lukas.phallberg

The patagonia mountaineering seminar.
10 days of practising moving in the mountains and establishing safe travel on exposed mountain terrain. Such an amazing and well rounded experience. Everything from super sunny and warm weather to snowfall, cold weather to high windspeed mountain pass crossings. Got to experience patagonia in a totally different way compared to through sea kayaking and the coast.
All made better with an awesome team of people to do it with. Also feel so blessed to have my one and only friend (and photo model) join in on the patagonia adventures! Have to capture that beautiful smile on photo wether or not it is in finland or chile!

Usually dont take my photos in black and white mode on the camera but have been experimenting lately with focusing on composition more intentionally and been finding that it helps me to think of the shot in a totally different way than shooting in color 😁
More photos coming up from my mountaineering seminar in patagonia soon!

When it lines up just perfectly

Getting ready to roping up for the glacier.

Third section of the second semester again treated us with good weather, some challenging days but mostly pacha patagonia was humble.
Almost getting caught in too many hunker days before left us in a rush to accomplish pretty long stretches to leave us with enough time to get all the way back to tortel. But we made it back all along even with some left over time to spare for visiting the town and the ER.
There were some truly stunning landscapes on this last stretch of paddle back to tortel and very dramatic landscape. Special moments to remember are extreme p**p bushwacks, sea lion hangout, playing catch with a one eyed dog in tortel, skinny dipping in river mouths and long difficult days for the students who were leader of the day.
Truly amazing experience.

Second "week" / rationperiod of the course were defined by hunkering down. Getting stuck on a beach for 7 days with high intense winds and not being able to move forwards. Patagonia showed her true face and tried to blow us off the face of the earth. Managed to move a short move on the 7th day only to get stuck in the next camp for 4 more days.
Such an epic time watching the entire surface of the sea blow up into the air meanwhile tarps are getting slammed and ripped, windgusts are breaking all tentpoles of a tent in a single gust. Students became tent repair masters dealing with tents breaking from high winds(and also what patagonia tent anchors should look like).
Even if there is a slight impatience to move when you get locked down like this, there is not really anything that can compare to the feeling of being in the middle of a storm in the wilderness of patagonia. Truly a majestic experience! And there is always better weather coming after a storm, maybe...

Second semester's first week started out with an incredible high pressure! From being emotionally attached to my puffy pants to melting in the shade from the sun burning us off the face of the earth!
Some highlights were catching salmon(or actually seatrout?), making a fire on every beach, trying to understand what a yellow light sea state looks like, hanging out in the water in underwear and sleeping under tarps!

Second semester's first week started out with sn incredible high pressure! From being emotionally attached to my puffy pants to melting in the shade from the sun burning us off the face of the earth!
Some highlights were catching salmon(or actually seatrout?), making a fire on every beach, trying to understand what a yellow light sea state looks like, hanging out in the water in underwear and sleeping under tarps!

Exploring the stars in coastal patagonia in between storm cycles. Patagonia really delivers on all fronts even during the night. On the contrary from the northern hemisphere where you would use the pole star to navigate during the night, in the south you use the southern cross constellation in order to define direction(south) while navigating the seas.

Patagonia first semester part 3/3

Patagonia first semester part 2/3

Icefield was blocked by loads of icebergs that presented us from approaching the face of the glacier, after consistenly getting canceled by bad weather we eventually were able to leave the area to head back towards tortel again.

Patagonia semester part 1/3

The first sea kayak section of the semesters were defined by big floods, cold weather and lots of rainfall. Students enjoying the small windows of sunlight in between the rain and the windgusts pummeling our tarps on the beaches. Lots of time to learn proper wilderness cooking and how to hunker down. Proper care of oneself staying warm and dry was essential.