PATAGONIA-El Calafate

The main attraction for people going to El Calafate lies about 50 miles outside the town at the Pietro Moreno Glacier. Next to the polar ice caps, this is the longest continuous glacier in the world. It is part of the Great Southern Ice Field that extends west of the Andes along the Patagonian Santa Cruz region. It is also located within Glacier National Park. It is the third largest reserve of fresh water in the world. I have put a lot of pictures up of this glacier and many of them look the same but it was only to emphasize how enormous this thing it. You truly cannot comprehend how massive it is until you are next to it.

If you follow the glacier into the distance you can barely see it split into two frozen rivers running to the left and right.
The glacier is draining into Lake Argentinio on it's far left and right sides. But the middle section of the glacier actually extends over onto the land and it is at that contact point that you are continually hearing the cracking and seeing ice fall.
The next two pictures are of the glacier's contact point with the land. We were standing here because the cracking noises were the loudest and ice kept of breaking off as the day heated up. If you look at the next two pictures in succession you can see a piece of ice missing in the second picture...this missing chunk doesn't look that big but it was about the size of a suburban or two. In the picture below, the piece of ice that is still there is actually falling...i got the picture while in the air.
It you look at the dark indigo blue section of ice below...that is where the ice broke off. You can't image how great the colors are with the newly uncovered ice. As the ice continued to break off, we kept on hoping that we would see a frozen caveman or woolly mammoth stuck in the ice...perfectly preserved.



When you stare at this glacier and think about just how long it took for this to form, carve this valley and begin to melt...it makes you understand how we are just a speck in the time line of the world when compared to things like this.



We got in a boat that took us down to within 200 feet of the glacier itself. They won't get much closer than that because from the surface of the water the glacier rises to between 200-250 feet. If pieces break off and fall they can create enormous waves that can capsize the boat.

PATAGONIA-El Calafate

After 3 days in El Chalten we caught a bus back to El Calafate which is the only town in Patagonia with an airport. We flew in there days before but never saw the town, so now we have come back. We spend our time in the area between hiking around a lake called Lago Roca and going to the Perito Moreno Glacier. All the pictures in this post are of our day spend at Lago Roca. This lake is fed by the Perito Moreno Glacier and is an hour outside of the town. It seemed pretty remote when we got there in the morning but as the day went on many Argentinians came with their families to picnic. It really was a pretty place to go and take a rest day. We don't have any good pictures of them but the shoreline on one side of the lake was completely pink because it was full of flamingos which come here during the summer.

We hiked around the lake and then up a hillside to a meadow out of the wind for a picnic. We ate a bunch then ended up falling asleep in the sun for two hours. We both sun burned our faces which peeled until we got back to the humidity of Dominica.
We wandered through this forest which had green mossy stuff hanging from every branch. They all swayed in the wind which kind of made it seem eerie, I think it made Liz nervous.

The snow covered peak in the distance is where the glacier ends in a lake that feeds into this one.



I saw this rock while we were walking along the lake shore. It looked like a hard boiled egg that had been cracked but not opened. We looked at it for a while and debated whether or not to touch it. I barely touched my finger to the top of it and the entire rock collapsed into a hundred pieces. It scared me for a second as if I had acquired a some new power to destroy things with the touch of my finger. As I looked at the pile of uniform pieces it seemed as if the rock had made the decision to die, as if it's time had come. Maybe all these rocks had silent lives that were all destine to end at some time

PATAGONIA-El Chalten 2

So this first paragraph of the post is going to be underlined because I can't figure out how to turn it off and I have no idea how it got turned on in the first place. We were still in El Chalten come Christmas and so that morning we went on a hike up to Laguna Torre. It is a 6-7 hour hike that leaves to the west of the town up to a glacier fed lake to the west of the Cerro Peaks. I does look cold out but the temperature was great and we were moving fast which kept us warm. This hike had three large valleys that you cross separated by ridges. The valley below had some swamp areas so the trail skirts the valley through the trees on the right.
The trail moves in and out of these great beech forests that block all the wind and are so quiet. These forests are very old and haven't had a fire in so long that huge dead trees lay everywhere with plants and moss growing all over them.
This is the third of the valleys we needed to cross during this hike. It is nothing but rock rubble left behind from the glaciers that moved through this valley. The geology in this area is so diverse, between the granite, shale and lava rocks it only added to the uniqueness of this place.
As usual the clouds were covering up the Cerro Peaks when we got to the lake but within 10 minutes a window of clouds opened up and we were able to see the peaks from the west. You can walk around the left side of the lake and cross the glacier to approach Cerro Torre.
Up by the lake the wind was blowing pretty hard and it got much colder. There were pieces of the glacier that were floating in the lake which had blown over to our side. Some other idiots at the lake were pulling the ice out and trying to take it with them because it was thousands of years old.

Obviously Liz was cold.
There were these hawks that kept on flying around us catching the updrafts coming off the lake.
A log path leading through the swamp areas.

As you come out of the mountains the landscape and plants change quite drastically. The river splits and one cuts through the canyon below and the other runs high then waterfalls down the mountains.
Liz being the good woman she is made sure that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were spent out of our 6 person to a room hostel and in a nice private hotel room. The hotels are not big, they are the same size as the hostels but they are very nice inside with private rooms, big beds, nice bathrooms and continental breakfasts. This was Christmas morning after Santa came, luckily he brought mostly silver and dulce de leche.

PATAGONIA-El Chalten

El Chalten is a very small town that is in the heart of Patagonia. We had to fly into the only airport within Patagonia in the town of El Calafate and then a 3 1/2 hour bus ride to El Chalten. It is the gateway for all climbers heading up to Mt. Fitzroy or the Cerro Torre range. The whole town is nothing but hostels, bars and climbing stores so it was a great place to hang out. Everyone is there to trek or climb, so there are lots of great people to meet while waiting out the weather to get up to the mountains.

This is a glacier valley we hiked out of as we left the town on the way up to the mountains.
The river is a great turquoise blue from the glacier and the wind was howling.

There are such great colors and textures throughout the Patagonia landscape.
This is a glacier coming down off the Cerro Torre range.
Here we are on our way up to a series of lakes called Laguna del los Tres.
Here are the amazing Torre Towers coming out of the clouds.
Here is Liz getting some great tasting water on our hike out.





The pictures cannot really do justice to how amazing these peaks really. According to most climbers, Cerro Torre (the tall peak to the left) although only about 10,500 feet is one of the most difficult mountains in the world.

These paths are carved out by the powerful winds down here.
This is an amazing landscape with the glacier in the background.
This is us stopping to eat while hiding from the wind behind some bushes.






El Chalten, the wind gets funneled down to that small opening in the distance. That is where the river the road and the wind all go. You can't imagine how loud the wind is through that break in the rock.