It was a National Geographic Adventure brochure that spurred Cheryl and Dan Kunkle to go from the planning and talking stage to making it happen.

The couple traveled to Patagonia this past fall, which is located on the tip of South America. They chose Patagonia first out of all the places they plan to travel because it would require the most physically demanding hiking, and they wanted to learn about the local ecology and culture.On the trip, Cheryl took the photographs, while Dan, director of the Lehigh Gap Nature Center, studied the geography and ecology.The hike began at Punta Arenas, Chile, near the Strait of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego, which are the farthest lands south of anything but Antarctica. It was the end of November and the beginning of their summer, coming out of a long, dark winter.“There were lots of birds we had not seen before,” Kunkle said, “such as the lesser rhea, andean condor and austral parakeet, which we had not expected that far south.”Kunkle said their guide, Andre, told them that the natives in Patagonia had been treated so badly, they had almost been wiped out.At the Cueva Del Mylodon, the skin of a large animal with coarse hair was found in 1894 and was determined to be a ground sloth. It is now known as the Mylodon Cave Natural Monument and has a sculpture of a sloth at the entrance. Humans were already in the area when the sloths were still there.Trees lean and have their branches on one side due to windy conditions that may come up suddenly. Kunkle said the group experienced 70 mph winds. One woman, who weighed only 80 pounds, got blown into the air several times.Spring anemone flowers grew wild.“The upland goose was everywhere on the trip. There was also an ashy-headed goose with gray head with reddish and black body areas. There are few mammals in the region,” said Kunkle.The austral negrito bird, about the size of a sparrow, was described by Kunkle as collegial — Spanish for schoolboy — because it has a reddish patch on its back that looks like a book bag. The southern lapwing is a shorebird that wades the shallow water to find food, but lives on the grasslands and pastures.At Torres del Paine National Park, the group stayed at “refugios” inside the park. Part of the hike was along a “W” where they camped at each point in the “W.” There were bridges that limited the number of people who could cross at any one time. The main attraction was the three massive granite pillars, the Torres Del Paine.On other parts of the trip the group stayed at fine hotels near the parks.Glaciers were found in the southern ice field. There is more ice in the Andes Mountains of Patagonia than any place except Greenland and Antarctica. For hiking the glacier there was a local guide who joined the group in case someone needed help.The chimango caracara is a raptor with plain shades of brown in appearance. It is a scavenger more than a hunter and is not very scared of people. It was one of three kinds of caracara seen on the trip.Water in each lake was a different color blue from glaciers grinding rocks together, creating what is known as glacial flour. The same action makes water other colors in other lakes. Where there is clear water it comes from snowmelt. Most streams are a milky color because of the glacial flour.Water did not have to be carried by the hikers because lake and stream water was safe to drink. There is no giardia, which infects many waters worldwide and causes severe intestinal problems.“We were skeptical at first,” Kunkle said.At one campsite, they were warned not to fill water bottles downstream from the campground.At one site, a dark rock had an intrusion of white granite below a dark layer of sedimentary rock. The black rock was there first and the granite seeped into a massive crack below the dark rock, forming the sideways intrusion of the granite.At one point the group witnessed a large block of the sedimentary rock that had broken off and fallen into the granite while it was still molten and was now frozen in time as a black block in the white granite.The European hare was an introduced species there, Kunkle said.Though an invasive, it does not cause much damage, and as a prey species it helps support mountain lions.The southern beech, the most abundant tree in the area, has tiny leaves and looks like a conifer from a distance.The trees had to adapt to the wind and large leaves would blow off. They grow slowly, and a 400-year-old tree may be only 35 feet tall.Firebush is like mountain laurel with waxy leaves but with crimson flowers.Maidens slipper is a beautiful yellow and red moccasin-shaped flower that was so tiny at 1 inch that finding one was a challenge, Kunkle said.Finally they found one of the few mammals, the guanaco, an ancestor of camels. Llamas are domesticated guanacos. Their wool is an effective insulator.“One of the interesting places the group stayed was Estancia Cerro Guido, a sheep ranch. Some ranches are struggling because sheep abused the land.Ten acres are necessary to feed one animal, whereas on good land 2.5 acres are enough. Consequently many ranches are turning to ecotourism,” Kunkle said.