Glacier Hiking in Patagonia – Catching the Fog

On December 23rd, we headed for El Calafate, and the Perito Moreno glacier. El Calafate was a much bigger town on the shore of Lago Argentino. After the 3-hour drive from El Chaltén, we stopped in town to have sandwiches by the lake, then continued on to the southern portion of Los Glacieres National Park. It was 660 pesos (55 CAD) to enter the park, which seemed a bit much at first but in the end totally worth it to admire the impressive glacier. With a surface of 250 square km and 30km of length, it is the third largest reserve of fresh water in the world.

A network of stairs and platforms were built in front of the lake, providing multiple vantage points of the glacier. As it is often the case when staring at an immensely large landscape, it was hard for our brains to grasp the scale of this giant, and realize how far we actually were even though the lowest platform made us feel like we could almost touch it. We were there later in the afternoon, which apparently was good timing as it was the best time of day to witness large shards of ice breaking off the vertical walls and falling into the lake.

The sound it made was incredibly loud, probably amplified by all the crevasses and cavities in the ice and reminding us of the real size of the beast. It’s pretty funny to think that with growing popularity, tourists flood the park every year to take a look at – ultimately – a huge chunk of cracking ice. But what a mesmerizing chunk it was.

We spent a couple of hours marveling at the natural phenomenon. Then we took a quick walk on the shore of the lake further away before leaving the glacier behind us, probably one of the most memorable sight of this trip.

Our favorite app led us to a free campsite on the southern side of the lake with firepit and mountain view. The perfect spot for our last night on the road before we reached Puerto Natales, our base camp before embarking on a 6-day trek around Torres del Paine.

The next morning we had to cross the border again to go back to Chile. The 60km of road prior to the border were some of the roughest we’d driven on, with once again not much to look at. Thankfully we had loaded up the ipod with podcasts, so that kept our minds entertained while driving on these long stretches of road for hours.

The border crossing near Rio Turbio was quite a lot bigger this time, with a good number of people going through. We went through the Argentinian side first, to exit, then drove 3km to the Chilean entry point. We had been warned that you couldn’t bring any food in Chile, but they let us go with what we had left – again it was mainly canned and dry food, no fresh produce, so it looked like it was fine. As we were crossing the border, we noticed we had another flat tire. So we had to pull over a bit further and replace it with the spare once again. We were only 25 km from Puerto Natales so we just kept going on the spare.

We arrived in Puerto Natales around 3pm. The first thing I wanted to do was buy food for the first few days of the trek (we had read that there were small shops in every campground so there was no need to buy for the whole week). Since it was Christmas eve, I thought stores might close earlier than usual, and they would most definitely be closed the next day. So as soon as we arrived we looked for a grocery store. We found one on the main street (Manuel Baquedano) in the center of town. The store was of decent size but not huge and we were able to get everything we needed, including a couple of nice freshly made empanadas for lunch. Turns out there was also a big Unimarc a couple of blocks away, but it’s a good thing we avoided it as apparently, the lines to the cash registers where insane that day. Once we had all our supplies, we started looking for accommodation.
Puerto Natales is the starting point for anyone going to Torres del Paine. As such, it is a pretty big tourist hub, and accommodation is everywhere. We walked around the center of town to check out hostels in the area, but then decided to drive just a few blocks away from the center, where it would be quieter.
There were “Hostal” signs pretty much every block, so we went into a few of them to check them out. Eventually we settled on Hostal Carlitos – the selling point was the big wood burning stove in the main room that gave the place just the amount of cozy we were looking for.
Hostal Carlitos was a family run business. There was a big Christmas tree in the main room, with presents underneath. The girl at front desk told us that the whole family was getting together that night and was having a traditional Christmas eve dinner, and that we were welcome to join. Dinner would be at 12am. Although we were honored that they invited us, the chances of us still being awake at midnight were pretty slim – and sure enough, we were out by 9:30pm.

The next day was December 25th, and everything in town was closed. We took this opportunity to take a “day off” from traveling, and reset. In the morning we took a walk around the town and along the water. We also found out that the bus station was only a few blocks away, so we first headed there to see if we could book our tickets to go to Torres del Paine the next day. At first it looked like everything was closed, but a couple of companies counters were open. We bought our tickets from Buses Fernandez, but there were about 8-10 different companies there offering trips to multiple places, including Ushuaia and Punta Arenas, the city we would be flying out from to return home.

Once we had our tickets, we took a walk around then headed back to the hostal. We were due to return the car that afternoon. Enrique (our car rental guy) had told us to just email him with our location and he would send his friend Raul to get the car. Sure enough, around 4pm Raul showed up and after handing him all the paperwork, we said goodbye to our ride.

Then we just hung out for the rest of the day. With no more car to throw our stuff in, we now had to make sure everything still fit into our backpacks, including food. It was impressive to see the amount of stuff we had, when all laid out on the bed, and that somehow everything fit into those two backpacks. Even though we had done our best to pack light originally, we admittedly had a bit too much for the treck, especially the summer clothes we wore in Costa Rica. We could have maybe looked for a place to store some of it, or even mailed some stuff to Canada, but at that point we figured it would be fine. My pack was about 12kg and Brice’s 18kg – before food. So yes, heavier than it could have been, but in the end we managed.
The hostal had a little kitchen that we could use and a couple of long dining tables, so we had breakfast lunch and dinner there and took the day to rest.

Our next planned stop on day 3 was a hike in the Queulat National Park, to go check out the Ventisquero Colgante, the “hanging glacier”.
But first we had to drive from La Junta to Puyuhuapi. That portion of road was pretty rough, and there was quite a bit of construction in progress especially on both sides of the town. We took a stroll through Puyuhuapi, to take in the atmosphere of this small port town.

Even on a gray rainy day, this little town felt warm and colorful, and an enjoyable break from driving. On the way out we picked up a couple of hitch-hikers who were also heading to the park, then carried on along the coastal road.

It was already 1:30pm when we arrived in Queulat National Park. We had a quick sandwich then headed up the look-out trail, a 3-hour return hike up to a high view point of the famous Hanging Glacier. The way up was not very steep, but it was raining quite a bit and we had to navigate mud and small streams. It felt very much like a rainy day on Vancouver’s North Shore – but with completely different vistas. We didn’t waste much time and got to the top in about an hour (turns out, we hike much faster when we are well fed).

Unfortunately, the clouds were low and the glacier was completely engulfed in them, so we couldn’t see much of anything. We made our way back down and 45 minutes later, we were back at the trail head.

There was another much shorter trail that lead to the shore of the lake which laid below the Glacier, so we walked there and arrived just as the clouds parted. The glacier was visible just long enough to snap a few photos, before the fog and clouds rolled in and it was gone again.

The park also featured a pretty cool suspension bridge, which we crossed to get to and from the trail head.

From the Queulat National Park, we drove to Puerto Cisnes, to spend the night. We looked up camping options in or around the town, and iOverlander pointed us to a beach area near the southern exit of the town.

Along the beach where several open quinchos, each with a large fire pit in the center, and enough room on either side to pitch our tent. A couple were already occupied by other campers, but a few remained free still. We didn’t have fire wood, so we drove back into town to find some. I walked into the first “mercado” we saw and asked if they knew where I could find wood (I didn’t know the correct word but later learned it was “leña”). Somehow they understood what I was looking for, and told me to go a couple of blocks away, to a house where a woman would sell us some. So we followed their directions and sure enough, ended up in front of a house that had bags and bags of firewood stacked up under a carport. We bought a bag for 5000CLP (about 7.5 USD) and drove back to the beach.

The tide was low and boats where washed up on the beach. I took a walk around for a cool view of the town in the fog across the bay.

Once we had the fire going and the tent set up out of the rain, it was pretty perfect. Later a group of locals came and set up in the next shelter over. They started blasting music and before I could even say anything, Brice was over there asking them to turn it down, which they did (no idea how he asked in Spanish, but whatever he said or gestured worked). Later a policeman came around and asked if we could write our passport numbers in his records. He also opened the building behind the beach so we could make use of the restrooms.
Later in the night, the wind started blowing really strongly, so we were glad our tent was under a shelter. It gave us a first glimpse at that infamous Patagonia wind I had read a lot about, the kind that will stop you in your tracks and sometimes even knock you over. For now, we had the comfort of the quincho, but who knows what the wind would be like later, once we were standing, shelter-less in Torres del Paine…

Tag: Glacier Hiking in Patagonia

Patagonia Road Trip Day 11 & 12: Perito Moreno Glacier and Re-Setting in Puerto Natales

Patagonia Road Trip Day 3: From la Junta to Puerto Cisnes