BIG ICE - Perito Moreno Glacier - El Calafate, Patagonia, Argentina

Bienvenidos a El Calafate, Patagonia! Después de salir de Ushuaia, llegamos a El Calafate emocionado por una caminata glaciar real.

Brian Bear and I arrived at the El Calafate airport and stepped out into the first cab we saw. Unfortunately, there wasn't a meter on the cab and he charged us a solid $40 for the ride into town. Also, the cab driver tried to convince us that we should change our plans for hiking on the Perito Moreno glacier and let him drive us 3+ hours each way to El Chalten for better hiking. AND he only wanted to charge us about 10x as much for all these services. Decided to keep our plans, anyway.

Checked in to America Del Sur Hostel as the sun was setting, and tried to get in our errands for the day: book tour for glacier hike, rent boots, eat, see flamingos/sunset over Lake Argentino, grocery store for packed lunch, sleep.

  

Although the hostel was nice (some might say modern), it was FAR from the main streets of the town. And cold. We went for the sunset move, after being told in a very casual and convincing manner that we could see wild Patagonian flamingos by the lake. Had to walk about 2.5 miles (4km) to get out to the bay, where the wind picked up and temperatures dropped. 

Beautiful sunset, amazing scenery, ducks galore, but no flamingos. MENTIROSOS!

We took care of biz like champs and checked off our errands one by one, saving the best part for last: ASADO at the hostel.

Steak, sausage, chicken, fried crispy potatoes, salad, and rice. Interesting note on Patagonian rice: it's served cold and almost uncooked, like really hard. Not really my style, but throw some chimichurri on it and it'll do! 

The next day, we went for the relatively late wake up of 6:45am with a 7:00am departure for the DIA GRANDE - The Big Ice Trek on Glaciar Perito Moreno. The bus ride took about 1.5 hours to get from town to Los Glaciares Parque Nacional, where they charged us an entrance fee of AR$100 (About 23 USD) to enter.

SunRISE over the lake, taken from the bus.

The bus basically took a windy tour around the lake ending with a major DUN DUN DUNNNN (reveal): Perito Moreno Glacier itself!

The North Face of the Glacier as seen from the observation deck

This bad boy is MASSIVE, and according to the guide, the square meterage (250 km squared) is larger than the city of Buenos Aires (203 km squared). Looking at these walls and spires of ice, you can see all kinds of amazing shades of blue. We spent about an hour at the observation deck just staring in amazement at the massiveness of this chunk of ice. The walls on the edge are over 30 stories tall, so B and I kept wondering how exactly we would get ON this thing. It's huge, it's tall, it's sharp, it's in the water. It's also way cooler than I could've imagined. 

One of the best parts of this session was watching the little icebergs break off. You may not be able to see every piece of ice breaking off, but you can hear it: Like a plane taking off during a thunderstorm. When these chunks hit the ice and splash down, it's LOUD, and then it crashes into the other pieces and sends them floating further. I'm going to use "amazing" again, cuz this was an amazing sight.

Pro photographer status

The little "ice castle" to the left is what remains of a bridge that formed when the ice hit land and caved in. This happens every few years (or sometimes decades).

Present the glacier

 

 Like I said, it was amazing.

Not sure why, but Bri was insistent about taking this picture. He says:"I am a national park, not an ashtray. Thanks for caring!"

View of the glacier from the boat that took us across the lake to the refuge where we began our hike to the glacier. If you don't believe me about it being big, notice the ship on the bottom left.

After riding the boat, this guy greeted us to begin the journey. He's got a sick view on the daily.

Even though it was still freezing, the weather report said "mas tarde, el tiempo hace sol!"

...and it didn't disappoint! Sun revealed itself to the world and it was actually pretty warm throughout the day.

Just like the sand on Ipanema.

We finally got our answer to the "how do you get ON the glacier" question: You hike for an hour and a half on rocky terrain on the mountain next to the glacier, until you reach a point where you're above the glacier and walk on to it. What they didn't mention was that there were these little streams, ponds and waterfalls throughout the hike. For any other hike, these would be major highlights, but for the glacier hike, apparently they're not even worth mentioning!

I still liked them. This waterfall was so high up that walking under it just produced a little bit of mist. Lots of people stopped to drink directly from the spring water.

After the hike, we got to a checkpoint where we were told to rest and eat/drink something before getting on the glacier. Also, we were fitted for cramp-ons, basically claws that strap on to your boots so you can stay on your feet on the ice. Here's the progression:

1. On the ice, no cramp-ons, major nerves just standing up for fear of slippage.

2. Casual strap on

3. King of the ice

Somehow, I had an idea this hike would be SICK! Unfortunately, it was even cooler than I thought! After a one minute lesson on how to stomp down on the ice for grip and look like a fool trying to walk downhill, we were ready for 4 hours of trekking.

Bri kept acting like he liked the scenery, but secretly I think he was missing his cubicle. After I took this picture of him, he said: "It's cool and all, but I miss all the free gum."

One of the highlights of the glacier was this little stream that was the brightest natural color I have ever seen. Such a vivid deep blue and the freshest, cleanest water I've ever tasted. I drank about a liter of the water from this stream.

MAH BAD!

March of the penguins.

After about an hour and a half, we took a break in the middle of the glacier for lunch. It looked like a big bowl in the middle of the ice that was carved out by another little stream, and the tour guides were gangster with the ice picks and cramp-ons. True pro status, these guys would literally be running circles around us as we stumbled along to make sure we didn't fall down hills and even cut out steps for us so that we could comfortably make our way around the ice. The biggest bummer was that at the end, they DIDN'T bug us for tips. They just enjoyed their jobs and did them really well, providing safety, entertainment (throwing rocks and ice cubes down big crevasses so we could see how deep they were, hiding and jumping out to scare the tour group at times, contest to see who could throw their ice pick against the ice the hardest), and taking pictures for us.

Tour guide carving us a path to get into a small ice cave near the lunch area.

Inside the Ice Cave

While Bri was in the ice cave, he wanted the tour guide to snap a picture for him. Unfortunately, the request distracted the tour guide from warning him about a huge ice water hole in the cave that Bri stuck his whole left foot into. Gore-tex boots ended up keeping the water INSIDE the boot as well. We could all hear his scream from outside the cave and major giggles all around. 

Since he wanted the water out of his boot, and didn't wanna take off his cramp-on, he went for this method to try and shake it out. He fell on his knees and dropped his camera on the ice about 2 seconds after I took this picture.

...But that ain't gonna stop a life lover from enjoying life!

EN SERIO??? This is DOPE!

Seriously, we just kept telling each other "THIS IS SICK!" for 4 hours straight.

Continuous enjoyment/excitement for 4 hours, so much that when it was time to hike back, we got really sad. Definitely would've loved to see sunset/sunrise on the glacier. We went for another 2 hour hike to get off the glacier, take off the Boot Claws and do the reverse mountain hike tho. Way easier on the way down.

Bri soaking in the D. This guy was definitely trying to own the glacier after the hike from the refuge.

After all that fun, we had to have some bad luck. It was inevitable. We got on the boat the the crew surprised us with whiskey on the rocks, the rocks being actual ice from the glacier that they harvested and carried back with them to the boat. WHAT A BUNCH OF JERKS! But seriously, these guys know what they're doing and they know how to show people an amazing day in an amazing place. I wonder why they're so stressed all the time? Must be worried about the capital gains taxes or something.

This was definitely one of the most obvious "YOU ARE BLESSED" days in my life. And I am THANKFUL.

SALUD A LA VIDA! - CHEERS TO LIFE!