Hallucinating Dreams by Timothy Poulton

Hallucinating Dreams by Timothy Poulton

After five stunning days shooting in Torres del Paine, we finally arrived in El Chalten after a surreal drive over the border into Argentina on snow and ice covered roads. If you’ve ever crossed this border you know, it’s a lottery on how long it will take, sometimes you get busloads of tourists lining up out the door of the Customs Office (shack) in no man’s land. Our crossing was a breeze with absolutely nobody except the miserable custom officials stamping passports in frigid conditions. After another blissful 4 days of photography, you know you’re having a good run with weather conditions when you’re secretly hoping for a day of rain or snow just so you can catch your breath and get a little downtime. So after sharing a room with Scott coming down with a nasty cold, I finally started to feel the effects myself. I’m a classic Man-Flu kinda guy and suffer pretty bad with any illness, unlike Scott who just eats a whole packet of Cold & Flu tablets and soldiers on like some crazed zombie pacing from composition to composition jibbering on about light and reflections. The next day, I decided to hike up to Mirador Fitz Roy for sunrise on my own to capture what I hoped would be a killer scene and light. After 20 minutes standing around in the dark, I realized this was not a wise decision, but it’s a 5km hike and being the stubborn nutter that I have stuck it out through golden hour. On the walk back down passing several hikers bravely slipping all over the ice-covered track in a hope to get a glimpse of the mighty Fitz Roy I now looked like that crazed zombie. They say one lousy decision just leads to another, so we decided to hike into Cerro Torre for a night of camping and photography. Halfway into the 10km hike, I started to have hallucinations, one of which was about myself when I was younger – damn dwarves couldn’t find the campsite; never trust 8-inch tall hallucinatory dwarves to do anything useful for you. Finally arriving I was feeling a little better having sweated the fever away I was ready for sunset. After a cracking sunset by the lake and the temperature drops below -15, we cooked a delicious meal of Pasta Arrabbiata and hit the sack. Our home for the night was a 1.5 x 2m winter tent, seriously only fit for people that don’t mind getting a little close to each other. Scott passed out into a coma and had the best nights sleep – so he keeps reminding me, while I proceeded to sweat so bad all night with a raging fever it was literally raining inside the tent with crazy humidity. In Patagonia winter it’s dark for almost 15 hours and so cold you can only last a couple of hours outside your sleeping bag when you are at your fittest, so I knew I was in for a long night. , the Dwarfs didn’t return; instead, I had hallucinations about giant rats getting into our tent looking for lip balm or hand sanitizer, you’d be surprised what these little bastards will eat when they get hungry. Almost missing sunrise due to Scott’s comatose state and my inability to drag myself out of the warm sweat soaked sleeping bag we did what any obsessed photographer would do and found the strength to captured just one more sunrise of the ever shy Cerro Torre.

Timothy Poulton: Photos