Rainforest Abundance in Greater Patagonia

Spring 2025,  my husband and I spent 70 days backpacking in Chile, following an informal collection of GPS routes in the mountains along the Chile/Argentina border: glaciers, volcanoes, indigenous communities, and subsistence farmers within larger dramatic landscapes. Our route took us in and out of the low elevation  Valdivian temperate rainforest. It is the second largest coastal temperate ecosystem in the world — the largest is in Southeast Alaska, where I live. This ecosystem is illustrated on the left panels of the painting.

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Towards the end of the trip, we entered the zone of the Pehuén, or Araucaria trees, shown in the upper right panels of the painting. The Pehuén (Araucaria araucana) only grow from around 800 to 1600 meters above sea level. This species of Araucaria is found only in Argentina and Chile between the latitudes of 37°20°S to 40°20°S. 

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I carried a 22”x30” piece of hot press paper, folded accordion style. Daily, I added the plants and fungi that most grabbed my attention. We traveled south to north, from the bottom of the painting to the top, zig-zagging back and forth from lower to higher elevations. Left to right on the painting represents west to east — which also meant low to high elevation, since the border follows the crest of the mountains. 

I showed my images to locals to learn the plant names and included Spanish and Mapuche words as appropriate. I kept comparing this threatened, rare ecosystem with the one where I live.