A frontier is a place that’s both physical and metaphorical. Our ongoing series, Dispatches from the Frontier, shares encounters and insights from life on the ranch, where the inner and outer wilderness converge.   

Dispatch from Ryan J. Crawford, Work Crew 2021

It’s been over six months since I left the ranch, and for much of that time I’ve been contemplating the perfect words to say. Trying to find the perfect words to encapsulate an experience that will forever echo in my soul. An experience that was both a dream and a reality tattooed to my memory and tied to my identity as intimately as the kiss of the warm Patagonian sun melting away Lago Plomo’s cold touch after a long day’s work. 

I don't think that the perfect words exist. The beautiful thing – the heartbreaking thing­ – about experience, about life, is that you must live it in order to understand. The words I choose to share here can never truly convey what it’s like to taste the first of the plum jam on a brisk night, to skip the perfect stone across the Soler River, or to breathe in the beauty of the sunset over Las Horquetas. Words cannot express these things, these feelings. This love that I feel so deeply for the memories I hold. 

Nevertheless, I will share them with you, because in the end, at its soul, the ranch is a place of sharing. 

What I find most beautiful is that each crew, each student, each adventurous wanderer who sets foot onto the land becomes a part of our story. We share this place with one another in the way of books left behind in El Palacio, laughter shared around the fire, and sweat left to dry on the fences that make the ranch our home. 

Words can never be quite enough to convey the magic that flows through the valley, but we need not rely on words. Instead, I invite you to come. Come feel the kiss of the Patagonian wild. Taste the fresh bread baked every day. Touch the Chilean stone with your own fingertips. Feel for yourself the energy left behind by your predecessors. 

I ask you not to trust my words, they mean little in the face of such an immense truth. I ask you to trust my experience, and the experiences of so many before me. 

All who visit the ranch leave behind a piece of ourselves, we give them freely to those who will come after us, because in the end this place is a gift. In the end, gifts, like experiences, are meant to be shared. 

WE ARE CURRENTLY BOOKING TRIPS AND ENROLLING PROGRAMS FOR THE 2022-2023 SEASON AND INVITE YOU TO GET IN TOUCH TO PLAN YOUR ADVENTURE. 

Ryan J Crawford, member of the Patagonia Frontiers 2021 Work Crew. Founded in 1999, Patagonia Frontiers connects people with wilderness through education, conservation, and adventure. We offer education and mountaineering programs as well as multi-day trekking, horseback trips, and climbing in the heart of Chilean Patagonia.