Los Glaciares: Four days, five glaciers

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- Penguins sounding like they've swallowed a harmonica at Seno Otway
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If day one offered only a glimpse of a glacier, then day two was all about getting up close to them. Too close for my liking in fact, but let's be sequential about this.

Two close and too far

I was extremely excited that morning, as I'd read about a day trip to Cerro Electrico from this camp site that would take me 'well into the realm of mountaineers'. “Well hello there Challenge, I'm very pleased to meet you. And yes I would love to take you up on your offer, Challenge,” I said looking from my beloved guidebook to Cerro Electrico and back. Well, at least it was in the general direction of Cerro Electrico.

And what did the other members of the group say to Challenge? Well, they snubbed their noses mumbled a 'meh' and all agreed to go to the supposedly beautiful Lago Electrico. Needless to say that was the easy trail option and I was outnumbered three to one. 

 

“Pussies,” I muttered under my breath as we started walking around the great big rock that sheltered our camp site and along the flat valley floor. Admittedly the landscape was stunning.

After a bit of a climb we reached the desolate hook of Lago Electrico, before turning left and picking a path up towards Glaciar Pollone.

As we climbed over the moraine wall, we were hit by the view of the lake, the glacier and completely cloud free granite towers directly ahead. Of course this glacier was no Perito Moreno, but to be honest I was more blown away as we stood silently, completely alone in this extraordinary rugged landscape. 

 

But we weren't anywhere near snow, so Sebastian decided to go on an exploratory trip around the lake to the patch we could see on the other side. After a few minutes he'd disappeared amongst the boulders. As it seemed like a great idea, Jeff and I followed, while Hannes stayed on the shore having a nap. After climbing over the boulders for about half and hour and only just reaching the the far shore of the lake it hit home how absolutely immense this terrain was. 

   

Our little beach on the other side of the lake looked minuscule and certainly the person sleeping there was no bigger than a flea. 

 

The access to the far bigger and more significant Glaciar Marconi involved a glorious scramble over boulders and moraine debris all the way along the shore of Lago Electrico. 

 

Along the way we met a few small groups decked out with ropes, plastic slides and ice climbing gear. They'd spent the last few days on the glacier we were heading towards and had planned to hike a 6 day circuit from El Chalten, across Glaciar Marconi, to the much bigger Glaciar Viedma and then back into town.  

Unfortunately the weather had been so bad, they'd spent a few days in their tent before deciding to turn back on what had turned into a glorious, sunny day. Needless to say, not only was I spellbound by the idea of ice trekking on the Viedma Glaciar, but now I felt like a pussy! 

When we finally arrived at the terminal face of the glacier, I was reminded of our very different experience when we'd gone ice trekking on the Franz Josef Glacier in the New Zealand. 

There the terminal face had been cordoned off at least 50m before it and the warnings indicated that getting any closer could result in death. In Argentina, we were clearly expected to use common sense which arguably we didn't as we posed for pictures next to massive chunks of ice that had recently fallen from the face.

Next, Sebastian decided to walk into the chamber under the glacier from where the melting ice flowed to form a river. Jeff followed him.

 

Three in one

The next day we trekked back to Glaciar Peidras Blancas that we'd seen on the first day. Again, it was just us and the glacier, at least for a while, so we sat on rock on the edge of the lake just watching as little blue icebergs bobbed about occasional disturbed by the ice falling on the other side of the lagoon. And remarkably, the towers stood in the background almost completely unobscured by cloud. 

After pitching camp Campamento Poincenot, we headed towards Glaciar Rio Blanco via a barely discernible track that followed the river. 

Although I kept polling everyone on which was their favourite, I don't remember what anyone thought, so I'm going on a limb to say this was the best. At the far side of Laguna Sucia the glacier hung off the cliff face, with Fitz Roy just behind it. The ice falls produced surges in the water level pushing and dragging water in and out of the river we were sitting next to.

Sorry about the angle. If you know how to turn videos around, leave a comment or email me!

 The last glacier of the day was above us over a ridge. To get there we would have needed to go back to camp to start the trail up to Glaciar de los Tres. Too lazy to do that, the guys figured we should be able to climb up to the ridge as they had seen people there. After scrambling up slippery loose gravel, falling down in knee deep sections of snow then looking down to see just how steep the slope was I figured that some people have a strange definition of 'lazy'.  Needless to say this was one of the most fun parts of our trek!

When we finally crested we found a frozen Laguna de los Tres covered in snow, with Fitz Roy still standing naked and a stunning 360 degree view.

One for the many

The lookout at Laguna Los Tres is another one of those places where keen people slog up the hill to watch the first rays of sunshine touch the granite spires. Just like at Torres del Paine, we'd gone to the lookout the previous afternoon because the guys all wanted to stay snuggled in their sleeping bags until well after dawn. But as soon as I saw sun, I went for a wander around the camp site on the still frosty earth. 

 

The last glacier is part of a popular day walk from El Chalten. So after enjoying the other glaciers in near silence, I have to admit that sharing Glaciar Torre took a bit of a shine off it despite the crystal clear day.

On the way back we ran into another hiker who'd done the 'W' virtually with us, but had continued on to do the full circuit. He'd been caught in extremely bad weather and had sworn that he'd tell everybody and anybody to not bother doing the full 9 day loop. Of course other people had told us it was amazing. Well that's Patagonia; beautiful one day, blow's you away the next.

Los Glaciares: An Introduction (because I waffle)

Well provisioned and with blisters healed, the four of us walked out of El Chalten and civilisation headed once more for the hills.

Actually it depends on your definition of 'civilisation'. Mine includes a good internet connection and allegedly the fierce Patagonian wind kept on knocking out El Chalten's connection. If your memory stretches back to dial-up...well it was a lot slower. And I suppose I only dare mention it because good free WiFi was the norm everywhere we'd been so far. Well, El Chalten definitely lived up to it's frontier town reputation!

The northern section of Los Glaciares National Park is more famous for it's granite towers and particularly Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy, than for it's glaciers despite being set on the Heilo Sur, the largest ice cap outside the earth's polar regions. Perhaps this is because of a need to compete with the more famous - and Chilean - Torres del Paine, since some unfortunate travellers are actually forced to make the tough choice of hiking one or the other.

It could also be because those peaks are some of mountaineerings greatest prizes. Either way the comparison between the two was constantly at the back of my mind. You know, just in case someone actually asked my opinion on the matter!

Any guide book will tell you that one great advantage of the area is that most of the walks can be done in a day, meaning no need to carry a heavy pack. Yes, we saw plenty of day walkers and smugly thought to ourselves 'pussies!'

Now I'll clarify that I think the word to use here is 'wusses'. At least that's the good and proper Australian school yard term of phrase given that, pussies is more commonly accepted as to be referring to something else unless of course you're in an Agatha Christie novel in which case it's completely different. Anyway, from day one Hannes insisted on the word 'pussy' so that became the official word for the trip.

But what the guide books don't mention is how much the scenery changes. Unlike in Torres del Paine where it gradually seemed to evolve, at Los Glaciares we had a wonderful taste of everything on the very first day.

We started by climbing up the hill alongside the wide river bed surrounded by snow capped mountains.

Next was a detour to Laguna Capri where we got a first glimpse of Fitz Roy, with low clouds hanging around it's peak.

Then we hit the plain where we had lunch observing the granite towers.

And staring at the reflections in the pools of water along the trail while listening to the gurgle of the crystal clear river.

We saw a glimpse of Laguna Piedras Blancas and it's glacier, while spotting little tiny figures down among the moraine debris.

We played in the forest.

And turned towards the Refugio Los Troncos passing through a broad valley flanked by coloured mountains like the ones we had been mesmerised by around Salta.

On the approach to our camp spot we met a couple horses, that try as I may, were not interested in a pat. Well, at least I could still smell them if only from a distance.

Finally we arrived at the refugio and our camp spot for night which was nicely positioned in the shelter of a large rock that had been plunked down in the middle of the valley floor surrounded by more colour in the mountains and the beautiful evening sky.