Lafuma Mountain Cleanup

Daniel's running team, Lafuma, organised a litter-pickup expedition on Cerro Carbon today. About 20 trail enthusiasts turned up with their big rubbish bags to clean up the mountain.

Daniel in action - retrieving a plastic bag down from the path

It's now very clean under the mirador!

Our bags were getting full

Award for most trash collected

Heading back down the mountain on CLEAN trails!

See how much trash we collected in one morning

Gliding

Today Daniel finally enjoyed his birthday present - a glider flight above Santiago. He was waiting for a smog-free weekend and today finally dawned clear, after a week of rain had washed the city air clean. Daniel went up as the passenger in a two-man glider and they soared over his favourite mountains - Carbon and Manquehue. He even got to steer the glider for a while!

Before:

Arriving at the glider (Manquehue in the background)

Meeting the pilot

Pre-flight check

Super excited to go!

All closed in...

Held upright to go down the runway

Tied to the big plane and ready for take off!

During:

Going up (see the "tugboat" plane in front)

Cerro San Cristobal

Santiago with Los Andes in the background

Heading straight towards Cerro Manquehue (who's steering?!)

Cerro Carbon and Cerro Manquehue

Approaching the runway for landing (on the right of the river and freeway)

After:

One very happy (birthday) boy!

Picnic on Cerro Carbon

On our day off this week, we hiked up Cerro Carbon with Daniel's parents. On the way up we were treated to beautiful views of the city, one giant hairy spider and three snakes. We were definitely ready for our picnic at the end!

Senderos de Santiago

We had a trail-filled weekend as we joined some friends and the Santiago Hiking Club for a hike up Cerro Pochoco on Saturday, and then a trail run along Cerro Carbon's contour path on Sunday.

We've hiked up Pochoco before so this time it was a little easier and just as beautiful. Thanks to some rain the previous night, the surrounding mountains were lightly dusted with snow and the views were washed clean.

The trail run along the side of Cerro Carbon was very peaceful and we both got in some training before our races in May.

Cerro Carbón

From our apartment we have a partial view of Cerro Manquehue, the highest mountain in the valley of Santiago and an extinct volcano. Daniel has summited it a few times on training runs and on Saturday I joined him for a hike. We didn't make it all the way to the top, but we got as far as Cumbre de Cerro Carbón, the summit of the smaller Coal Hill down the ridge.

We saw several new bird species and evidence of hare and small rodent life. Daniel has seen a chilla (grey fox) on one of his runs. The vegetation is surprisingly lush and we chuckled when we saw specks of snow on the cacti on the higher slopes! At the top, we enjoyed playing in the snow (a bit of nostalgia) and seeing the views across the city. After a day of rain the smog had cleared away and we could see the Andes across the valley.