Patagonia - Big, Big Ice

Not done with glaciares yet. After trekking Cerro Torre in El Chalten, I found an addiction to ice that I suspected I might have - it's always been a desire of mine to trek the Khumbu Icefall right after Everest Base Camp.

 

Taking the bus from El Chalten to El Calafate along Ruta 40 in the most pefect weather of the week was extreme frustration. The weather is Patagonia is so irrational, but this is what being a mountain lover is - learning patience for the elements. As one traveller pointed out - 'It hardly seems fair that we have suffered and punished our bodies only to have the most fantastic view from the bus.'

 

It was a view from the Gods. No I didn't snap it. I refuse to snap through bus windows - It means I doubt a return some day.

 

El Calafate was conquered after a bus malfunction. This town exists solely for tourism and man does it show. The road though town choked with tour buses. The sidewalks rammed with souvenir tat and excursion booking agencies. If you aren't one of the viejos taking a bus/boat tour, the choice is simple. Hielo y Aventura has a slamdunk monopoly all over the Perito Moreno Glaciar and getting on top of it is only possible through them. In fact there are no options to do anything in El Calafate unless you do it through an agency - One day even breathing will require a middle man.

 

There is 'Mini-Trekking' around 460 pesos or 'Big Ice' at 520. Along the lines of 'If you aren't living on the edge, you're taking up too much space', we went for more Big Ice. Desperate to get hands on axes again.

 

I don't like to begin my day at 7am sitting on a bus driving around hotels picking up 18 other tourists but once dropped on the terraces in front of Glacier Perito Moreno before the hoardes of viejos arrived, my mood improved. The Glaciar is one of the few things in life that is still truly gob-smacking.

It's fifteen minutes there, then 'Back on the Bus' to the port for a ten-minute boat ride across a branch of Lago Argentino and onto the edge of the Glaciar where you first meet Men With Axes. Are mountain Guides the new Air Hostesses - you  have to be cute to qualify? And are they paid extra to flirt so uncontrollably?

 

As we began our ascent across the Moraine, my heart was pounding and I was having trouble breathing and it had absolutely nothing to do with the climb.

 

As with Cerro Torre, a steep ascent through the tree line, a steep descent and you're on the ice. Harnessed up and crampons on. Although Big Ice is only recommended for people up to the age of 45, unlike Cerro Torre, I would really term this a pussy hike. The eighteen Americans on the tour were trawling all over the place like ADD kids off meds and the four Men With Axes were constantly hacking staircases into the side of the ice pinnacle and hauling them up by the harness. They straddle every crack and crevasse and hand/haul you across, often with some atorrante comment to cheer you on as you pass.

It is however fantastic. Only poets have words to describe it and I don't think Lord Byron made it down here.

 

Watching the Mountain Guides forge ahead to check for fissures made me wish one would open up and swallow these eighteen others - Certain of whom had flown into El Calafate for one day to 'do' Big Ice - and leave me alone with the creaking glaciar, the shifting light patterns and the most beautiful man in the world.

 

'Giddy'. my Companera del Crimenes called me. Indeed we both were. Stimulated by the earth's natural gifts and the immense range of emotion they are capable of gouging out of you.

 

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this mass tourism across the World's great places. It seems that although the Glaciar is huge and forever, we are systematically destroying her.

Fortunately on the return boat, the Men With Axes brng you back to earth with a couple of shots of whisky on the rocks. The purest rocks you will ever see.

Comments

[suzy vegas]

Thank you for the kind comments. Arent phots marvellous for instant memories? How did we manage without them?

[Bim]

I generally love your photos - and these in particular. I'm sorry for the heartbreak that led to them, though.

[Lady M]

Wow, really impress by your article, and your photos always give justice to the real thing. Thank you so much. Know I wanna go!!!