "Let's go."

What followed was less a dignified retreat and more a controlled plummet. We packed in a comical, haphazard frenzy and practically threw ourselves down the mountain, our pace fueled by the phantom taste of Argentinian wine. The 10km, 1000-meter descent that had taken us all morning was conquered in a blur of scree and switchbacks. Two hours later, dusty and exhilarated, we stood under the fluorescent lights of a El Chalten supermarket, purchasing our hard-earned trophy.

So that is the story of how an ageing former mountain man succumbed totally to a bottle of Malbec. He "bottled it" for a bottle of Malbec!

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