Walking on Glaciers

The final part of my trip through Patagonia started in El Charten, a small town that is the self proclaimed capital of trekking in Argentina. At the foot of Mt. Fitzy Roy, one of the world´s most technically challenging climbs, the town exists only during the summer when thousands of people flock in to take advantage of the surrounding terrain. We arrived right at the end of the season, with the town literally in the process of shutting down. Despite the ongoing shut down process a few guides still remained and the next morning a group of us set off on an all day trek to the nearby glacier. Leaving before the sun rose, we wound our way through small hills until we reached a base camp of sorts. There we gathered our crampons and harnesses and enjoyed tea and biscuts before heading out for glacier.

After zip lining across a river we finally made it to the glaciar around mid day. From afar these massive formations of ice usually look quite smooth, however when you are walking on them you quickly realize a couple of things. First they are as hard as rock. Second they are jagged and have a very uneven surface. Rocks and debris cover the surface and small streams can be found everywhere. In addition, alonside the small paths are large drop offs or holes, which if you fall down, as our guide put it, all they´ll pull up is pieces of meat. And given the South American perspecitive on safety (that is that you are pretty much on your own not to act stupid) the guide had no problem taking us right up the edges of these holes or having us walk along narrow narrow paths.

After arriving at the glacier we spent about three hours walking around its surface and doing a bit of ice climbing as well. Climbing up a 20 foot wall of ice was great but it was damn hard. Its all technique, but being a typical guy I tried to muscle my way through the climb and found myself completely exchausted by the end.



At the end of our time on the ice, we hiked back to the river, crossed it once again, had a bit more tea and then it was a race home, trying to reach the town before the sun set. Thanks to some good hiking companions we arrived home in time to use the remaining daylight to navigate our way back to the hotel. (That´s Fitz Roy on the far right of the picture below - taken as we raced home).