Patagonia V: When the great white one creeps and thunders…

LOCATION: ARGENTINA
MONTH: DECEMBER

Visiting the great one, the grand Perito Francisco Moreno glacier was one of the highlights of my trip, when the three of us witnessed crashes and falls of huge ice chunks into the tranquil waters while the thunders still echoed in the whole park long time after…

Starting left, but fast going to the right…
We woke up early, around 8:30, and after doing check-out and having breakfast, we first drove to the near supermarket to buy some food for the up-coming day at the glacier. Barak navigated the car to one good supermarket and stopped at double parking near the entrance to the supermarket to drop us off and then to find another place to park the car. Only, no sooner than me and Maya were out of the car, a local bus came down the road behind us and without slowing down rubbed the side of it with the Gol’s left mirror, bending it to the other side and continuing even after the damage was done. In two seconds, the bus was already 200 meters from us and getting away while we all jumped to see what the sleazy bastard have done to our car. We saw that the mirror’s plastic casing was broken at one point, but other than that, the mirror was not broken. WE HAVE ONLY JUST STARTED TO USE THE CAR, YOU SLEAZY SOB, CANT YOU DRIVE CAREFULLY?!?!!
We all felt like shit and pissed off, but Barak felt even shittier, and we reassured him it was not his fault and because the mirror was not smashed it would not cost too much money to fix it. It didn’t make him feel any better so Maya bought him a pastry to cheer him up.
We drove off and quickly were outside of El Calafate and pushing west on the main road, while Lake Argentina shines in turquoise color on our right and little hills on our left roll with isolated ranches and houses dot here and there the landscape. It was a beautiful ride, and we stopped several times to capture this part of the ride. The weather was not the finest I saw in my life, but it was not raining so nobody was complaining. Most of the 80 km to the park are on paved road but once we got into the park, the road went to gravel, and Barak slowed down a bit so not to damage the car. Finally, after taking a curve we saw it, far, distant but big and white: The famous Perito Moreno glacier. Spilling between two peaks, it continued into the distance horizon beyond our sight. After taking some photos there, we continued on the curved road that bordered the forest on our right till we reached the parking lot. Taking warm clothing, food and of course, cameras, we went down fast, as time was pressing – it was already 12 PM and we decided to start our way back no later than 3:30.

A big one but what a miss!
There are several ways to watch the glacier crashes; the most popular one is to go down the balconies that enable one to see the glacier from couple of hundreds of meters. Another one is to take a boat ride to one hundreds meter or even less and at last you can take a guide and walk down the balconies and see the glacier from ground level. At the end, we were satisfied in seeing the glacier crashes from the balconies as it offered the best view over a good part of the glacier.
Its enormous size (250 square km over 30 km length) and its dynamic life cycle make it one of the greatest attractions of Patagonia. The glacier spills from the South Patagonian Ice field and ends on the Argentinean lake, almost bridging the gap between one shore to the other (though it managed to cover that distance in previous years). At its end, it is 5 km wide and even from several hundreds meters, the white thing is enormous, rising to an average height of 60 meters (and is said to reach a depth of 170 meters in average). It grows 2 meters a day toward the other side of the lake (where everyone watch it) but looses the same growth due to the water pressure on it’s both side that breaks it. In one word: AMAZING!
We came down the balconies with our food, not sure exactly if we gonna take the boat ride later – we decided we gonna see how things develop…
We made our way down to the one of the lowest balconies (and which is close to the head of the glacier) and made ourselves comfortable (it was getting VERY cold there with the wind blowing and the sun playing hide-and-seek with the clouds). And we waited, while we heard the crashes of distant ice clumps and as the monster was creeping her life another day in December. The boat cruiser did her way lazily toward the white ice wall and all was tranquil, the birds singing now and again behind us in the near forested area.
And then, some two hundred meters from us, it happened.
A chunk the size of truck cracked from the top of the ice wall in a thunderous bang (which took a fraction of a second till we actually heard it) and it slid slowly and directly down toward the tranquil waters of lake Argentina, taking with a rubble of smaller ice lumps. While it went down, it also cracked the base of a neighboring huge chunk that hang for a split second before it went down with its successor, both crashing in a rocking thunder and splashes of gigantic waves went into the air, obscuring the sight of the crumbling of the ice chunks into the waters. The cruiser, which was quite close to the area, broke and head away from the waves that those chunks made and rocked a bit, while waves splashed on the rocky beach directly underneath us…It was SO amazing, that I can still remember a lady from our balcony crying while it happened “Oh, es Bonisimo!” (Oh, its beautiful!).
Well, even with such a detailed description of this 3-4 seconds crash, I was half busying my self with my camera. When it happened I started to rapidly snap-shot the event, only to realize that after two frames the camera stopped shooting. I took my eyes of the event just to see that the film rolled back to the start. THE FILM IS FINISHED! I was amazed and in a split second gripped that I won’t capture the rest of what was left of the crash. I was SO disappointed and angry about my un-professional work habits, not checking my camera setting and assuring that I have enough frames to shoot such an event! I kicked my ass for some time till I got over this tiny frustrating feeling of lose but more to shake the disappointment out of my soul.

Waiting and waiting
After that amazing crash we observed the glacier intently for another big one, but aside from small crumbling ice clumps, we didn’t see any similar crash as we saw at the start (though we could hear the rumble of distant crashes within the glacier itself).
At a certain point Barak pointed to a massive pillar of ice that stand apart from the main wall and was straight in front us, hoping aloud that it would crash as we stand there. It didn't of course, but it was nice to imagine that it would actually break and fall with all its massive weight and size...
It was getting quite cold and soon it was already 2:30 PM, with one hour left till we had to wrap everything and head back to El Calafate. We made ourselves some sandwiches and all the while were with one eye on the glacier and one on the sandwich preparation, but nothing serious happened that interrupt our modest meal. Finally, it was already 3:15 and we made our move up the balcony to the main level, stayed there for 5 minutes more and then decided to check the other side of the balconies. While going down the long wooden bridge among the trees that surrounded us we could hear suddenly an enormous and long rumble and crash. It was such a big crash that the bridge trembled and we hasted our pace while trying to find a gap in the forested mesh that blocked almost any sight of the white one. Finally, when we reached the lower balcony the only evident to the great crash was the waves that softly caressed the brown earth 20 meters below us. Oh, well, we decided to stay there for couple of minutes, hoping and wishing that we might notice another crash, which of course didn't come...
We made our way back to the main balcony, when we all heard the cracking and breaking of nearby rocks, and noticed some small lumps detach and fall in a small avalanche down to the ice-floating water. While we continued walking and looking indifferently, we suddenly saw a crack forms out of the blue (or white??) across a chunk of the wall, and to our astonished eyes the lump glided slowly with the thunder of the crack following not far behind.
“Get it, Get it!” I shouted at Barak and the two of us lounged at the close wooden fence, cameras drawn but not as ready as we would like it to be. It took time for both of us to manage the cameras but we at the end we captured something of this crash (my camera, for the first time, didn't responded only god knows why...). In any case, I was overwhelmed of the event, to see the formation of the crack and the falling giant ice lump that I didn't cared really if I captured the event or not. It was SO amazing, nothing really mattered...

Rushing to El Chalten
We rushed back to the parking lot, got into the car and started our way back to El Calafate. Barak was seated behind the wheel and although I urged him that I can take the wheel, he insisted he is fine and he will drive the way back. I was quite tired, to tell the truth, and soon I fell asleep while the scenery changes quickly and the wide landscape of Patagonia flashed on the back seat’s windows and soon than I have noticed, we were back at El Calafate. We decided to first talk with the agency and show them the damage. It was 5 PM and we had only hour and half to get to the bus after we repacked our packs and returned the car.
At first the manager smiled broadly welcoming us but when I explained him that we have a little problem, his smile disappeared and lines of concern stretch across his forehead. He joined us out of the office and we showed him the damage and explained him what happened, and he said no problem and went into the office to call several garages in the area, looking for a cheap one so the repairment cost will be minimized. Time was also running on us and eventually he found one garage which charge around 30 USD for the fix and we accepted it (like we had a choice in any case...). We told him that we need to take our packs and that we will return the car as soon as possible. We got into the car and headed to America del Sur hostel, taking our packs and repacking the needed. Shoving them into the car, we headed to the bus terminal dropping the packs and Maya at the terminal and then heading back to the main street and getting back to the rental office. In the meantime that we went to the hostel, the kind manager already filled the necessary forms and after 5 minutes we were out of the place walking fast back to the bus terminal. We reached the terminal around 6 PM and noticed the amount of Israelis that were also heading to El Chalten – almost half of the bus! Amazing...
The bus was actually a big minibus and quickly we left El Calafate and made our way east and then north on route 40 north to little El Chalten, while passing through wild and plain Patagonia, with the gravel road stretches ahead of us for km. Wild hills on our right sometime made the scene interesting, while on the left lakes sprinkled in the slowly setting sun. We made a stop at a little weird ranch in the middle of nowhere, hosting a domesticated guanaco that played with a local dog and later tried to get into the house and be fed from the astonished/amused tourists. We had some refreshments and coffee and then continued on, heading north and little by little the bus curved with the road toward the Andean range. From a far, as the golden sun pierced between the low clouds in the distance, I noticed the formidable Fitzroy, a 3375 meters ASL giant granite rock jutting among the other teeth of this Andean range. It was such an amazing sight, to see such a spike from maybe more than 100 km away...The sun went so slowly down and when darkness took hold of the bus we finally saw the tungsten lighted El Chalten, while the bus continued on jumping through the gravel. Crossing Rio Chalten and getting into the town we dropped at the bus company around 11:00 PM.
We made our way to the hostel we reserved prior to our departure (a HI affiliated hostel) and even though I was not too satisfied with it (it was cramped with 6 bunks) we stayed there as it was late and we were VERY tired. We went outside and had one good pizza in a little resto-bar on the main street. Quickly we gripped that as this is one of the end-of-the-world towns, prices rise to the heaven and a lot of things are truly expensive! But, we didn't care, we were SO hungry we ate it all and asked for more...
Getting back to the hostel, sleep came on us quickly...