Category Archives: _South America_

Viedma Glacier – An Introduction to Ice Climbing

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The second day in El Chalten was a free day; James and myself ended up doing the ice climbing and ice hiking option. In the morning we boarded yet another boat to get closer to another glacier – the Viedma glacier.

We left the boat at the middle moraine to get the climbing gear and short introduction – to finally walk over to the cliff and do our first climbs.

After a few climbs, the arms got tired and we headed back to the equipment tent for lunch. After lunch we put the crampons on again to get back to the glacier – this time for ice hiking.

Torres del Paine NP – The “W” Trek Day 4

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Our last and final (half) day in the park; today’s hike was not more than a three hour walk (mostly flat) up to a viewpoint to see Grey Glacier and back to the mountain lodge. The views of Grey Glacier were very impressive at this time … but ridiculous compared to what was to come the next few days back in Argentina.

From the mountain lodge we took the 12:30 ferry to get back to Puerto Natales in the early evening.

Into Torres del Paine NP

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Here we were – on our way to Torres del Paine National Park, on the way to four days in the wild, four days hiking the W trek, three nights in a tent – but first we had to endure a three hours ride in a van to actually get to the park.

We had a few stops on the way to enjoy the views – until we finally reached the park entrance. From here it was only a matter of minutes – and an interesting bridge crossing – to get to the starting point for today’s hike.

Puerto Natales – Getting ready for Torres del Paine NP

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A bus ride brought us from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales, the hub for Torres del Paine National Park.

The town itself is small, main income obviously tourism, i.e. catering all those people heading off to or coming back from the National Park. The town therefore feels like an odd collection of hostels, restaurants, bars, outdoor shops, tour operators, plus a big supermarket and a number of hardware stores – in total all an outdoor enthusiast may need before venturing out into the wild.

I basically spent my time as this city layout forced me to do … having food in restaurants – and shopping around for some last minute equipment (I needed gloves) – and so did most of the others. James managed to do some good cost-cutting on walking sticks; instead of paying 1500 pesos (around 3 USD) per day per stick (i.e. 6000 pesos for the our complete hike per stick) or buying new sticks at 8000 pesos each, he equipped himself with two broom sticks, 600 pesos each … so don’t wonder if you see photos of a guy with broom sticks 😉

Otway Penguin Colony

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In the afternoon we left Punta Arenas for an excursion to the Otway penguin colony.

In the colony tourists and penguins were properly separated, however we still could get pretty close to these creatures. The penguins here are Magallanes penguins.
The empty surroundings of the colony also gave a good introduction of the true Patagonia with vast empty plains and high mountains in the background.

The tour concluded with a pisco sour 😉