Traveling Adventures Hi! Welcome to my travel journal. I created this so friends and family can keep track of me on my adventures. I'll update this when I can.

On Valentine´s day we arrived in El Chaltén, a funny little tourist town inside Parque Nacional Los Glaciares.  El Chaltén is most famously known as the supply point for excursions around Monte Fitz Roy, another Patagonian classic.  Before I write more about this area though, I want to describe my visit to the enormous Glaciar Perito Moreno.

On the morning of 2/13, we headed into Parque Nacional Los Glaciares from the town of El Calafate to see the Perito Moreno Glacier with a local guide.  We drove out of town into a huge flat steppe area, very similar to eastern Oregon, but with a lake with huge icebergs in the distance!  There were lots of estancias (ranches) and lots of scrub and open space.  Apparently weather patterns in the Andes are the same as with the Cascades- weather comes off the Pacific and the eastern side of the mountains is really dry from the rainshadow.  As we drove farther west towards the glacier and the mountains, the flat dry steppe was replaced with rolling hills and the ever present lenga (looks like alders with mini leaves) and coigüe forest (looks like an overgrown evergreen huckleberry).  Our first stop was a walk along the lake at the snout of the glacier.  It was crazy to see the difference in the weather where we were compared to over the glacier- the thing is 160ft tall at the terminus and had a square area larger than Buenos Aires and it definitely makes its own weather!  Strolling along the lake shore, we caught our first glimpse of the glacier- just a far off white wall at one end of the lake with a huge mass of blueness stretching back towards the mountains.  After our walk, we were dropped off at the viewing area to wander about the maze of boardwalks for three hours.  The glacier is so HUGE!  It is crazy when you´re up close to it and still hard to really realize the true size of the thing.  The snout is just a jumble of blue blocks precariously stacked on eachother and is constantly creaking and groaning.  I actually saw a few pieces fall off and crash into the lake water.  They looked really small, but I figure they were actually the size of a bus or maybe bigger!  After wandering around for awhile and taking lots of pictures, it started pouring, so most of us ended up crammed in the busy cafeteria for another hour before we were picked up.  Next we got on a boat to see the glacier up close from the lake.  The boat ride was awesome, but it was raining really hard so I could only take a couple pictures before I had to go inside again and dry my camera lense off again.  Unfortunately, the glacier didn´t calve when we were on the boat, but it was still really cool to see up close!

On Valentine´s day we drove a few hours to El Chaltén in a giant rainstorm.  It rained ALL DAY and was freezing and really windy.  We are camping here so almost all of us ended up invading the only microbrewery in town (they had pretty good beer!) and taking shelter in there for hours.  I was able to get a weather forecast though and it was good so I decided to do an overnight trek!

Yesterday (2/15), I woke up to some decent weather and decided to trust the forecast.  I hiked up to Campamento Poincenot below the granite monolith of Monte Fitz Roy  and its lesser towers for the night.  There were three others from my Intrepid group doing it as a dayhike so I hiked along with them to the camp.  On the way, we stopped at what was supposed to be our first view of Fitz Roy, but only saw the bottom of a glacier and the faint outline of some low rocky peaks.  Not Fitz Roy, but still pretty.  We also got a quick view of the jumbled icy snout of the Glaciar Piedras Blancas before it slipped back behind the clouds.  When we got to the camp, the three others went on up to Laguna de los Tres and I set up camp and ate some lunch.  The weather got better so I decided to head up to the lake as well.  On the way up the trail (which was really just a stream bed complete with stream), I had some really nice views back down valley and out to the steppe lands as well as up another river valley to some more high snowy peaks.  When I got to the top I was rewarded with views of the lesser spires surrounding Fitz Roy (which was still in the clouds), the bright turquoise Laguna de los Tres and the Glaciar de los Tres.  A little farther up a rocky precipice, I got stunning views of Laguna Sucre down in its hole, surrounded by granite cliffs and waterfalls, with the Glaciar Rio Blanco above.  As I sat and waited for Fitz Roy to clear, the glacier were periodically shed chunks of ice off over the cliff and into the lake.  It was a beautiful view!  I got really close to seeing Cerro Poincenot, the tower next to Fitz Roy, but then it started snowing and the clouds lowered again so I headed back to camp.  After dinner, the sky ended up clearing and I finally got to see all the spires!  It was really windy up there- you could see the plumes of snow spiraling off the summits and the glaciers.  I decided to go exploring for a good sunrise viewing spot and walked up a dry creek bed away from the annoyingly noisy camp to a beautiful little valley with a perfect view of the mountains.  I sat there watching the light and clouds change until the sun set behind Cerro Poincenot.

This morning (2/16) I got up at 5:30 to walk to my secret spot to watch sunrise, but unfortunately there was no color and no sun even!  The mountains up an adjacent valley got bright hot pink, but Fitz Roy never got any color.  But it was still nice to sit and look at the mountains anyway- I brough my stove and cooked breakfast wrapped up in sleeping bag just watching the clouds and the mountains.  I set off for my next stop, Laguna Torre after breaking down camp and FINALLY there was some sun on Fitz Roy.  It was so pretty!  The trail went along a few pretty little lakes with great views back towards Fitz Roy and then through a bright green lenga forest to the Laguna Torre trail.  After the junction, it was an easy hour up to the lake and oh what a lake!  It is right at the base of Cerro Torre, Cordón Adela and the Torre and Adela glaciers.  There were even icebergs in the lake!  And it was so sunny!  Perfectly clear!  Cerro Torre is really impressive- it´s a granite tower like Fitz Roy, but much thinner and sharper and looks so exposed with a bit of icy snow clinging to the top.  The Cordón Adela were some high rocky peaks with masses of icefall spilling down them to the edge of the brownish green silty Laguna Torre.  I sat up there for an hour and then was joined by two others from the group dayhiking and sat up there for another hour just looking.  On the way out, there was a spectacular overlook with views of Cerro Torre, Cordón Adela and the tops of Fitz Roy and Cerro Poincenot.  What a great day!  It is so beautiful and we are SOOOO lucky to have this kind of weather here!  It is warm and sunny and feels like summer!  I am really glad I got to do another overnight trek also.

Alright, I´m all caught up now!  Tomorrow we head out for a few days driving along the famous Carretera Austral in Chile! 

P.S.  Grandma Jean- I have been looking for an internet cafe with Skype so I can call you, but I can´t find one.  So until I do find Skype- HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  I hope you did something special!  Love you.