By Seb Grieve.

The small fishing village of Cochamo lies two hours inland from Puerto Montt in central Chile in an area known as the "Chilean Lake District" or Northern Patagonia. From the village the Rió Cochamo stretches up into the mountains where many big faces and unexplored valleys can be found. Rumours of large unclimbed 2000 foot walls set above a beautiful rain forest had drifted back to the UK. With this in mind Leo Houlding and Seb Grieve visited Chile this March with a view to free climbing new lines on the faces of Mount Trinidad.

A hummingbird buzzed by the ledge. I could tell it was a hummingbird by the distinctive sound its tiny wings made beating at several hundred beats per minute. The hummingbirds were attracted to the ledge's red bottom. The birds normally feed on the small red flowers found growing on the mossy tree trunks of the rain forest. They were especially inquisitive in the morning this being their normal feeding time. They must have wondered what this enormous big red flower was.

I tried to get up but the ledge swung around violently; it was hanging free and was very unstable. Getting in and out was a bit of an art especially at night by head torch and under the influence of the Brazilians' grass. Eventually I swung out and into my waiting shoes on the floor. Too lazy to carry a tent up to the cliff base we had used the portaledge as a shelter hanging it from a tree branch in the forest. It was bright and clear again this morning. This was to be our third day here and time to start our push for the top. We packed enough food and water for two days and started to jug up the ropes we had fixed the day before to our high point at 800 feet.

Two days earlier we had rode up the Cochamo Valley with our haul sacs and bags strapped to two pack horses. Two horsemen skilfully guided the pack horses through the thick rain forest and across the many rivers of the valley. We had followed the Gaucho trail which was well worn, steep sided, muddy and wound through the forest up the valley besides the Rió Cochamo. At points the track was so well worn that its sides were 6 feet high, having been carved out by the passage of the hooves of the Gauchos' horses and their cattle as they travelled over the mountains to and from Argentina. The Gauchos had used the trail for hundreds of years to move cattle between the many small farms along the valley. Although the number of Gauchos has declined many still worked in the area as ranchers or as guides to tourists like ourselves. Their livelihood would be secure as long as the proposed road building plan didn't go ahead.

The forest was truly amazing. I had never seen anything like it before. It was thick and lush, full of deciduous tress, creepers and vines. The dappled sunlight which came through the leaves gave the forest a mystical and almost fairy tale like appearance. The weather was hot but not humid as you would expect in a rain forest. We had followed the horses for 5 hours up the Gaucho trail and then forded the Rió Cochamo to enter a farmer's meadow at the other side.

The meadow lay at the base of a steep forested hillside stretching up to the base of Mount Trinidad. Arriving late in the afternoon the Gauchos had dumped our stuff and left us to carry it up the final steep hill. The mountain of gear we had packed now looked daunting. Our policy had been that if we couldn't decide if we needed something then we would bring it anyway. This had resulted in the mountain of gear we now had sitting in front of us. Some 100 kg of food and gear and equipment. Up until now we had not had to carry the gear any great distances but now we would have to lug it up a small winding path through the densely forested hillside.