Nature

Patagonia.

Land of the pumas.

Realm of the condor.

Icy air, warm eyes.

Four puma kittens are born to a successful huntress.

It is a land of extremes.

Of beauty.

Of surprises.

It is the land of Torres del Paine,

in Southern Chile,

where the blue ice mountains tower

over this single puma family bloodline.

If you follow the footprints near the end of the world,

they will lead you to the high mountains of Chile.

It's where the ever-present wind seems

to whisper of an ancient heartbeat.

Myths speak of one who rules the land here...

...and these cats, that are perfectly adapted

to living in this frigid landscape.

They are pumas,

the legends of the ice mountains.

They're a symbol of power and strength

to so many cultures in their range.

And the land they guard

stretches all the way down the Andes,

the 5,000 miles of the Cordillera de los Andes.

It is in Chile,

just inland from the great Southern Ice Fields,

one of the largest freshwater reserves in the world,

that our story begins.

It is also here that the great Andean condor rules the skies

above this mountainous backbone of South America.

The same ancient myths claim that,

while the pumas rule the land,

condors are the messengers of the gods in the heavens.

And no story is complete without heaven and earth,

and here, the two seem to meet.

It's a place called Torres del Paine.

The shadows of the condor's wings

touch one particular family of pumas today.

We'll call her Solitaria.

She is sleek and gracious

and seems to be always searching the horizon for clues.

Caracaras are often the first birds to descend onto carrion.

It may be what she's after.

The cubs are about three months old,

just about time for them to venture out into the world,

after their mother.

It'll flood their senses with scents and sounds,

with tempting sights of things to chase.

One cub is particularly close.

It doesn't make Solitaria's job any easier.

False alarm.

She'll have to go off hunting.

Out here in these Patagonian foothills,

the wind is constant,

and that makes sneaking around much more difficult for a puma.

No story of Torres del Paine is complete

without that of the herds of guanacos.

A sentinel aims his nose into the wind.

Despite being very prolific,

with probably half a million of them in South America,

guanacos have a unique problem...

...and it makes them adapt in a very specific way.

They gather at exactly the right time of day,

at exactly the right month, to start a ritual --

to give birth.

It happens a few hours before midday and a few after,

in November, in the heat, each year.

They've fine-tuned this as an adaptation

because guanacos have tongues that are just too short

to extend beyond their lips,

so they simply cannot lick a newborn clean.

Birthing is perfectly timed so he can dry out on his own.

It's a male chulengo, and he has just 10 minutes to stand.

Only one in four of them will make it to their first year,

through the gauntlet of pumas that live here.

It's a tense few hours for the herd.

But the little chulengo makes the cutoff time,

albeit not terribly elegantly,

but it's a good start to his next 25 years.

And these are the events that condors look out for,

the other three of the four that don't make it.

Solitaria is on the move again...

...following the birds.

This time, it pays off.

The kittens are about to be introduced to meat

for the first time.

It's someone else's kill,

or a natural death that she is scavenging.

Solitaria does a lot more of that than you'd expect

from a huntress of her reputation.

The little female kitten

with more spots on her body than the others

stays closer, more engaged.

When her siblings play, she "hunts" her mother.

The voices on the Ice Mountain are not silent here for long.

In Torres, seasons change in a day,

snapping cold sending everything into a huddle.

Flamingos, that you'd expect to have flown north by now,

have stayed,

adapting with the most delicate of balances,

raising their body temperatures,

but also preserving calorie burn.

These fields of guanacos

belong to a single, dominant male puma --

La Roca, "The Rock."

He's the busiest puma here.

Every time it snows,

all his territorial markings get covered.

His is a vast territory, that overlaps Solitaria's,

so he's constantly on the move.

If he leaves one corner unattended for a moment,

young puma males pop up, looking to take over.

La Roca's scent is just too fresh today,

and the young male decides

on discretion, and the next valley.

Male pumas will avoid a battle, if at all possible.

As the wind races off the ice fields

and up the mountains, it freezes the air.

Everything moves as if on fragile glass,

on precious crystals that'll break with a breath.

Solitaria is on the move.

She's seen these winters before.

She knows how to turn it to her advantage.

The ground crunches underfoot.

If she flips a pebble, the game will be up.

Stalking is difficult.

So she sticks to the soft snow, picking her footsteps.

The explosion of a light tawny cat from the dappled snowfield

is the last thing the guanacos expect.

It's confusing, and lethal.

At least one cub is taking it all in,

every moment of the life-and-death struggle,

because, one day,

this lesson will make all the difference in her life.

It's time to name her, too --

"A Beautiful Huntress,"

La Bella Cazadora,

albeit in the first stages of learning.

Because of this closeness,

Cazadora will grow just a little larger

with each mouthful she forces down,

while the others play.

The rule of the valley

is that those who get even the slightest edge survive.

In a competitive family,

the one that figures out the best spot

to absorb free heat wins the day.

And it's usually Cazadora.

Patagonia is not a place for the weak.

It's the wily that quickly adapt.

And the thaw is a dangerous time,

when benign-looking ice turn into the fangs of foreboding,

indicators of change.

It's a time to be extra careful.

Everyone is walking on glass.

The flamingos here now

have performed the tricky balancing act

of waiting out the winter to get the early pickings,

while the rest of the flock migrated north to Argentina.

But nature has its own timetable,

no matter how hungry you are.

And Solitaria is hungry.

She's burned up most of her body fat reserves for herself,

and for her suckling cubs,

so, she has to go out on a limb.

Most of the guanacos have moved to the far side

of the frozen lake, just out of her territory.

The cubs are uneasy, unsure.

They've only ever seen the lake asleep, not rousing.

Cazadora needs reassuring.

It' not just the creaking ice beneath her feet.

This is very unfamiliar territory.

But if Solitaria and Cazadora feel it's fine,

the other cubs will follow,

but still eager not to linger on the groaning lake.

They're hesitant to go into someone else's land

and risk offending.

Pumas are usually very respectful of boundaries.

But Solitaria led them here

because of a different scent in the thicket.

And well before the other cubs find it, too,

Cazadora has proudly claimed the top spot

on a frozen guanaco kill.

It's these stolen moments that get a family like this

through the lean times,

until the herds circle back into their territories.

Whether the guanacos return or not now,

Solitaria can't afford to get cut off

on the wrong side of the lake,

so after a quick feed, she tests the ice again.

The unsettling noises below their feet seem like

they are coming from an ice monster,

getting ready to swallow them up.

It scares the cubs, and so it should.

The Sun has been shining for two days since they crossed

and they were all a little lighter then.

Her timing is perfect.

Within days, the melt has started.