Ruta 40 to the Patagonian Express

Ok, I’ve put off doing a blog for far too long! We’ve been moving slower, and relaxing more, but for some reason that didn’t translate into more time to write blog entries. So, leaving from Los Glacieres national park, we took the famed Ruta 40. Because of it’s remoteness and the variety of landscapes it passes through it has a kind of mystic about it, a little like Route 66 in the States, it even has several songs about it. The photo shows what much of our view was heading north through the Patagonian steppe. It reminded me a lot of my time driving Dave through Australia.

At one point the driver of the bus pulled over because the bus had separated a mother Guanaco from her kid, and the kid was confused running alongside the bus. He decided it would be fun to catch the baby, who was probably only a few days, or even hours old, to show it off to the tourists. He was actually pretty careful but let several of us take photos of the little guy. They were very common along the entire route, which I was a bit surprised at considering all of the sheep. They must be competitors for the pasture. Still the government has protected them, and maybe people are actually going along with it.

The bus was continuing on to Bariloche, but we weren’t ready to get there yet so we got off in El Bolson. Unfortunately I didn’t really find much to take photos of in El Bolson. It’s a hippy town, both Argentine, and from other parts of the world, apparently even California (as we were told several times, though we never met any). The biggest deal there was a thrice weekly crafts fair. It was more or less as you’d expect, though less tie-dye, and more micro-brews. Coming for the land of sucky beers (El Salvador) we took advantage of the beer. We also did lots of walks and bike riding around the outskirts of town. We’d hit a whole new climate zone and it was pretty mountains with pines and firs everywhere. It also is the main hop-producing region of Argentina.

Next we moved south a bit to Esquel. This is interestingly enough, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid country! Yep, this is where they came when they fled the US. It looks a LOT like much of the west that they’d come from. Dry and desolate with ranches along the river valleys. Esquel is a very pretty town, quiet for the most part, though they do drive around honking their horns if there is a soccer victory or a wedding. We used it as a staging point for going up into Los Alerces national park.

Los Alerces is our first real look at the true Andes, and it is no disappointment. It was beautiful dramatic landscapes with forested slopes heading quickly and steeply up to rock and glaciers.

It also, conveniently enough, is the start of all of those amazing trout’s streams I had heard about! The waters, both lakes and rivers were transparent, deep and strong, and full of fish. The rivers were lined with Arrayane trees, something like looks just like a madrone, and the Alerces are the Giant Sequoias of the Southern hemisphere. Look just like them, and live to be 4,000 years… of course they are doomed due to climate change. Not the current craziness, but just the fact that the climate has been changing for the last 10,000 years, and the habitat that they were evolved for doesn’t really exist anywhere down here anymore.

Ok, the last thing we did from Esquel is take the train made famous by Paul Theroux when he wrote the Old Patagonia Express. (Plus I think that Chawin wrote about it as well, but I haven’t read that yet). Anyway, it is a narrow gauge steam engine that really was still running up to 1993. Now it just runs for tourist, but it is trying to make a comeback and increase the route.

It was a fun trip, and would be a really great way to travel through the Argentine steppe. It’s too bad they really don’t have more train services… I have always enjoyed traveling by trains where we could. Next stop, Bariloche!

Fitzroy Walk

So, the next day we went on a longer hike, but this time without the crampons, to go see the other main peak in the Fitzroy range, Cerro Fitzroy. To avoid an “out and back” hike we had a taxi take us up to a point on another river drainage and took a trail from there that would lead us up to the base camp for Fitzroy. It was a nice trail following along a pretty river under Ñire trees. The ñire, also known as the Antarctic Beech is a tree that can come in a variety of forms. Above you see it as a forest with a dense canopy and a very open understory. Quite pleasant to walk through; it also comes in forms more like shrubs, hedges, and even like the smaller high elevation lodgepoles.

Our hike was really feeling like lots of the Sierra hikes we have taken, plenty of granite and smaller stunted trees. One difference you start to note here is the lack of areas that are glacially polished. You also don’t see domes, mostly just knife-edge ridges and moraines.

We are here in what is early summer, so there were lots of wildflowers as well. I have already forgotten the name of these lily type flowers, but we have been seeing them on all of the trails, even down in Tierra del Fuego. Oh, as a complete aside, Cerro Fitzroy was named for the captain of the Beagle (ship that brought Darwin to the area). The indigenous name, is Chaltén. This is also the name of the village we are staying in while here, El Chaltén.

I also got to see my first real clear alpine stream. It deserves to have trout in it…but I don’t think it does. There is a large waterfall blocking migration from the larger river this is a tributary of, and I think that this freezes over pretty good for the winter. It’s still very pretty though… even without the fish!

After a good steep pitch, well outside of any trail standards. We arrived at Lago de los Tres. This is as close as you can get to Fitzroy without strapping on those crampons. The lake was just starting to melt, thanks to that great weather I was talking about earlier.

Nearby, you could look down on another lake that has that beautiful glacial blue color. For some reason it is called Lago Sucia, which means dirty lake… plus the adjective isn’t matching the noun it is describing…which is a no-no in Spanish, but I never did find a good answer to that one!

Overall, it was a brilliant day! Good hiking, just a little too far after all of the hiking the day before. Our legs were pretty tired on the last hour or so of the way down. I figured that we ended up walking around 14 miles that day, most of it pretty easy, and we had light pack on, but still! It also worked out to be pretty cheap other than the taxi ride. Economics is starting to really mess with our ideas for the trip… but that’s a topic for another blog. Still, very hard to beat some of the great things we are seeing down here. Enjoy!

Towers of Rock and Ice

So, still impressed with glaciers, we decide to move further north and explore a more mountainous part of the park. We head up to see the Fitz Roy range of peaks, a spectacular set of mountains, that together with Torres del Paine over in Chile form the images that most people think of when they think of Patagonia.

Katie, feeling particularly adventuresome decides she needs to “crampon up” and try out some Tyrolean traverses and ice climbing. We head out to Glacier Cerro Torre to let her do her thing. We have absolutely amazing luck with the weather, getting mostly crystal clear days while there. Additionally a notable lack of the famous Patagonian winds!

The glacier is smaller than Perito Moreno, and in retreat versus advancing, still it is really impressive to walk around and look into crevasses and the various stress folds of the ice. It also helps to have a ton of stunning scenery to look at while you do it. Final note: Crampons are cool!

Big Ice

Well, time to catch up on a lot of stuff. We have been in more rural parts, no wireless internet in our dorm room! So have about a weeks worth of stuff, pretty much all dealing with our time spent in different parts of "Parque Nacional del los Glacieres". Which of course means that the first thing we went to do was see a glacier, in this case Perito Moreno, one of the worlds few advancing glaciers.

This means it is still calving off into Lago de Argentina and occasionally making ice dams that hold back the water flow until they burst in a spectacular explosion of ice and sound. Unfortunately for us, we didn't witness anything like that. Still the sounds of the ice groaning and straining as it moves forward was eery. We did see some large chunks fall off into the water, but really the most impressive is just the size of the thing!
You can just sit around staring at it and not get bored. It's fascinating to think of all of the places I have been where this, ice, was the primary shaper of the environment I love. That it wasn't all that long ago, geologic time speaking, that much of the world as we know it was covered like this. Plus, looking at a real glacier like this one, you have to wonder if somewhere under all of that ice, there isn't some magical place like Yosemite valley waiting to be seen by whomever is here when it finally melts away.

Ushuaia- The End of the World

So yeah, we've been in Ushuaia the last few days. The so called "End of the World". This means it's time to do a post... except that as posted just a bit ago, the Safari, Blogger interface bugs are killing me! Below is a view of Ushuaia from the sea! It is a very picturesque city, but suffers a bit from being a big port for the journey to Antarctica. The big cruise ships descend here and raise prices for us poor travelers! Just why is it all cruise ports have some rock they are hawking as a unique find, and charge outrageous prices for? No, they don't have Tanzanite here, instead it is Inca Rose or somesuch. Which of course comes from the far north of Argentina, so it is a bit like selling Real Maple Syrup in San Francisco!
In Tierra del Fuego National Park we went hiking. The main trail followed the coast dipping in and out of the forest. Its a good park with quite a few good trails. Mostly we just saw Upland Fuegan Geese (to distinguish from the Kelp Goose), rabbits... looked like two varieties, one being a small cottontail, and beaver sign... so the exotics win out again! There are also Red Fox to complete the messed up ecology.
The forests of Tierra del Fuego are very "otherworld-y", meaning that at times they look like what I'd imagine for Lothlorien, other times more like Fangorn.
Birds, birds, and more birds. The fun of cruising the Beagle Channel is endless. Actually, it did make me wonder where the word "Beagle" came from... turns out it is just from the dog breed! So yeah, the British ship that Darwin was on was named for a small dog. They think that the origin for the dog breed name may have something to do with words for things like "deep throat" and "big voice" in old french, or old english.
Watching nesting pelagic birds turned out to be way more interesting than I might have thought. Never been so interested in all of the shorebird types, but nesting colonies have a real appeal. Got to see some returning with squid to feed their young! We also saw lots of Terns, Sku, and Petrels.
These lazy guys are everywhere, but you'd feel left out if they didn't have them on the tour!
Just another pretty coastal shot. Just read through some of my above comments, and while accurate, I feel like they are somewhat colored by my bad experiences trying to wrestle with posting this thing! Really, this whole visit has been really good, we hit great weather, and the hiking was wonderful! Don't let my cynicism lower your opinion, it's a great place, and if you can you should come to check it out. It has a very "pioneering wilderness" feel to it. Fresh!
Looks fishy doesn't it? Yeah, but not going to plunk down the $270 to find out. I'll be waiting a few more weeks to wet a line. Have I already made too many cynical comments...well, in case I haven't, can I add that "way too rich" anglers are screwing up the world for the rest of us!!! As a side note, the $270 US also can not be split by two anglers, it is a per person fee!
Just thought this was a pretty shot to end on. Cheers until the next post. Hopefully I can have my system worked out by then!

Problems with Safari

So, using Blogger with Safari as my browser is just too much of a headache. The are so many weird issues that's its not worth listing them. Still it is making me lose a ton of time trying to post. Right now mad at both Apple and Google!! The only real work around is to spend the time d-loading Explorer (a megalithic program) which I hate to do... but I might...