Los Glaciares: Four days, five glaciers

There's two videos uploaded to this post, so if you're an email subscriber click through to see them. Other video's you may have missed:
- Penguins sounding like they've swallowed a harmonica at Seno Otway
- A short clip of the outdoor concert in Valparaiso

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.

El Calafate: Sometimes you just have to look away

Argentina has a stray dog problem. Apparently that's because the Argentinians don't believe in de sexing as this would make the males less...well...masculine. You see, the macho culture goes right down to the dogs!

Yet unlike the mangy dogs of Bulgaria the Argentine ones appeared well looked after. It was not uncommon to see little piles of dog food laid out for them on city sidewalks and parks. Obviously they left their own little piles around the place too. Of course they were very friendly, happily chilling out with any human wandering or hanging out in their city. And surprisingly they displayed pretty good road sense which is more than I can say for most of the human inhabitants.

Unfortunately we'd been given strict orders by our travel doctor to not touch any warm blooded creature because of the risk of rabies. While we ignored that directive when it came to horses, the house cat sleeping in the bunk next to us in Salta and when picking fights with coatis trying to steal our lunch, the fluffy coats of the stray dogs mostly went without a pat. Yes, I felt very bad.

But dog poop on the footpath or rabies for that matter seemed hardly an issue compared to what we witnessed the day we were leaving El Calafate.

With a couple of hours before our bus to El Chalten we'd wandered down to Laguna Nimes - a prime bird habitat alongside the shore of Lago Argentino.

Inevitably a few of the local stray dogs had followed us from the hostel all the way down to the tiny administration building. While we went inside to pay the entrance fee, the dogs continued into the supposed nature reserve.

Picking up the loan binoculars and surveying the lagoon we could already see the flamingoes, ducks with their chicks and birds of prey. But the peaceful scene was quickly disturbed by the stray dogs who had made it through the boggy grass and jumped into the water.

Chased down by the dogs the flock of flamingoes took flight in a pink cloud while other birds swam frantically out of the way. Shocked we pointed out to the administration officer what was happening to which he shrugged, acknowledging that they had a bit of a stray dog problem. The solution was to fence the area, but that project was only partially complete.

Most of the birds had moved away, but those with chicks were struggling to find a safe place. The dogs were chasing them down separating the family. But that wasn't all. Slowly the chicks were also disappearing until there were none left. Tears filled my eyes and I couldn't look any more as the guys seethed at what appeared to be a lack of interest in preserving the wildlife unless there was a financial gain.

That scene reminded me of another place in the north of Argentina where we'd spent the day, but were so disappointed we didn't mention it. We'd left with just this photo of Corrientes which shows nothing of the sadness we'd felt that day.

There in tiny public zoo, we'd seen depressed monkeys in enclosures so small that they would have more appropriately housed a large bird. In the same repetitive pattern the monkeys would frantically climb along bars from one side of the cage to the other and then back again. For as long as we'd stood there horrified watching them they just kept going.

So we were delighted when at the parks administration in El Chalten the passionate rangers enthusiastically told us everything we needed to know about walking in the northern section of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. Not only did they care enough to emphasise our role in preserving this pristine environment but they were very encouraging of getting off the tourist trail and to the more remote parts of the park. Admittedly I thought that was as a result of Hannes' travel beard which made him look like a well seasoned hiker.

And on top of the rangers enthusiasm, the glimpses of Fitz Roy from the bus had certainly got us excited in anticipation of the next 4 day hike.

I'm sorry, I tried to write a blog post, but the view was just too distracting!

 

Visiting Perito Moreno Glacier

Just like Iguazu, the Perito Moreno Glacier is one of those places you have to visit. So we packed ourselves up, sadly waved goodbye to Omar and our new friends at Kaweskar Hostel and left Chile. Again. But this time we weren't alone standing in the immigration queue for an hour. Our two Torres del Paine walking buddies were headed to El Calafate and Perito Moreno as well.

Given our group size (wow...four people!) we decided to rent a car for the following day – no mean feat on a Sunday – to check out both the glacier and the supposedly 'off the beaten track' Lago Roca.

Well, the car rental turned out to be a pretty good idea. Despite starting out as a blustery but sunny day in El Calafate, as we covered the 80km to Perito Moreno the clouds grew thicker and turned a more threatening shade of grey and the light rain turned into a downpour. So we saw almost nothing of the allegedly spectacular scenery on the drive along Lago Argentino.

 The first sighting of Perito Moreno – still from the drive - lifted our spirits somewhat, knowing that we would at least be able to see the glacier despite the fog and rain. And what a view. That first glimpse of blue ice always takes my breath away!

But really there's no way to miss it. With a 5 kilometre wide terminal face and rising an average of 74m out of Lago Argentino even bad weather can't obscure it. On top of that, it's amazingly accessible with walkways on the bank of the lake that feel like you're right up against it, even though at that size there is no way to appreciate how massive it actually is.

Apart from it's beauty, Perito Moreno is remarkable for the fact that huge chunks of ice regularly calve off the terminal face so it's as much an auditory experience as a visual one.

We stood in the rain until our waterproof jackets were soaked...although still waterproof, waiting for the ice drama to unfold.

From time to time we'd hear the enormous rumble that sounded like thunder and would desperately scan the glacier to see the pieces of ice slide into the lake. And just like at Glacier Grey they seemed really small!

Sodden, we returned to the car and headed for Lago Roca. At that point the weather hadn't improved nor did it for the rest of the afternoon, so the view of what seemed like a very pretty area was a bit patchy, but at least we were warm and dry.

What we did see, were enormous looking birds of prey on the side of the road that didn't mind the least bit being photographed.

The lake itself was rather unimpressive in the grey drizzle, so we entertained ourselves while stretching our legs by jumping in the puddles in an attempt to spraying mud at everyone else. Okay, only some of us did that! And then on the way out we nearly got the car bogged! It took four great minds all offering opinions on how to get up the hill and some skilful driving.

Finally we returned to El Calafate and would you believe that there the sun was still shining!

Doing the W! Torres del Paine: Part Two

What's the attraction of this walk, that people who have never lugged around a backpack on a multi-day trail come here to 'do the “W”'? It seemed that everyone we met in our travels was either on their way, or had come from Torres del Paine. Even I, who has stated more times than either Jeff or I would like to remember, that 'I hate bush walking' and 'I hope to never do it again!' had put it near the top of our 'To Do' list for the trip.

But then, clearly I'm a walking contradiction given the fact that I only knew about the walk from a beautifully illustrated book called 'Top Treks of the World'. That I'd bought. And then day dreamed about when I should have been doing something more productive...

I won't lie, this isn't a get back to nature, leave behind all the crowds kind of place. Thanks to fully catered hosterias along the way, it's set up to be as convenient as possible for anyone willing to lace up a pair of hiking boots and carry a change of clothes. And yet I, like apparently every other hiker compiling a Top Ten list was totally smitten with the place and dare I say it – I loved walking the W!

Which brings me back to why? Well, standing on top of a great big boulder with the word mirador (lookout) painted on it in faded letters and looking out across the Valle Frances, it was pretty clear.

We'd walked a couple of hours initially through the lenga forest where we'd heard the thunder like rumble of ice cracking off the nearby hanging glacier.

Once again we'd sat waiting to see the calving until the fierce Patagonian wind had chilled us enough that we'd had to keep moving.

Slowly the trees grew more sparse and twisted from the effects of the wind that that day had been predicted for around 70km/hour. In some places there was no forest just a round clearing of bare rocks and we contemplated what had happened there. My guess was UFO's.

Hannes' - he who had called us pussies – favourite phrase was 'Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God' which he delivered in an unconvincing American accent, at just about everything - sometimes deservedly, but mostly not. Well at the top of the valley, I think all of us muttered some version of his phrase as we took in the 360 degree panorama of shale-capped granite walls with one of the turquoise lakes just visible in the distance.

 But it wasn't just that the Valle Frances was spectacular, it was also so different to the glacier and ice field that was just a day's walk away.

Wind, rain and...Snow?!?
On the fourth day, it was the weathers turn to play games. While marching through the grassy fields, the rain alternated with the sunshine so we'd be throwing off our packs every few minutes to take rain jackets on and off as it would alternatively get hot then cold. Not only was this a great workout for the arms, but a way to make friends with other hikers we'd be camped beside that night. As we alternated passing and being passed when adjusting our gear, we'd share a laugh and a 'See you again in a couple of minutes!' look.

 It wasn't even marked on the map, but when I saw it – or rather, felt it - I knew this was the Paso de los Vientos and it was stunning! A few years earlier my parents had walked this same section of the trail and been in awe of the gusts of wind that had nearly sent them toppling down the steep side of valley into the Ascencio River below.

From the valley we could already partially see the 'towers' that the park is famous for and after another hour of walking we reached the woody campsite that marks the final ascent to the lookout.

Of course everyone hopes for a picture perfect view of the torres, but unfortunately the unpredictable Patagonian weather usually has other ideas. So we thought we were pretty lucky that the mornings showers seemed to have cleared. After setting up camp we decided to go straight to the lookout while the sun was getting a look in, rather than trying for the stunning dawn glimpse which would have required a 4am start. The tables had turned on the pussy stakes you see and it wasn't the Aussies who were firmly committed to being in their sleeping bags at least until after the sun rose!

The hike up to the lookout involved much less actual walking and more clambering over boulders and sliding in every direction on the loose gravel of the badly eroded trail. And the higher we got on the barren hillside, the fiercer the wind became. When we finally reached the top, low lying clouds had blown in, shrouding the towers.

Covered in every warm piece of clothing we'd brought and huddled next to the boulders we waited in the hope that the sun would come out, while we debated weather we were getting a more authentic experience in Patagonia than if it had been a perfect day. While we made ourselves feel better thinking this, the weather decided to give us even more authenticity and it started to snow.

The snow came and went throughout that evening and during the night, so that when we woke the following morning, everything was covered in a light dusting of powder including the tent!

Apart from those who had actually woken before dawn and walked up to the torres to see lots of fog (and the person who took a summer tent with them and was cold during the night) everyone was delighted with the snow. So we went for an exploratory walk which started with lots of photos...

 Then turned to this....

 Some of this.....

Then this....oh yes dear husband, thanks for TAKING PHOTO'S instead of helping. Just for the record, I drew blood!!

And finally...snowmen! Really, who doesn't go a little gaga when there's fresh snow on the ground!

Battle Scars from walking the 'W' with not one, but two Swabians!
After all this play, there wasn't a lot of time to head down the mountain to get the bus back to Puerto Natales.

 But we made it with time to spare. In fact 1 hour and 20 minutes. Technically we still needed to catch a shuttle to the park entrance and the bus to Puerto Natales, which was going to cost 2000 pesos or $4 or 10 euro cents. Big deal right? Well if you're Swabian (from a part of Germany where people are considered to be rather frugal) it is. After all why catch a shuttle when you can walk the extra 7.5km, just like you walked an extra 17.5km to save catching the ferry! Can't hurt can it?!

Well, yes it can. During those last 7.5km I learnt the definition of 'blistering pace'. About half an hour in, Sebastian was joking about his red hot feet as we raced down the road.

By the time we reached the bus, with a couple of minutes to spare, I no longer thought my feet – or him – were particularly funny. For moment all that was forgotten when we got back to Kaweskar (probably the best hostel on earth) and Omar the owner greeted each of us with great big bear hugs!

And then I took off my boots. Aside from the blisters covering the back of each heel that I already knew about, each and every one of my toes, both on the top and bottom had been rubbed raw, along with the front part of the sole. They were already swollen and got bigger during that afternoon and night making it really hard to walk. The upshot was being able to scare others hikers in the hostel who were about to set off on the 'W' by showing them my wounds. Plus I had a legitimate excuse to keeping my feet up while the boys shopped and cooked. For two nights, we feasted, socialised and drank wine and cocktails - the awesome Omar mixed killer pisco sours for us. I did mention that Kaweskar is the best hostel in the world didn't I?