Inside the Patagonian Wilderness

Correspondent Jeffrey Kofman blogs from Southern Chile Picture this: our ABC news team — four of us — are splayed across the top of an old fishing boat. The hatch and deck jammed with 17 cases of gear. We are chugging down a spectacular fjord in Southern Chile, nearing the end of a two-day journey. Our destination: one of the most exotic and spectacular corners of this planet. (At left, producer Arash Ghadishah and correspondent Jeffrey Kofman cruising down Comau Fjord in Southern Chile aboard a small fishing boat they hired to take them and their gear to Pumalin Park.) Pumalin Park on the northern edge of Patagonia. The shear rock face of the Andes Mountains forms massive cliffs that plunge straight into the sea on either side. Trees cling to the sides. The sun is shining overhead. What a thrill. This is one of the most remote parks in the world. Much of it virgin wilderness. Pumalin is the passionate vision of millionaires Doug and Kris Tompkins. They made their vast fortune as founders of the North Face, Esprit and Patagonia sportswear. For the last 15 years they’ve been spending those millions to preserve some of the last patches of wilderness on the planet. The Tompkins have talked to print journalists before, but we are the first American TV crew to be welcomed to Pumalin. Doug Tompkins is no fan of television, but he does want Americans to know what he’s doing down here. After six months of negotiation and planning — by e-mail and phone — we are on our way. As we motor down Comau Fjord towards one of the park entrance this magnificent magical place does not disappoint. The boat drops us at Leptepu — a place and a name that would seem at home in Gulliver’s Travels. We are greeted by flies the size of elephants… or so it seems. A truck emerges from the dirt road and we load our gear on the roof, in the back and at our feet. Twenty bumpy minutes later we have crossed the Peninsula. This time a park boat is waiting to take us on the final leg of our long journey: the hobbit-like, elegant cabins of Caleta Gonzalo. The pure air is like an elixir. The scenery a tonic. Early the next morning the boat returns to take us to the end of the fjord, we transfer our gear into a mud tractor and soon find ourselves traveling down a manicured cedar-lined lane. Suddenly a stunning home worthy of Martha Stewart appears: Glass greenhouses, fresh flowers, and a grass airstrip. I can’t help feeling that it is probably easier to visit a drug lord in the jungles of Colombia than it is to meet Doug and Kris Tompkins. But it is worth the journey. Jeffrey’s story airs on Tuesday’s World News.