People of the Pewen Tree
As Huenchu and Joey Sackett arrived at their accommodation for the night, there was no hotel or lodge in sight. Instead, pewen trees towered overhead, and a cirque revealed itself in the distance. Massive lines painted its surface, and it didn’t take long before everyone began mind surfing. The snowpack hid their shelter from view. Huenchu climbed down through the snow to the door of the ramshackle hut, entering into another world.
In the fall of 2024, Huenchu, a 33-year-old Indigenous splitboard guide, teamed up with Sackett to explore a slice of Pewenche territory in southern Chile, a land named after the pewen, or araucaria tree—an ancient conifer whose bark resembles the skin of a stegosaurus and whose roots reach back to the time of the dinosaurs. Standing beneath his first pewen, Sackett questioned if it was still 2024. “I’ve moved through a lot of snowy landscapes throughout the world,” he said, “but I had never had an experience quite like this one.”
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