How far did they walk?


Does anyone know exactly how far Nando and Roberto walked before they found the shepard? What kind of elevation gain and loss are we talking about?

reply

A related question for the knowledgable: Did they walk in the right direction? In other words, was civilization closer, if they had only known?

reply

They walked about 45 miles as the crow flies, but the actual distance traversed was greater -- more like 60 miles because of the uneven terrain. The highest mountain they crossed was the first one -- the one where they reached the top and saw only mountains and snow on the horizon. That summit was about 18 000 feet. I'm not sure what the elevation of the valley where they encountered Sergio Catalan was. The plane was at an altitude of about 12 000 feet IIRC.

As for did they walk in the right direction -- yes and no. They were sure of one thing, "to the west is Chile!" and so they doggedly set off in that direction. Had they known the way, they could possibly have reached a road and some small villages in Argentina, to the east, in about two days' time. But, it is not clear they could have forded the rivers at that time of year, or that they would have encountered the road without a map. The area is very sparsely populated and they could have wandered around forever. There was an abandoned hotel about a day's walk due east, which might have afforded them some shelter but they could not have known that.

reply

makes the proclaimers seem weak.




I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"

reply

[deleted]

According to Richard Pena, the Mexican mountaineer who retraced their escape route for National Geographic, the actual distance (measured by GPS) from the crash site to Los Maitenes is 37 miles. Had the boys been wearing pedometers, the distance walked would have been greated because of the need to go around, backtrack, etc.

The elevation of the plane was approximately 11 000 feet, the headwall -- a sheer mountain face they had to climb to get out of the valley -- was 2000 feet. According to info I found, Los Maitenes had an elevation of 4600 feet, so they traversed 37+ miles, going mostly on a downgrade from the 13000 foot summit, a total of nearly 8500 feet.

This article gives some photos and info about the route:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/alive/survivors.html

reply