Sunday, March 20, 2011

In summer's shadow in the rain shadow













Mike Ice climbing! Mike and I with Cerro Torre (glacier grande!)

]me in front of the glacial lake below the famed Cerro Fitzroy

Spring/fall equinox is upon us! Accomodation and food prices drop a little in direct correlation with the air temperature here in northern Argentine patagonia.
After 30 hours of bus travel and six blissful, exciting days in El Chalten we have relocated further north. Here we plan to go on a trek starting tomorrrow. Bariloche has a ton of chocolate shops and is nicely situated on a lake. It is also a ski destination and st. bernard's are its main mascot...some random facts of what has been a nice, but not overly exciting few days here. The bus ride was plain. It was long. It was 30 hours of partially paved road and plently of patagonian steppe (dry, dry land wit low growing shrubs, lots of dirt hills, long fence lines and some guanacos and flightless friends the ostrich equivalent, choiques). Fortunately, enough leg room and plenty of bathroom breaks!

El Chalten on the other hand was a treat! We did a simple trek, two nights (two cold nights... southern patagonia ice field chill) and three days. We hiked up to two amazing lake vistas at the base of Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitzroy... some fine spires known for their inability to be mounted with ease in the mountaineering and climbing world. Most incredibly was the glacier hiking experience we had. ICE WONDERLAND!!! after scrambling up and down the moraine on te side of the glacier for an hour and crossing a river via suspension cable and harness we strapped on crampons to walk on the massive, blue, white and brown Glacier Grande at te foot of Cerro Torre...a massive slab of ice smoot in its steepest parts, wrougt with fissures in others and chopped and crevaced at its terminus and was most vocal (low, rumblings followed by the sound of falling rock. Scared me silly when I woke up to it in the middle of the night). We hiked for some time, taking care to step over crevaces, crunching on te solid ice walking over small rocks and bits of debris as we went. There were blue tubes that lead witin, sink holes, faults and fissures.
After lunch we ice climbed, ice axes blazing wildly as I clung to the side of the sheer ice face!! The going was actually pretty easy and quite fun, it was a top rope situation, nothing really extreme, but I like to pretend I was on a 1000 foot frozen ice wall somewhere on the east side of the patagonian ice field, putting up a first ascent, free soloing (why not) to a glorious peak overlooking the vastness of barren iceworld around me.... ah yes, next time I am in Patagonia. Though in actuality, I hope I can actually trek on te ice field (third largest frozen mass of ice on this planet) next time around... good bit of down clothing and dinero required!
After our final day of hiking, which was over 12 hours long, we headed back into town for some pizza libre aka all you can eat pizza (highly delicious, even this far from Italy).

Off to bed, dreaming of guanaco and glaciers and grand vistas.

Steak and tango and polo lessons and some futbolllll to come in Buenos, le amo

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