This will be quite long, but this was one of the most incredible days I’ve ever had so there’s a lot to describe. No I didn’t meet Justin Timberlake. Today I went on an organized tour of the Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park, where we walked on the glacier itself for about an hour and a half. The photos on flickr turned out really well, but even they don’t do justice to the glacier’s incredible and powerful beauty. To avoid the longest post ever I’ll skip the usual clever life observations. Like, every hotel room in Argentina has a bidet. Really. What do they know that we don’t, or, are they put together differently from us?
Ok, moving on as promised.
The Perito Moreno Glacier is located near the southern end of the Patagonian Ice Field (third largest permanent ice pack in the world), which is located in the Andes on the Chile-Argentina border. The Field has numerous glaciers, many of which are much larger than Perito Moreno, but Perito Moreno is the most accessible and therefore the one most commonly visited. It’s an Argentina national symbol in the way the Yellowstone, or Graceland, symbolize the US. (I would urge anyone who disagrees on Graceland to please stop reading my blog and never return again).
There’s one and only one company that takes you out on the glacier itself, Hielo y Adventura. They apparently won the government concession some years ago and have held it since, and have developed the tour into a pretty efficient, informative, and fun experience. They offer two packages (three actually, but the third involves just a boat ride to the glacier’s edge). The first, which I took, involves a bus ride to the glacier from El Calafate (about an hour or so), an hour and a half at the park visitor center and viewing platforms (giving time for lunch), then a short bus ride to their boat landing where the boat takes you across the lake bordering the glacier (Lake Argentina, the largest lake in Argentina) very close to the glacier’s edge for better observation and photos. The boat lands at their “base camp,” where after a bit of down time you take a short hike to the glacier, then move on to the glacier itself after putting on “crampons” (metal spikes tied onto the soles of your boots) for about 90 minutes walking on the ice. Several guides lead the hiking and ice walking part, explaining the various formations you’re seeing, and helping you not to fall and die. After the hike, we returned to the camp, then back on the boat, and back home. The other package involves all of the above, but lasts about four hours on the ice and goes to more spots on the glacier, and thereby involves a more strenuous hiking experience. I was going to do that one, but it wasn’t being offered when I was going to be there, so I took the 90 minute version.
Once again, my Aussie stalkers follow me. We finally introduce ourselves; they’re Ian and Julia, who used to live in San Diego for about 15 years but recently moved back home. They opted for the trekking instead of the boat excursion. Erica is also there, as previously advertised. The “coach” style bus is quite full, and it seems I’m the most bundled person aboard. I’ve decided that the last thing I’m going to do is go to Argentina and get frostbite or worse on a glacier, so I’ve rented some long hiking pants and some very warm gloves to go with my Walter Sobchek vest, air force jacket, cargo shorts and layered short and long sleeve t-shirts. Ultimately, that level of bundling proved unnecessary as it was surprisingly not that cold on the glacier. But better not frostbitten than sorry, right? The bus trip goes through the “badlands” I described in the last post, and as it’s a somewhat cloudy day, that adds even more gloom to the barren landscape. As we approach the glacier itself, the land starts to transform into a thickening forest of relatively dead looking trees with a very light green circular bloom (check these on flickr). Its beginning to look like the Land of the Lost.
When the glacier first came into the bus’ view, I heard other people’s gasps (I don’t gasp. I just jump like a little girl when my poncho grazes my leg). I generally try to avoid using the word “amazing,” because there’s too many people who use that word too loosely, like parents who describe their three year olds as “amazing,” generally when they’re screaming in front of you smashing something while snot runs out their nose (that’s not amazing, that’s just a migraine headache). But I have to say, the glacier up close is truly one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. As we neared the glacier, a rainbow appeared running over its entire width. Unfortunately I never could get a decent picture as the bus was driving on a winding road and therefore moving from side to side (the rainbow was moving window to window). The glacier is much bigger than others I saw in New Zealand several years ago. It just obliterates a great deal of an entire lake, and later I’ll give some stats, but its at least 12 stories high. It gives off an unusual blue light, and the surrounding lake is that Miami Dolphins green I mentioned in my last post, only a bit milkier. Ice chunks that have fallen off the glacier are floating in the lake. Later I joke on the boat that we’re on the Titanic. No one laughs. Must have been a language translation thing. The side of the glacier that those on the viewing platforms see appears greatly striated and fractured. It would appear the same way on the back side while on the boat to the hiking camp. On top, the glacier looks peaked and crevised, resembling meringue, although it has a bluish tint. Every minute or so, it makes a loud creak like a rifle report, or a large branch breaking off a tree. Every couple of minutes or so, some of the ice breaks off into the lake, creating a much louder boom. Maybe every 10 minutes a relatively large section would crack off, creating a tremendously loud noise and a big wave as the ice plunges into the lake. I captured the tail end of a couple of these on some video I uploaded to flickr. The glacier also seemed to have a lot of dirt on top, which seemed odd, but the guides explained that the region has great winds (on the Chilean side of the mountains), which blow dirt onto the glacier.
By the way, at the viewing platforms, I ran into Yankee Fan. Some obnoxious looking guy with a Yankees knit cap. You know, is there anywhere in the world I can go to get away from these people? I’m already damn near in Antarctica, I mean, what’s next, space? As Khan said about Captain Kirk in Star Trek II, “he tasks me…he tasks me.” Yankee Fan rivals Raiders Fan and Cowboys Fan for the title of most insufferable fan. Complaining after the first game of the season that the Devil Rays are ahead of them in the standings. Furious that some high priced free agent or another went to a different team. Saying the announcement of Roger Clemens’ mid-season signing last year was the greatest event in Yankee Stadium history. Thinking every year they should win the championship just because they have the most money, which they only have because major league’s moronic revenue strategy lets local teams keep their broadcast revenues. Are they playing themselves every night? No, they’re playing another team, so all the teams should share the broadcast revenues, just like the NFL. Yankee Fan and Yankee Owner are so deluded and myopic as to think the league should let them win the championship every year just because they’re the Yankees. When Hank Steinbrenner complains that the Devil Rays and Red Sox are stealing their championship, he’s not kidding. He and his idiotic fans think that because they’re the Yankees and generate the most money, they should be allowed to win the championship every year, by default if needed. A sports league isn’t like a car dealership though Hank. Its not like whoever has the most sales gets the highest bonus. Whining, crying Yankees Fan. You’re going home in October, and Boston and Tampa Bay (at about a tenth of your payroll) aren’t. How does that taste? Now, I’m wearing my Texas Football hat, but that’s totally different. I know our Athletic Director once said, “we don’t keep up with the Joneses. We are the Joneses.” You might think that’s a bit much for a program that’s won only four national championship in 50 years, and has developed a recent reputation as Kings of the Holiday Bowl (or to be more accurate, Oklahoma’s Bitch). But we’ve got nothing on Yankee Fan. Hell, Texas Tech Fan, tearing down goal posts every weekend and running trash talk their defense and special teams can’t possibly back up can be much more obnoxious than Texas Fan.
Let me get back on track here.
I wound up taking dozens of pictures, but as I said it was simply such an incredible sight I wanted to capture as many angles and sights as I could. There was a slight drizzle so I was also worried about a rainout. As our time at the park facility wound down, I noticed tons of people pouring in on tour bus after tour bus. The national parks here discriminate; can’t remember if I’ve written about that. Locals get a discount, nationals get a slight discount, and foreigners pay the full fare. I’m sure that’s a sweetener to get the voting public to accept spending money on tourist attractions like this, and if you think about it, a lot of cities do something like that to finance stadiums and convention centers (putting taxes on hotels, taxis, and other tourist activities designed to shift most of the costs onto people who don’t live in that city). But at what amounts to $13 in US currency, with a discount if you come back the next day, its still a bargain. Oh, and they stole our dollar sign ($) to use with their peso. Randy Newman said, “South America stole our name.” Now they’ve stolen our dollar sign. Maybe they could steal Wandy Rodriguez and J.R. Towles and do us some real good.
Now here’s some fast facts I tried to jot down as the guide was quickly going through them. Probably not totally accurate, but not too far off. The glacier is basically snow compacted over the years into ice, which has to go somewhere when new snow occurs, so it gets pushed down the mountain (or gravity pulls it down, like my face) into the valley below. The glacier actually is in contact with the lake bottom, and in Perito Moreno’s case is advancing (most glaciers are receding), helped along by “glacier milk,” a mixture of sediment, ice and water that enables the glacier to slide along the lake bottom. The glacier expands and contracts, based on ice melt rate and additional snow levels replacing the ice that has melted. The guides said it snows 300 days out of the year on the other side of the Andes with the ice pack that creates the glacier (although it seldom snows in the actual national park), so that contributes to Perito Moreno’s expansion. Part of the glacier, the “ablation zone” closer to the sides, will melt a little faster based on being closer to the surrounding mountains and in more direct sunlight (and being not as thick and dense). Perito Moreno is actually arrowhead shaped, with the middle being a further distance into the lake than the sides. Now this is kind of cool-the glacier is always close to a point near the lakeshore where when it expands it actually cuts the lake in two, creating a glacier dam. Water pressure on either side of the glacier dam, however, eventually creates a crevice, then a crack, then holes in the dam, and eventually blows the thing wide open. That’s what happened in June, and what Ian and Julia were saying made the news. The guides said this happened in 1988, then not again til 2004, then repeated in 2006, and now in summer (their winter) 2008. Although the glacier itself is over 1,000 years old, the ice in the glacier now is about 300-400 years old. It advances 1-3 meters per day, and is one of the few glaciers “in balance,” meaning it adds as much new ice as melts away from it. Its 40-60 meters high, or 12-14 stories, and 120 meters deep (meaning its much deeper below the lake level than above it).
Once the Bill Nye Science Guy lecture concluded, we set out for the glacier, stopping first to put on the unfortunately worded “crampons.” I noticed this group of about four young Irish guys cutting up, who were pretty funny. They were with a pretty girl who appeared to be their age, but who interestingly seemed to function as the mom (hectoring them into following the guides’ instructions, to move along, to quiet down, etc.). We had people from Russia, Mexico, the US, Argentina, Italy, Germany, England…this really illustrates that this is a world destination.
The surface was about the consistency of ice chips, but when you step on it, its more solid than this would suggest. Some parts have standing water and look like there’s a lot of water underneath, and you think you’re going to break through but you don’t (although the guides explained that sink holes do occur in the ablation zone). The guides showed us a sink hole, as well as numerous crevices, caves, lagoons, and other features and formations. I photographed everything they pointed out. At certain points they had to cut steps into the glacier for us to ascend/descend an incline. The scene is really difficult to describe; you have to see the pictures. Other than being able to see the mountains on either side and the lake below, you’d think you were on the moon. The mountains, by the way, formed a canyon around the lake with one impressive waterfall and a number of really large condors flying around the glacier. Even though it wasn’t particularly a sunny day, the glare almost blew my eyes out when I momentarily took off my sunglasses. Visibility would have been really poor, and painful, without sunglasses. The blue ice I mentioned earlier, along with the incredible deep blue color of the water in the collected lagoons, arises from the ice’s density and the water’s purity. Ice generally is white because it is not in its densest form, therefore it reflects all colors of light. In the extremely dense and pure glacier state, however, it reflects only the blue light, thereby giving the glacier its blue tint. The water’s brilliant blue color owes to the water purity and the color of the underlying ice.
Along the surrounding canyon walls, you can see where the glacier had previously ground into the lake shore. The west canyon wall had a pretty sizable waterfall, and the lake and glacier are home to a number of condors, which were flying around during our visit (no doubt expecting my death by glacier).
At the end of our time on the glacier, the guides took us to tables set up, on the glacier, with glasses and bottles of scotch (cheap scotch, with something like “grouse” in the name, but hey, would you expect some 30-year-old single malt?). They chipped some ice off the glacier walls and filled the glasses with glacier ice and scotch, and handed out scotches and a chocolate/dulce de leche candy to everyone. Normally of course I would have declined, but when will I ever get a chance to have a scotch, on a glacier, with ice from said glacier? So joined in. Lawyer Chris wondered about the insurance and liability implications of getting your customers loaded while out on a glacier. That’s a clear safety hazard.
Coming home from the glacier, Erica told me an absolutely unbelievable story that I’ll close with. She and her sister were not only in Manhattan on September 11, 2001, they were scheduled to tour two different attractions that morning. The first was the Statue of Liberty, the other was the World Trade Center. They had the choice of which to do first, and chose to start with the Statue of Liberty. They were in the subway near the 14th Street station when the subways stopped running. They had to walk a short distance along the track to reach the platform, having no idea what was going on or what they’d find when they walked outside. Had they decided to see the WTC first that day, they might have been inside when the attacks happened, or at least in the vicinity. I told her God was watching over her and her sister that day. She related how her mother was frantic because she didn’t know whether her daughters were safe (phone connections with Manhattan were kind of sketchy most of that day, as I recall), and hadn’t wanted them to go on that trip in the first place. They were stranded in Manhattan for about a week while flights were grounded, before they could fly back to Mexico City. They tried to go to Canada to get a flight, but the borders were closed (I didn’t remember about that part).
Tomorrow-on to El Chatén for hiking near Cerro Torre and Mount Fitz Roy, and hostels that smell like feet (that’s kind of a redundancy)
1 comment:
those glaciers are phenomenal!
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