Big Glacier and Even Bigger Mountains

BIG announcement: Our NEW NEPHEW, August Ulveling was born in early February (Rob and Jodi’s first kid!). At the time we left Oakland, he was due any day and Blake called Rob several times to encourage Augie to hurry up so we could meet him. Sadly we did not get to see him in newborn state, but can’t wait to hang out with him when we get home!

(It's looking like we may have another redhead in the family!)

And now…. Grab your favorite beverage and pull up a chair, this is going to be a long one! (Our access to wi-fi has been sparse.)

As I write this, we are in El Chaltén, the gateway town to Argentina’s Parque Nacional de los Glaciares (Glacier National Park), home to the legendary and stunning Monte Fitz Roy. It is a very small town though it seems to have as many restaurants and hotels as permanent residents – with more being built at breakneck speed to accommodate the expected droves of tourists who will be taking advantage of the newly paved roads to get here. The town has a nice quiet, chill, and utterly serene mountain town feel for now. It is a beautiful place to spend a couple of restful days while waiting to take off north for a week on an organic farm near El Bolsón. We are feeling lucky to be here at the cusp of new development, before it gets too overrun.

After our last post, leaving Puerto Natales and Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, we got on a bus for El Calafate, a town named after the Patagonian berry that looks like a small blueberry and tastes something like…. a sour raspberry? No, a strawberry? No wait, maybe a huckleberry? Well anyway, it makes a darn good jam (“dulce de calafate”), which we have been enjoying lots of. El Calafate is the destination town for the glacier Perito Moreno, one of the only glaciers in the world that is advancing. So we cozied up into our cute cabañita and signed up for a trip the following day to see the glacier – including a short boat ride and a little splurge to take an hour long hike on the glacier itself.

(Our cozy little 2 story A-frame cabin in El Calafate. Tiny and cute and like being on a sailboat – everything has its place.)

We then found ourselves drinking coffee and eating empanadas at the corner of May Day and Liberation.

(Yummy empanadas + café con leche = happy Blake.)

Taking the advice of the sweet grandfatherly gentleman who helps his son run the cabañitas, we made sure to sit on the left side of the bus so as to get the best views of the Perito Moreno glacier and the surrounding mountains. Having been to Glacier National Park in Montana, we were excited to see some BIG glaciers rather than the tiny, far away and ever shrinking ones there (supposedly the Glaciers in Montana will be all gone within the next 15 years). Perito Moreno is like nothing either of us had ever seen -- so huge you couldn’t see the end of it even from the lookout above it.

The glacier advances about 2 meters (6 feet!) each DAY. It is advancing against the land, therefore as it advances, it has to “calve”, meaning that ginormous chunks fall off about every 20 minutes into Lago Argentina, with deep awe inspiring rumbles and huge rippling waves. There is a series of boardwalks set up to view the glacier right at the point where it calves. So we set up camp to wait for the decisive moment of calving and snap our perfect photos (in the tradition of photographer Cartier Bresson’s decisive moment of course … for thphotography geeks out there…).

We piled back onto our bus and were whisked off to a dock for a short boat ride to the trail head for our hike on the glacier. We were blown away by what we got to see - the formations of centuries old ice shaped by the weather into deep blue gulleys, granules ranging from the size of golf balls down to fine sand crystals, waterfalls made entirely of ice and water carving out deep mysterious holes.

At the end of our hike a little table was set up right on the glacier, with ice plucked right off of the glacier and into our glasses -- never has whiskey tasted so good.

Neither of us think of ourselves as the tour-taking-type, but we both agreed the whole thing was pretty damn great.


Back in El Calafate we took a walk to the huge marshlands right on the edge of the town, home to a colony of pink flamingos and dozens of species of ducks and other water birds.

One of the wonderful things that we are settling into and really enjoying is the freedom of making plans from one day to the next based on whim. So, glacier having been trekked upon, we opened up our handy Lonely Planet book Trekking the Patagonian Andes to the Mount Fitz Roy section, checked the internet for the weather forecast and saw that El Chaltén was in for a rare sunny and non-windy week. We decided to embark the next day on a 4 night backpacking trip. We got on a bus in the morning, rolled into El Chaltén at 10:30am, found a hostel to stash our extra things, picked up some last-minute food, ate yummy waffles with dulce de calafate (at the Wafflería), and hopped in a cab for a short ride to the trailhead.

With the sun staying up so late here (it doesn’t get dark until well after 9pm), starting a 2-3 hour hike at 3:30 was absolutely no risk. We started off in an unexpected and extreme wind tunnel, which made us feel a bit nervous about the rest the hike, but once we got on our way, it was perfectly calm the whole time.

(Blake pretending to be Bono in the Mysterious Ways video, or, that he’s at the Pali Lookout on Oahu... or, just trying not to blow away.)

The hike in took us up the valley of the Rio Eléctrico, through a forest of many varieties of windswept beeches (“lenga” trees), and across several smaller creeks. It ended at Piedra del Fraile, a refugio (hut) and campsite with a very cheerful host named Guillermo, and a very busy kitten named Puma. We had our tent and food with us, but you can sleep there in bunk beds and eat all your food at their little restaurant with beer. We worked very hard to resist the yummy looking pizza in favor of the polenta we had brought, reminding each other how much lighter our packs would be if we ate our own food.

All the while Fitz Roy towered over us. Chaltén was the mountain’s original Tehuelche name, meaning “smoking mountain,” because at almost all times there are plumes of clouds wisping up from the snowy peak, looking like smoke rising out of stack. The Fitz Roy range is also famous for its presence in one of our favorite books, The Little Prince -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's illustrations show the little prince on the peaks of mountains, unquestionably those in the Fitz Roy Range according to our expert called the Lonely Planet. (And, one prominent peak is was named Saint-Exupéry).

On day 2 of our backpacking trip we left our packs at camp and took what was quite possibly the most beautiful hike of our whole two lives, combined! The first half was pretty much straight up, granting sweeping views of the valley at every turn.

(My finger in the lower right corner is pointing to the spot where the refugio is, tucked behind the hill, protected from the worst of the wind, when there is wind, which there was not.)

When we reached the top, we were in the bowl of a glacier with a frozen lake, surrounded by peaks, each one a different color than the next – black, orange-red, granite, deep red.

And since the day was perfectly still and warm, and since we are fools for an amazing view, and since the ridge just didn’t look that far away, we followed the established trail of footprints across and up the glacier for a vista out over the other side of Fitz Roy.

(Rebecca crossing the snow field, above, heading to the ridge. Below: the views from the top. The day was impeccably clear and we could make out a giant mountain rising above the distant mountains in the first photo below, which we think -- with the help of the rangers back in the station -- is Monte San Lorenzo up in Perito Moreno National Park, over a hundred miles north. We probably hit one of the few days of the year where it can be seen!)

Back in camp, we resisted the pizza once again, despite being ready to fall over after our hike. After all, who needs anything other than oatmeal, fry bread, and polenta? We have impressed ourselves with just how many flavors polenta can have. And we now have backpacking food down to even more of a science – and perhaps a more laid back science – than before … small sigh of relief from all who have ever backpacked with Blake.

Never ones to rush unnecessarily, we slept in the next morning until 9:30 and managed to get ourselves out of camp by around 1:30 or 2. Between taking time to stretch and take pictures of pretty flowers, and Rebecca’s new maté habit, there’s a lot to do in the morning!

On our way out we chatted with two guys from Austria, a father and son, the father in his late 70’s and carrying just as much as we were. Apparently they recognized us from the pizza restaurant in Puerto Natales our last night there. They had already been hiking for several hours and were heading to the same camp site, 8 miles up the trail. Needless to say, they beat us by a long shot. As we finally hiked into Campamento Poincenot, our joints protesting, the son asked, “What took you so long? We already finished dinner!” Unfortunately I think the “stopping to smell the flowers and enjoy the day” excuse only takes you so far, especially when a man twice our age had so clearly whooped us. And the next morning, as the rest of the camp woke to do the popular dawn hike to the lookout over the lake at the base of Fitz Roy, we once again slept in until about 9:30. Hey, we’re on vacation. We might not have caught the sun rise, but we did get to see this amazing sunset right from our campsite that evening as we sipped hot cocoa…

(Mt. Fitz Roy is the tallest peak, all the way to the right, then the next large one to the left of it is Poincenot, and the third obviously large one to the left of that is Saint-Exupéry name after the author of The Little Prince.)

We ate just a “little” more polenta. (Note our gigantic appetites – those tupperwares are practically the size of our heads. Plus we had dessert! -- and Rebeccas muy suave backpacking fashion.)

Another day hike took us to another glacier that fed the pristine river, the Rio Blanco, that ran right along the Poincenot camp. As we sat mezmerized by the view, we watch chunks of it cascade down from the cliff into the lake.

(By the way, thanks to the NPR RadioLab podcast we listened to on a very long bus ride the other day, it turns out that the term “mesmerize” comes from a certain Dr. Friedrich (Franz) Mesmer, a German physician and astrologist, who invented what he called magnétisme animal and other spiritual forces often grouped together as mesmerism, in the late 1700s. Mesmer's ideas and practices led to the development of hypnosis in 1842.)

People in Patagonia are very proud, and rightfully so, of the purity of their water – much of it coming straight from the nearby glaciers. And since there’s not so much big wildlife around, giardia is not an issue. It’s been a real luxury just scooping up water from the rivers and gulping it down.

(Before ... After ... Ahhhhhh.)

The whole way back we talked about what we should have for dinner. Polenta or polenta? With chicken soup mix and powdered parmesan or cheese soup mix and veggie bouillon? So many decisions. So many boulders to climb over. Fortunately we got distracted by the beautiful views.

On arrival back at camp, we found that there were much bigger fish to fry…. we had left my maté leaves to dry out in our fry pan in the sun and a huemul (the endangered Patagonian deer) had come and spread them all over the place, and carried away my new maté cup!

(Here at the ranger station is a clear representation of the maté-stealing huemul having anxiety about dogs and getting his picture taken – It seems huemul gets way too wired on maté to just chill and make friends -- at least that is our interpretation of this PSA.)

We are positive that it was a huemul because we found deer like poo near our campsite – which Blake cleverly took a photo of to verify with the actually quite interested ranger. (Ok, so there’s a very small chance that it could have been Patagonian skunk that we smelled lurking about that day, but we’re going with the huemul option.) Fortunately, we found my maté cup 15 feet away – the point at which the huemul realized it had no need for the maté cup itself.

In the morning we got an early start (12:30!) on the hike back to town, leaving our campsite in the lenga forest behind.

(View from our tent up into the trees.)

One cool thing in El Chaltén is that the trailhead is right in town. So we hiked to our hostel in high backpacking fashion per usual, set down our things, and took ourselves out to a nice dinner with great beer. Mmmm. Local lamb and trout.

(Rebecca + post backpacking Patagonian microbrew = happy.)

We ended up sitting next to a Dutch couple a bit older than us, and we struck up a conversation towards the end of the meal. Turns out they had been creating a whole story about us as we sat and ate next to each other: we had just met and were having a travel romance, one of us was Irish and the other Argentine. We’ll let you guess which was which.

Since we’ve been back in town we have continued to make friends with the local wildlife, including the friendly guanaco that was hanging out by the street yesterday.

(Friendly guanaco or guanaco ready to defend turf? Unclear.)

And Blake finally got to meet his first Patagonian armadillo after lamenting their shyness on our trip.

We both agree that now, one month into our trip, we are finally operating at that slow-paced, fully present, and totally relaxed place that makes every aspect of travelling a total joy. As we set out for our 22 hour ride up to El Hoyo, a farming community just south of El Bolsón and the Lakes District, we are looking forward to reading our books, enjoying the scenery, and rolling up our sleeves for a little hard work on a small organic fruit and vegetable farm, Chacra (“Farm”) Millalen, for the next week.

-- Rebecca (and Blake)