Cerro Tronador

I turned 40 at Refugio Otto Meiling, between the Castaña Overa and Alerce glaciers on Cerro Tronador. “Thunder Mountain,” as it’s called in English, is about 140 miles due west of San Carlos de Bariloche, on the border of Argentina and Chile.

It was New Year’s Eve 2002 and the first time I’d seen the Southern Cross. We arrived by van with a half dozen others for the annual parrillada and New Year’s Eve bash hosted by the stewards of Refugio Otto Meiling.

We’d spent Christmas and Christmas Eve at El Bolsón, a hostel near the heart of San Carlos de Bariloche, where everyone at the hostel put on a festive meal with mulled wine and great conversation.

The van deposited us at the trailhead about midmorning. From there, we trekked up the mountain on a near vertical, forested trail past the tree-line through the snow on up to the refuge. When we arrived, we were shown the sleeping arrangements on the floor of the rustic second floor.

Preparations for the New Year’s Eve parrillada were under way, and more people arrived as the hours passed. Some of us made snowmen, others snow angels. There were even a couple of playful snowball fights while the 6ft x 6ft metal grates were placed over the top of the fire.

A couple of Italian cyclists were the last to arrive. They stomped up the last slope to the refuge with their bicycles strapped to their backs.

Occasionally we heard the thunder of one of the glaciers calving.

I was in the best shape of my life; better shape even than I’d been in as a varsity high school soccer player. We’d trekked through the jungles and mountains of Ecuador, the Huayhuash and Cordillera Blanca of Perú, and week-long treks out of various villages in the Andes, such as Sorata, Bolivia, where we trekked to the sacred Lago Chilata at 3.12 miles above sea level. At times I lugged a backpack of more than 20kgs.

At 40, my trek through the Andes was a journey of self-discovery.

I recall a conversation I’d had with my father before I’d ever even dreamed of a years-long journey through South America. He’d said that we all have mountains to climb. I remember he looked down when he said it. He didn’t elaborate on his statement in any way. He just looked away, as if to say, That’s it. There’s nothing more to say about it. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. It didn’t make things better between us. It didn’t make up for the rift that had grown between us. It certainly didn’t repair the gaping wound in my psyche that still felt as fresh as the day the blow was received and our relationship shattered.

That conversation kept running through my mind as I climbed my own mountains. I chose the Andes — or did they choose me? I’m not sure anymore. We walked for days. The days turned into weeks, the weeks into months. Before I knew it, we’d spent the better part of a year trekking through the Andes in Ecuador, Perú, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. It was a transformative experience for which I’ll be eternally grateful.