PATAGONIA

I live vicariously through the words and video of travelers and adventurers. You wouldn't get me on a mountaintop anymore, especially not one of the huge high ones, not so much that I couldn't make the climb up, but I know I wouldn't make the trip down (even on a small mountain), not with my knees. So tonight I went video adventuring with Jeff Johnson and his friends as they went on a six-month trip to try and tame Corcovado in Patagonia. Basically what you get in 180 Degrees South: Conquerors of the Useless (2010) is a documentary of a trip from the United States and Mexico, via ocean to Easter ISland and then to Chile, to essentially recreate a 1968 trip by Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins (both founders of major equipment and clothing concerns, ie. Northface) and their buddies. There is sailing, surfing, travel, exploration, a tad romance, and a plea for conservation and protection of wild spaces, mixed in with a bit of mountaineering. The soundtrack sounds hippish or folk, but it is nice. Hopefully more people will become concerned about the never-ending damming of the world's rivers.