“I´ve had enough! Of grey skies and dull winter days that is! With several exotic outdoors images required for various publications, I´ve headed off southwards for a bit. Quite a long way south in fact – I´ve gone to dodge icebergs and scarily cute penguins in Antarctica!

As getting to the ship involves flying to South America, then it would be daft not to explore the area on the way. So I´m currently en-route to Argentina, heading for the Iguazu Falls.

Currently I´ve made it as far as Santiago airport in Chile, with 24 hrs of flying, one more flight to go today, and some really daft officials (the friendly customs lass had just about agreed that my cereal bars were fine, when a total jobsworth stepped in and stomped his size 13´s (and microscopic search of the ingredients list) to say “no I couldn´t step over the customs line with them”. Worse still, he got really grumpy when I wanted to eat them then and there (I really was hungry after 24hrs of nothing but airline food!) and threatened to fine me, even though I wasn´t over the customs line at that point!

Anyhow, daft officials aside, on the way to Antarctica, I´ll probably explore a few other parts of Argentina and Chile, taking lots of stunning outdoors pictures as I go – as ever landscape photographs and wildlife images being some of my favourites.

I´m not yet sure if I can get any of my exotic outdoors images uploaded while on the road (if Santiago airport is anything to go by, it´s not looking good for that, and certainly will have very limited contact (if any!) while in Antarctica, but I´ll do my best to keep you updated of my adventures as I travel from Argentina to Antarctica.”

Chiz Dakin is an award-winning professional photographer and guidebook writer, who specialises in landscape, outdoors adventure and travel photography. Her website at www.peakimages.co.uk contains examples of her work and photography courses.

Below we reproduce comments from her excellent travel writing site “Travels With My Camera“. Chiz is an award winning professional photographer. Her website  www.peakimages.co.uk has some of her excellent travel and mountain photos for you to enjoy.

She also claims that she has discovered a unique “fox deterrent” formula for spreading around the tent entrance, replacing the old “shout or throw your boot at it” one!

She intends to produce a full report on her “Los Tres Miles” experiences when she returns from her latest adventure in the Alps.

Chiz’s views on the Sierra Nevada

“It was wonderful!

The mountains are awesome, everything from easy trails to full-on ridge scrambling (or harder!).

You may think that the slowly disintegrating road linking the two highest summits mean this area ™s an easy day trippers stroll – just at high altitude – but don ™t be fooled. Yes, there are some easy trails, but there is also some serious full-on wilderness scrambling and lots in between! (The road used to be the highest in Europe, but was closed in early 1990 ™s when the area became a national park, and now (mostly) makes a good off-road cycling trail.)

The best map of the region is the Editorial Penbetica – available in many tourist locations from information offices to campsites to souvenir shops. But be warned, Spanish maps aren ™t up to OS standard, and this can can lead to an œepic if you don ™t understand the differences! The biggest difference is that areas that we ™d assume are open moorland if looking at a UK Ordnance Survey map, are quite likely to have crags, cliffs or major impassable ravines – they ™re just not shown! Often also there are more paths than the map shows, but there ™s a few that are marked which really don ™t exist – some of the terrain is just far too steep and crumbly! (If the rock was stable enough, there ™s a path marked off Alcazabar which would be a good – and hard – climb, but that particular œpath is sadly little more than a very steep craggy choss heap!)

The snow this year has been fantastic over the winter – so there ™s still large amounts in small pockets on the alta montagna (the 3000m peaks). Mostly this is fine without crampons and ice axe (its fairly slushy on top) but there are some parts where its quite dangerous – the route over what I now know is locally called œScary Ridge! is certainly decidely dangerous at the moment. This is one of the paths that ™s œnot really a path – certainly not for pure walkers, as it requires a good degree of scrambling. Its current problem is that snow cover obscures where the route crosses the ridge line, and failing to follow the correct route can lead to head-first slides at speed down 45degree snow slopes – and that ™s really not recommeded!”

And of the main summit traverse (Los Tres Miles) she says……….

“The highlight of the trip was 5 days walking œLos Tres Miles with Mike from Spanish Highs.   We set off from Lanjaron in the SE of the region, and walked across several of the 3000m peaks (they have so many that some don ™t even have names!). The route roughly followed the main ridge line El Caballo (the horse rider), Veleta, Mulhacen and Alcazabar (the œbig three), Laguna de Vacares (but said œBaccareth) and out via Picon de Jerez, to Jerez in the NE of the region. Only about 60km in total, but the distance is far from a good guide to the toughness of the route! Sometimes 1km can take hours – if the terrain ™s interestingly rough! Make sure that your boots are really comfortable before setting out!

The route shouldn ™t be considered a pure ridge walk covering every 3000m peak – that ™s an impossibility as some of the ridge is not remotely a walk and some of the outliers would add days to the trip. But consider it along the lines of the Haute Route in Switzerland, and you soon see its a fantastic and highly challenging expedition, into often surprisingly remote and rugged terrain.

Temperatures varied from freezing overnight at the first camp to 37C in the Lanjaron and Jerez valleys at the start and end (fortunately a lift was available for the start and end to reach roughly 2000m altitude, so the walking never became unbearably hot!), and water came from all sources – from pure Lanjaron spring water from the tap – and source – to snow melt!

And the scrambling was awesome, despite the full packs (5 days food and a day ™s water weights a lot!!) – grade 2-3 in places, depending what route you took – we took the one that looked most fun, but easier options were available.

The thieving fox of Siete Laguna was also foiled (ask Richard for my unique lightweight formula for deterring it!), though Mike was unconvinced as it we only saw it on one occaision. Regardless it ™s far more timid than many reports make out – a good shout sends it packing straight away!

The scenery was also awesome – watch out for photography courses/holidays in the region coming soon, and my own images on the Peak Images website in due course.”