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#36 Background's Sunday: Your Weekly Moment is Here!
New article at Background Mag!
There are places that stay with you long after you leave.
Cochamó is one of them. A valley of endless granite walls and a rainforest so alive it feels like it’s breathing beside you. To reach it, you walk. Through mud, mist and quiet. No signal, no roads, no rush. Just the slow rhythm of water, stone and trees.
For Katie Keeley, a month living and climbing here became a return to something essential: waking with the river, trusting the people you climb with, pushing your limits, eating simply, laughing in exhaustion, and feeling part of a community built by care and rope.
Cochamó is also a place with a long and ongoing history of protection. A reminder that the landscapes that move us are never guaranteed.
👉 Read the full article here.
Reflections from a month living in the rainforest and climbing the immense granite walls of Southern Chile.
BY KATIE KEELEY
Editor’s Pick
Background Archive: The Battle for Cochamó
If this story moved something in you — that sense of awe, belonging, or simply the desire to understand this place more deeply — we invite you to revisit our earlier piece on Cochamó.
It explores the decades-long effort to protect the valley from road construction, large-scale development and the slow erosion that comes when a place becomes “discoverable.”
A look into the climbers, locals and neighbors who have been quietly defending the valley for years; and what it means to choose protection not just as an act of activism, but of love.
Read it here: https://www.backgroundmag.com/the-battle-for-cochamo
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with love,
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