2014/01 Chile trip - Glacier Grey |
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Tuesday January 28th
This was going to be a long day, ending with a late afternoon boat trip to the Glacier Grey on the western end of the park. It was a 
perfect day with little wind, and clear enough to see the Towers. We set off in a larger bus with driver Marcello, guides Pablo and Pauli, and Russ and Anita, Brenton and Amanda, and Marti. Anita announced that she’d contracted a cold. We were all doomed.
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Cuernos del Paine |
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We were heading west, looking out for guanaco and found these amongst the crowd, but the excitement came from
about a dozen condors circling overhead. These were Andean condors with ten foot wingspans, nearly twice the size of our turkey vultures. We saw some on the ground too, probably feeding off a puma kill. Puma is the local name for the cougar, the same cat as in BC, and they feed on the guanacos and rheas.
We walked up to an overlook where the Rio Paine widens into Lago Nordenskjold; a good view of the mountains too. 
It’s also a place to see condors but we knew they were elsewhere.
The lake eventually crashes over the Salto Grande into Lago Pehoe and we walked up to the falls where there was also a great view of the Cuernos (horns). These weird peaks were carved by glaciers, leaving dark soft rock above the cliffs of light 
coloured granite.
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Cuernos del Paine (3.32) |
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We’d passed a café ringed by buses on our way up, daytrippers from Punta Arenas, ten hours of driving for a few hours in the park. But you can see why. With all the scenery in this park, it’s hard to choose which direction to look. This panoramic was
taken above Lake Pehoe, and shows Paine Grande and the Cuernos.
We stopped for a picnic lunch at a visitor centre on Lago del Toros, thankfully protected from the wind which was back in force. We had a view from there across the lake to yet more mountains, this time to the Andes off to the southwest. This white tufted grebe came swimming by. The fritillary was one of the few butterflies out in the wind.
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Glacier Grey |
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Finally we arrived at the Hosteria Lago Grey, located on the south end of the lake. We were early for our boat trip so we had the option to just sit inside the
hosteria and look through the panoramic windows at the lake and the distant glacier. This was tempting as it was extremely windy, with an icy blast coming down from the glacier, but I took a walk down to the lakeshore where the Rio Grey begins, a roiling torrent of glacier 
water. There was a pier in the river, held in place against the twin onslaughts of wind and water by steel hawsers. Even so, it looked like the wind had blasted planks out of the pier deck. Not a place to tread on a windy day.
We drove a little way up the lake and then had a walk to the dock. Marti was not a boat person, so she and Pauli left us and went for a
hike. We crossed a flimsy suspension bridge over the incoming Rio Pingo, also a roaring, glacial river. The bridge had a six person limit and it was enforced; two guys were assigned to monitor each end of the bridge and keep count. What a job!
At the dock we had to don lifejackets and take a zodiac out to the tour boat. The people in front of me in the picture do have heads but they were ducking the waves coming in over the bow! The trip to the glacier was also rough with waves crashing over the windows behind the boat’s guide, so we didn’t see much except a few improbably blue icebergs stranded in the
shallows. 
At the glacier we were able to go up on deck and goggle at the walls of ice and the surrounding peaks. Blissfully, we were now below the wind, and the boat took us slowly along the two arms of the glacier, separated by a great rocky nunatuk. The whole glacier was tinged blue with deeper colour in the caves. The composite picture gives an idea of the variation in shapes and colours along the waterline.
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Glacier Grey (8.09) |
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Even the rocks were interesting with great swirls where the sediments had been bent and folded by the uplift of the mountains. There was no calving of ice from the glacier wall, though it must occur sometimes. It was peaceful enough for a waiter to come up with a tray of – yes, pisco sours.
I stayed on top for most of the trip back, much calmer though still cold, and then we were back on the zodiac and into the bus for a long drive back to the
domes. I shot this last picture of the Cuernos through the bus window; the weather there had changed for the worse.
Our driver looked impatient to be back and insisted on tailgaiting other traffic, and by the time we got back Sandie and I both had gritty eyes from the dust, the beginning of weeks of eye problems.
We had a late dinner and I thought I’d try octopus, actually one eighth of an octopus. Not unpleasant but little taste and a bit crunchy around the suckers.