Patagonia - El Calafate Perito Moreno Glacier

Wednesday 25th January 2012

I think I’ll blow the gaffe right at the start:

The plan for today was to trek along the actual glacier, though after yesterday, I didn’t feel quite so brave about it, having realized just how active and huge they are in this neck of the woods.  Still, it’s a regular expedition, so presumably safe…?  The age limit was 65, so a good thing we didn’t leave this trip another year or two - we were already disqualified from the Big Trek, age limit 45 years, but as it took 7 hours, I quite understood!!!

So off we set on the coach with lots of other jolly trekkers, though on the ice, we would be in small groups of about a dozen at a time.  Our first sighting of the glacier from the approach road did not really prepare us for the huge spectacle to come.

The National Park people have arranged the area well to cope with the huge numbers that visit at this time of year. The current President of Argentina, Christine Kirschner, lives in Calafate and in her time as Governor of the province of Santa Cruz, she instigated the excellent wooden walkways known as The Balconies that bring you really close ttohe to the front wall of the glacier – a truly awe-inspiring experience.

No-one could properly describe the sound this splendid glacier makes as it grinds its way along at a rate of 2 meters a day – it grumbles and cracks and creaks and snaps and when you hear the thunder and gunshots, you know another section is about to be churned up and spat into the lake – to the delight and “Oles!” of the crowds on the stands. Mick was indeed pleased with this sequence:
 
We spent about 90 minutes watching from many aspects – and taking a zillion photos – before getting back on the coach to drive down to the little harbour with a ferry waiting to take us to the far south shore, where the glacier is deemed safe enough to walk on.  We were given lots of information and advice, then walked about 15 minutes or so to the expedition kick-off point.

Here, we were individually fitted with crampons over our shoes, which took a bit of getting used to, but were absolutely essential to get any grip at all on the rock-solid parts of the ice.  We were taught how to walk up and downhill – uphill like a penguin is relatively easy but downhill like a monkey, knees best, feet parallel was a little harder to master!

Then off we went – for about an hour up and down and over and back in a circular route.  At times, we were quite separate from other groups, sometimes we caught up, but the best times were when it was just you, and for a brief moment you ARE a Great Explorer, heading for the South pole, alone and unaided – move over Ranulph!

 
However, by the end of an hour, I was pleased to see the whisky and glacier-ice stop – local equivalent of the Carlsberg van?? Perhaps I’m not cut out for the South Pole after all……but we had a really great time for an hour!