Glacial Overload

Monday 20 February

We were up early this morning, and my back was slightly improved – just took a long and still painful time to get going. Breakfast was a short meal again as the quality of food here was not as good as at other hotels we have visited and in no time at all we were sitting in the lounge awaiting our transport. When it arrived it was a double-decker coach, with leg rests and very comfortable seating – shame we were only to be traveling in it for half an hour.

We arrived at Puerto Bandera and joined a long queue to pay our Glaciers National Park entrance fee of 30 Argentinean pesos – why wasn’t it included in the ticket price for the day? – it would have saved hundreds of people lining up. We then had to queue again to get on to the large white catamaran docked at the far end of a very precarious wooden jetty – lots of the wooden slats were broken or missing, so falling into the icy lake below was a distinct possibility. But we all safely boarded and found seats in a viewing cabin holding over 300 people (when boarding was complete not everyone had a seat! and they had to open up the VIP lounge on the top deck to accommodate the overspill) – this was not the private boat ride with personal commentary that we had we had been expecting. We did managed to get seats by a window for maximum vision without keep wrapping up in coats and scarves to brave the elements, but the seats were in rows of four, and we had two older gentlemen from Spain (?) or Italy (?) sitting on the outer two seats, so we were somewhat hemmed in. The day was sunny and warm, but there was a strong biting wind as the boat left the safety of the dock and sailed along Lake Argentina, towards the furthest fjords and the land of the Argentinean glaciers.

We sailed across the entry to the fjord going to the Perita Merino glacier and through the Boca del Diablo, a narrow strait between the surrounding high mountains, into Brazo Norte (North). The fjord here was wide with steep sided mountains reaching down to the water, with some forestation on the lower slopes – the tops looked like dark brown icing had been poured over the ridges which had slid down the sides in spiky fingers into the tree line. As we turned into the channel to see the Spegazzini Glacier, we saw the Secco Glacier, a small tongue of ice, that was clearly receding up the mountain. The Spegazzini is one of the highest glaciers in Argentina. Like all the glaciers around here, it is one of the icy fingers flowing from the Southern Ice Field in the Chilean Andes. It is not currently receding as it is fed by two smaller glaciers joining the main flow towards the lake.

We returned to the main channel and made our way toward the Upsala Glacier which is the largest river of ice in this National Park, with a front snout reaching over 30 metres high. It has a surface of over 1,000 sq kms and is again joined by other smaller glaciers as it zig-zags its way to the lake. It was named after the city in Sweden whose university sponsored the first glaciological study at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1952 Emiliano Huerta and Mario Bertone crossed the Continental Ice Field walking up the Upsala Glacier, and this area has often been used as a training ground for Antarctic expeditions. Unfortunately this glacier has receded significantly over the past ten years. The most amazing features of this glacier were the icebergs – some huge masses of ice, rising from the lake like hills - looking smooth and blue from a distance, but when you passed close by, they had large crevices and holes in the surfaces, which reflected a deep iridescent blue. They came in all shapes and sizes, and we spent some time “identifying” different shapes – such as people’s faces, penguins and churches with spires. The whole channel was edged in these large structures of ice – a few were even transparent, presumably because the compacted ice was melting at a fast rate – but all glistened in the sun. Needless to say, I, together with most of the other 350 people on the boat, took loads of pictures here.

Our third glacier was reached by a channel off the Brazo Upsala, leading to Lake Onelli and the Oneilli Glacier. The boat docked at the end of the channel and we had to walk, half a kilometre or so through the forest, to the Lake, in order to see the glacier. The forest is in decline, mainly because no new trees are growing to replace those already dead or dying, although everything is being done to encourage growth. We saw a large woodpecker – black with a red crest – and more curacura birds in the trees, and supposedly there were some wild bulls, which were brought by early settlers and have roamed free around this area ever since – they are now quite fierce and definitely not to be petted (we didn’t actually see any, but a few people reported having seeing a some grazing within the trees). We emerged from the forest to a rocky beach, where we could see the glacier descending from the mountains on the opposite side. It was quite minor, but there were lots of small icebergs around the lake, the result of cracking and fracturing of the glacier. We spent a couple of hours wandering the forest paths, walking or picking our way over the rocks and stones of the beach – all the result of deposited moraine from the time when the whole area was covered by glaciers – or just sitting and soaking up the sun – it was much warmer this afternoon than when we had left the dock, and the lake was quite sheltered, surrounded as it was by high mountains.

We had to be back on the boat by 17.00 for the return journey to Puerto Bandera – a long two hours, chugging back up the fjords to reach the choppy waters of Lake Argentina. While crossing the entrance of the Canal de Los Tempanos, leading to Perita Moreno Glacier, the waves became quite high and surged up the side of the boat covering the windows in spray, and the boat started to rock from side to side. Everyone was made to return to their seats for the twenty or so minutes it took to reach the dock. When we disembarked, there were no double-decker coaches in the car park, but with a bit of investigation, we soon found a courier with our list of names and a coach to take us back to the hotel.

All in all, today we had not seen a lot that we hadn’t seen before, except the huge icebergs. Most people agreed it had been too long as by the time we got back to the hotel it was almost 20.30 – and we had been out for more than thirteen hours. As it was so late, there was no communal dinner tonight and we found ourselves in an Italian style restaurant on the main street, where Colin had spaghetti with bolognaise sauce and I had squid with parsley, lemon and what turned out to be heaps of sautéed onions. Both dishes were very tasty and filling, so we finished off with just teas before making our way back to the hotel feeling exhausted. I am nearly out of painkillers now, so will have to make another assault on the chemist shop tomorrow.