By Cate Lecuyer
BEVERLY — Scaling the Andes in the cold, Ben Kemmer and his fellow mountaineers thought they had reached the top.
"Visibility was down to zero," said the University of Maine sophomore who grew up in Beverly. "When we got to what we thought was the summit, we realized we had more to go."
At more than 7,000 feet, it was common to see large black vultures riding the currents above the cliffs.
Staring ahead, Kemmer and his group saw the narrow, icy ledge that connected to the peak they were trying to get to.
"We had to cross a knife-edge ridge of snow, with a drop on each side," Kemmer said.
Luckily, there were no accidents.
"If there were, we would have had to be evacuated by helicopter," he said. "It was that remote."
On a study abroad trip through the National Outdoor Leadership School, Kemmer spent 80 days in Patagonia — an isolated, wild region in southern Argentina and Chile.
He, along with 14 other students and three instructors, spent from Sept. 11 to Nov. 29 climbing the steep Andes Mountains and sea kayaking along the South American coast. After that, Kemmer and six other students organized what was their individual study — a 10-day, unguided backpacking trek through a river region.
"That was my favorite part of the trip," Kemmer said. "It gave us an opportunity to use all the skills we learned from the instructors."
In the 15-credit course, he mastered how to read maps and charts, tie a good knot, and ration out food, not to mention how to choose campsites, spot conditions for avalanches, rescue someone who's fallen through an ice crevasse, and everything else necessary to survive in the wilderness.
"Ever since I was little, I was interested in the outdoors," Kemmer said. "It's always been a dream of mine to go on an experience like this."
He grew up camping in Maine every year with his parents, but that was the extent of his training before the trip.
"You can do it without much experience because they teach you everything," he said.
Spending three months surrounded by nature, unplugged from the world, and with no roof over his head never made him antsy.
"It never got to me," he said. "I loved every moment of it, just being out in the elements and the challenge of it."
There were a couple of times when he got an opportunity to send a letter home, and once, while switching gear between mountaineering and kayaking, when he got to call home.
"One thing I said is if I don't hear from him, I'll know he's OK," said his mother, Diane.
The hardest part, Kemmer said, was returning to society.
"The instructors call this life the matrix, and out in Patagonia the real world," Kemmer said. "I really loved sleeping out under the stars and waking up to the sun. It's going from worrying about the weather to being at school and worrying about writing papers and going to class. You go from such a simple lifestyle to something so complicated. But it definitely made me appreciate different aspects of life being back home."
Like?
"Clean water," he said. He also remembers flipping off the light switch in his bedroom.
"Then I reached for my head lamp," he said.
But the luxury of a roof over his head is not enough to keep him from the call of the wild.
"It's something," he said, "that I'd do again in a heartbeat."
Staff writer Cate Lecuyer can be reached at clecuyer@salemnews.com.
