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Hotel is giving away 10 all-expense-paid trips to help rebuild Patagonia hiking trail

Post your video entry by March 15 for a chance to do some good while exploring one of the world's most stunning ecosystems.

Las Torres Patagonia

Torres del Paine National Park

In the far southern reaches of South America, Patagonia beckons adventurers with its striking landscape. Rugged mountain peaks, deep valley vistas, pristine lakes, virgin forests, coastal cliffs and more combine to make this semi-arid land a paradise for nature lovers and photographers alike.

If you've ever seen a photo like this…

hiking trail next to a lake in patagoniaHiking trail at Torres del Paine National Park in PatagoniaLas Torres Patagonia

…and thought, "I have to go see that turquoise water for myself," now's your chance. Las Torres Patagonia is offering an all-expense-paid trip (including airfare) for 10 lucky winners to travel to Torres del Paine National Park in Chile and stay at the all-inclusive Las Torres Patagonia hotel for five days.

Las Torres Patagonia's "10 Volunteers for 10 Days" contest isn't just a chance to travel to Patagonia for free. It's also a "voluntourism" opportunity to do some good while you enjoy the scenery by helping rebuild the trail leading to Base Torres in Torres del Paine National Park. Rehabilitating this trail, which has been badly damaged and eroded, will help people experience the park safely while protecting the ecosystem.

“Las Torres Patagonia has a generational commitment to the regeneration and longevity of this beautiful Chilean region,” said Josian Yaksic, CEO of Las Torres Patagonia. “More than ever, it is prudent to acknowledge the changing landscape and take action for its survival. We are thrilled to welcome passionate travelers to not only contribute to the future of one of the most beautiful destinations in the world, but also experience it firsthand through voluntourism.”

HOW TO ENTER THE "10 VOLUNTEERS FOR 10 DAYS" CONTEST:

Before midnight Pacific time on Mar 15th, 2024, share a video (less than two minutes) on Instagram or Facebook describing what sustainability and ecotourism mean to you, or why you believe it is important.

- All video entries must tag @lastorres.patagonia and include the hashtag #PatagoniaVoluntourism.

- The Instagram account or Facebook post must be set to "public."

- Must be 21 years or older, live in the U.S. or Canada, and be in apt condition to carry out strenuous, hands-on activity.

- Entrants must enter their contact information on the Las Torres website in order to be contacted with a winning announcement.

After March 15th, an expert panel of judges will choose the 10 lucky winners to join the trip, which will be hosted over two sets of dates -- five volunteers between April 6 to 11, and five volunteers between April 14 and 19. Las Torres Patagonia will arrange airfare and travel—all the winner has to do is pack!

What exactly will the trip entail? After arriving at Chile's Puerto Natales Airport, volunteers will begin their journey at Hotel Las Torres, an upscale all-inclusive hotel at the entrance of Torres del Paine National Park. During their five-day trip, travelers will combine trail work, rest and exploration in one of the world’s most impressive environments. Torres del Paine is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, aiming to reconcile the conservation of biodiversity with its sustainable use.

With ecotourism and voluntourism on the rise, people have more opportunities than ever to combine their love for exploring our incredible Earth with helping sustain its natural wonders for generations to come. At Torres del Paine, this 10-day volunteer project will contribute to a new era of gentle-grade trails, which will allow more people to enjoy the iconic "three towers" for which the park is named and maintain the ecosystem’s legacy.

Get those videos posted for this once-in-a-lifetime experience. See the Las Torres website for full contest details.

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Culture

Nothing could stop this British woman, and her bad knee, from hiking 318 miles in 6 days

www.athleticsweekly.com

In a year where Major League Baseball has been delayed, the 2020 Olympics have been postponed, and the NBA season has been moved to something called a "bubble," a new sport has emerged as the ultimate athletic challenge in our COVID-19 world, at least for one British woman.

"Peak bagging" is an activity where hikers, mountaineers, and sometimes runners attempt to reach the summit of every mountaintop in a published list of peaks, and Sabrina Verjee, a British ultra runner, has just become the first woman to complete the 318 mile route through the 214 English peaks known as the "Wainwrights." Oh, and she did it with a bum knee.

The 39-year-old veterinary surgeon ascended over 35,000 meters on her run, completing the trek in just 6 days, 17 hours and 51 minutes, just eleven hours short of the record, which was broken last year. She completed the race on July 12th, after beginning it on the 6th, and plans to do it again in the near future. When she finished there were two previous Wainwright record holders, Joss Naylor and Steve Birkinshaw, waiting to congratulate her at the finish line.


"I'm so happy to have completed my round and more than a little relieved. My right knee hasn't been happy for a couple of days, so the final sections were very tough, especially as the fatigue really started to kick in," Verjee said in an interview.



Sabrina Verjee isn't new to pushing the limits of human endurance, just last year she took fifth place in the Montane Spine Race, a 270-mile ultramarathon through the blistering winter cold across the Pennine Way, an English national trail that runs through Scotland. She was also the first woman to complete the race. Before that, she came in second in the 2017 Berghaus Dragon's Back Race, a Welsh mountain race that boasts ascents adding up to twice the height of Mount Everest. Despite her resume of being, perhaps, the greatest walker alive, Verjee claimed in a Facebook post that she doesn't "claim any record for this achievement," on account of her relying on her support due to a knee injury. She does, however, look forward to completing the challenge again in the future. More than 200 people have responded to the post, praising Verjee for her endurance and humility, and congratulating her for completing the challenge.

Despite being one of the most prominent athletes in her field, Verjee is also a veterinary surgeon based in Ambleside. She had been waiting for the go-ahead from Prime Minister Boris Johnson for British citizens in the pandemic to be allowed to participate in "unlimited exercise." As soon as she got it, she completed the hike, despite having minimal support due to her insistence on taking COVID-19 precautions.

Verjee exhibits perseverance in an unprecedented time of anxiety, uncertainty, and immobility for the world as it faces the current pandemic. By continuing to train throughout quarantine, adjusting her support system to lower risk for potential COVID-19 transferrances and continuing to push through a knee injury that threatened to spoil the whole hike, Verjee proves that global pandemics aren't an excuse for people to stop doing amazing things, as long as they're gone safely, that is.

From Your Site Articles
health

The reason this woman walked from Mexico to Canada over 5 months is highly personal.

This is what resilience looks like.

True
MDA Live Unlimited

Sophia Spooner's dad always finished what he started. That's one thing that kept Sophia going during her 2,659-mile hike.

Sophia's dad, Ray, passed away from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) — a neuromuscular disease that causes weakness and eventual paralysis of all voluntary muscles, including those used for breathing and swallowing — on Aug. 8, 2016.

10 months later, Sophia started hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, which spans from the Mexico/California border all the way up to the Washington/Canada border, to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) and its ALS Care Centers, which provide specialized care for people like Ray.

"I wanted to do something I thought my dad would be proud of," Spooner says. "I know he would’ve been proud of me for doing this.”

Spooner on the PCT. Photo via Sophia Spooner.

Ray was no stranger to tackling major feats of endurance either.

Immediately after finding out he had ALS in 2014, Ray decided to bike across the country from San Diego, California, to St. Augustine, Florida, to raise funds for MDA. Not only did he complete his mission, he also raised $85,000 in the process and encouraged others to fundraise too, bringing the total to more than $120,000.

This was the initial inspiration for Sophia's walk.

"One thing I learned from him is if you do something crazy, people will give you money for a cause that you care about," Spooner says.

But what led her to the Pacific Crest Trail wasn't just this one example of strength. It was a culmination of everything her family went through after Ray's diagnosis.

Sophia and her dad Ray. Photo via Sophia Spooner.

Sophia had just returned from a semester abroad in India when her family sat her down and told her that her dad had ALS. It was January 2015, which meant she had to go back to school after being dealt this enormous blow.

Her last year and a half of college was anything but easy because she felt so removed from everything that was going on back home in Urbana, Illinois. Then she graduated and things changed dramatically.

Her father's condition had advanced rapidly, and she was immediately thrown into the role of caregiver along with her mother and siblings.

Going from being totally disconnected to caring for her father full-time was hard but ultimately life-affirming.  

Sophia and her family advertising shirts for Ray's bike ride. Photo via Sophia Spooner.

The experience solidified a bond between Sophia and her family in a way that nothing else could. It often involved challenges, especially when Ray lost the ability to speak, but there were still beautiful moments that Sophia cherishes.

The family had a ritual of putting on Leonard Cohen's album "Popular Problems" while they got Ray ready for bed; then they'd all lie down with him until he fell asleep.

And even when he could no longer speak, he'd tell his family he loved them through a series of breaths.

Despite the difficulties, Sophia and her dad's relationship grew stronger, especially because he got to see how capable his daughter really was.

Ray faced life and death head-on. Sophia wanted to do the same, and that meant stepping out of her comfort zone.

Sophia looking out on a sunset while on her hike. Photo via Sophia Spooner.

While her dad was a prolific hiker, Sophia had no such experience when she set out alone to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. It was altogether exciting and terrifying at first, but then she made some new friends on the trail and things started to get easier.

"I set up my tent the first night and yelled out, ‘Does anyone want to play Euchre with me?’ I got a couple takers and ended up hiking with them for more than 1,000 miles,” Sophia recalls.

She was by far the youngest — and probably the least experienced — among her group, but her confidence made up for it.

Sophia with her hiking buddies. Photo via Sophia Spooner.

Covering almost 20 miles a day was certainly taxing, but her emotional journey hit her just as hard, if not harder.

Her new friends were incredibly supportive, but she longed to have someone there who really understood what the past year had been like for her. Thankfully, her boyfriend Yoni was able to join her at mile 485.

Sophia with Yoni on the PCT. Photo via Sophia Spooner.

"Just being around someone who was aware of what I was going through was so liberating," Sophia says.

However, that didn't mean there weren't extremely difficult days.

Sophia with her hiking crew trudging through the mountains. Photo by Kayla Miller.

Some days the hikers trudging through heavy snow; others, they were laboring under oppressive heat. On one of the hottest days, they had to scale an impossibly steep hill. Sophia thought they could take a breather under a small tree at the top of it, but when they reached it, it provided little to no shade. That's when she heard her dad for the first time on the trail.

He told her, "Whelp, you better keep going!"

So she did, knowing he still had her back.

He was with her at night too in the form of the Lou Reed song "Perfect Day," from the album "Transformer"that Ray had “assigned” Sophia to listen to before and after his death. She would also play it over and over again on her phone as she hiked.

Her dad wasn't the only one pushing her forward when things got tough though. The MDA was also behind her.

Sophia at mile 500 on the PCT. Photo via Sophia Spooner.

MDA helped Sophia launch her campaign to raise money for ALS care and cheered her on just when she was about to give up.

"I was in Northern California and very very ready to quit the trail," Sophia recalls.

Then MDA reached out to her with messages of encouragement. She knew she couldn't let her cause or the MDA and ALS communities down.

Sophia finished her walk on Sept. 9 and is eager to get back home and start on a new adventure — life after college.

She'll always carry the lessons she learned on the trail and while caring for her father: live life beyond limits, keep your loved ones close, and always finish what you start.  

For more about Sophia's story, check out the video below:

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This amazing man is doing back-breaking work, all to save a little-known trail.

“When I drive into the Badlands, I feel my blood pressure drop. I feel my stress disappear. I feel my worries just vanish."

True
Nature Valley

Sometimes when Nick Ybarra is out clearing the Maah Daah Hey Trail, he just wants to drop his shovel and walk away.

At 144 miles, the Maah Daah Hey in North Dakota is one of the longest single-track trails in America, and it runs through incredible, undulating, wholly unspoiled terrain. It also covers much of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which is home to the famously beautiful Painted Canyon.

However, despite its unique grandeur, the trail was in danger of disappearing forever — because no one really knew about it. Ybarra was determined to change that.

The manual labor involved in doing that, though, often proves incredibly challenging.

Ybarra preparing to clear trail. All photos via Nature Valley.

“There have been so many days where I’ve almost quit and given up on trying to save this trail," says Ybarra.

It's understandable why he might want to considering the conditions he works under. It can hover past 100 degrees for days at a time in the North Dakota Badlands. Pair that with running out of water, being miles away from your truck, and being the only one out there, and the frustration is palpable.

Sometimes the work pushes him so far past his limit he just breaks down crying.

However, despite those moments, he keeps at it because he fervently believes trails like these need to live on.

Ybarra talking about his love for the trail.

His mission seems more than apropos considering Maah Daah Hey literally means "a place that will be around a long time."

An avid adventurer himself, Ybarra was inspired to save the trail on his first bike ride through it.

He started at dawn and when he hit Devil's Pass, an uncommonly beautiful part of the Badlands, he was overcome by its majesty.

"Standing there, it just cast a spell on me. This was the outdoor experience I yearned for. That ride changed my life," recalls Ybarra.

From that moment on, he was hooked. He knew he had to do all he could to make sure others were able to have the same experience.

The trail at daybreak.

While Ybarra initially cleared much of the trail on his own, the yearly upkeep could not be done without the help of volunteers.

The first group was made up of fellow bikers Ybarra knew who appreciated the trail. More came around when he started Legendary Adventures New Discoveries (L.A.N.D.) — an organization dedicated to helping people experience the Badlands.

And, today, Nick's dedication has inspired people to give over 4,000 hours of their time to maintaining the Maah Daah Hey. Without their tireless efforts, it's likely the trail would've disappeared altogether.

Ybarra mowing the trail.

In the first year of literal trailblazing, Nick and three friends mowed 200 miles of trail — aka the trail forward and backward. When rains washed their work away, they came out and cleared it again.

Their goal was to get the trail established enough to host a 100-mile race, which Ybarra thought was their best shot keeping it around.

"More people need to experience [Maah Daah Hey], so that’s why I decided to host a race," says Ybarra.

One of the initial Maah Daah Hey 100s.

In its first year, the Maah Daah Hey 100 was a free event 40 people participated in. Now it's in its sixth year, and over 430 people signed up to ride. All the funds for the event go right back into the efforts to preserve it the trail.

The Maah Daah Hey 100 as it grew more established.

They've even been able to expand the race to include shorter distance trails so people of all riding levels can participate. There are also challenging options for the more experienced riders.

Ybarra's efforts have reinvigorated the trail in an astonishing way and helped people rediscover just how amazing the outdoors can be.

Not only has he helped bring visitors from all over the world to what was once a virtually unknown trail, he's reintroduced locals to the wonders of the Badlands.

Visitors on horseback forging a river in the Badlands.

Ybarra hopes this labor of love will continue to inspire new adventurers who might've forgotten about the healing power of nature.

“When I drive into the Badlands, I feel my blood pressure drop. I feel my stress disappear. I feel my worries just vanish. I think that’s so important for people today. To just get out and find peace out on a trail somewhere."

A visitor taking in the beauty of the Badlands.

Watch Ybarra's whole journey here:

He's dedicating his life to make sure future generations can enjoy the beauty of nature.

Posted by Upworthy on Tuesday, September 12, 2017
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