The Fitz Roy Range

Since our arrival in Patagonia we had been lucky. We hiked up to Torres del Paine, notorious for bad weather and horrific winds straight from the Antartic. But for us clear skies, not a breath of wind. The Moreno Glacier, cleared to stunning blue skies and an icy breeze. The Fitz Roy Ranges, you wouldn't believe our luck. The day we arrived it was wet and grey and cold, no sign of the massive peaks high above the tiny town of El Chalten. By the next morning it was icy cold but brilliant blue. We took an alternate route, instead of climbing a steep mountain at the beginning, we followed a river course through beautiful forests and occasional low lying scrub lands. We could see the ranges above us the whole time, getting closer and ever more daunting. The final section up to the towers was a steep dusty path, winding backwards and forwards across a mountain side of gravel and shale. Several times I sat down, claiming I didn't need to see them up close, the view was good enough from where I already was. G had a hard time convincing me otherwise. But we made it. We sat and had our salami and cheese sandwiches over looking the glacial lake and hoping for another avalanche.

The hike down was not so much fun, hard on the hips and knees. Although sections of it were through marsh lands filled with dark tarns and wind swept grass, we had miscalculated our timing, and instead of the 2hr easy hike we had envisioned, it was a long and dusty 4hrs before we stumbled back into El Chalten.

Our luck ran out the next day, we woke up to constant drizzle and strong winds blowing fiercely down the valley. And it stayed that way for 2 days. So we read our books, made mulled wine to the delight of the others in the hostel, generally stayed warm and cosy.

Bird Watching in El Calafate

Ice Trekking

As part of our amazing day at the Moreno Glacier we went ice trekking. We crossed the lake by boat and walked through the forest right up to the side of the glacier. There we attached crampons to our shoes. We were then marched single file across the glacier - don't step off the path or you might fall into a newly formed crevice. Now it all sounds very adventurous and it was, but this was sort of the Sydney Harbour Bridge of tours, all around us hundreds of other people were following little ant trails across the ice as well. But never the less it was amazing.
The ice was not smooth and soft like snow, but crunchy and hard like it had just come out of an ice crusher. It glittered and sparkled and hurt if you fell over. All around there was the tinkling sound of melting ice running through cracks and crevices, pools and riverlets of intensely blue water.  The ice was like sand dunes, towering over us and carved into odd shapes by the wind.
As we crunched into the final valley there was a little bar set up, and we were served whisky on the rocks, these rocks, freshly hacked from the glacier, just happened to be over 400yrs old. The one time the ice is older than the whisky as our guide said.

The Incredible Moreno Glacier

What an amazing place. The sheer size and grace and elegance of it. The changing colours and the constant sound. We could have spent days just sitting and watching. The Moreno Glacier is part of the Patagonian Ice Field, and compared to others it isn't that big at all. But it's hard to comprehend. The Moreno is 60m high, and below the surface of the water, there lurks another 100m. Its face is 5kms wide, and has a total of 250sq kms. It travels 2ms a day, which is racing speeds in the glacier world. Every so often there is an almighty deep cracking sound and a slice, sometimes the size of a house, calves off. As it hits the water there is an odd stillness, the pieces are so enormous and heavy that they sink quite a way before rising to the surface again, causing torrential splashes of water and ripples that spead out across the lake for miles.