Snow Field Expedition

Day 1

After much preparation we were off. As this was an expedition the idea was to carry all our own stuff and be self sufficient with food, gas and everything we would need. As a result our bags weighed around 25k. After picking the bag up I was quite pleased I´d decided to leave my book, intensive face moisturiser and shampoo in El Chalten. This was the most weight I´d (Vicky) ever carried. I was curious and a little concerned to see how I would cope. However, after trekking for an hour through forest I was pleased to see the weight wasn´t going to be a problem and I didn´t regret ignoring the companies advice of getting a porter!

Us and our guides at the start (Freddy, lead guide on the right, Richard on the left)

The first day (described as the "easiest day") took us on a five hour trek through forest running alongside a grade three river. (Lots of fast alpine kayaking here if you can just drag a boat to the top, Phil) Through the trees we kept getting views of the mountains. Very dramatic views. We moved at quite a pace and I had the impression that Freddy was testing us a bit to see how fast we could move and to show us a bit of what we were in for. Ha Ha! As if that would be a test for us. We of course kept up and chattered most of the way. The only slightly tricky bit was clambering over steep rocks covered in scree. Helped to make sure we quickly learnt how to balance with our packs on!

Towards the end of that days trek we left the shelter of the trees behind and started headed up into the barren mountain landscape. To do so we needed to cross a river. We´d previously been warned that it was a pretty wide river and given the amount of sunshine there had been lately it would be high and we would have to wade through it. Richard had suggested we bring trainers to wear whilst crossing the river but the extra weight we´d have to carry didn´t seem to justify that so, as creative as ever, Phil thought up the idea of carrying our flip flops and gaffer taping them to our feet when making the crossing.

Sooo cold.....

It worked pretty well really except the river was absolutely freezing! The water reached up to my thighs and with a back pack on crossing was pretty tough going. Thankfully staying upright kept my mind off the freezing cold water and we only realised how cold we were a few minutes after leaving the river. Then it was sooo painful! For about 10 seconds we felt nothing but as our feet warmed up it felt like incredibly painful pins and needles working it´s way through our toes. Still, was pretty funny crossing the river!

How cold? Can´t tell, can´t feel my feet!

We camped that night at the foothill of the glaciar (Marconi Pass) we would have to go up the next day. We´d been warned that whether we would even set off the next day was very dependent on the weather conditions. If it was bad weather or a strong wind then we wouldn´t be able to go up the glaciar to cross the pass. So, we didn´t know at that point whether we would be spending a few days at that camp. As a result I got very into adding to the wall that previous campers had built to protect the tent from the wind. Got very paranoid about making sure there were absolutely no gaps in it. Think it looked pretty impressive (but slightly over the top) by the time I´d finished.

We dined well that evening on a nice three course meal of packet soup, ravioli and cream sauce and a block of choccy. Our guides kept telling us we would be glad of the energy the next day......

Day 2

Beginning of day 2 looking up the pass

We woke to beautiful weather. Very little wind and a clear blue sky. We were off!
It was uphill all day. To start with we were on scree but then we put on our crampons to begin the ascent up the glaciar and over the Marconi pass. Walking on ice was again so cool! There were so many different patterns and formations in the ice and unlike on the Big Ice tour there was no sweet assistant offering his hand to help you over the 10 ft drops. If there were drops we needed to jump over them bag and all and that made this part of the trek really fun.

Except for this river crossing, we took a bit of extra care cos the river dissapeared underground just around the corner.

After walking for a couple of hours on the ice we stopped for lunch at the bottom of the steep hard section. Looking up it didn´t look that bad and both of us suspected that we wouldn´t find it as hard as what the guides made out....

The biggest concern on this point was avalanches. As the weather had been so nice there were quite a lot of avalanches in the area and we had to cross in front of a bit of a black spot. The avalances are amazing (when viewed from a safe distance) visually they look impressive but the noise they make just shakes the valley. As we were sat having lunch Freddy had advised us that if part the the glacier came tumbling down, we had to get up and leg it to the far side of the glaciar leaving everything behind. With this in mind I kept my walking poles strapped to my hands as I could cope with the loss of my bag, but my knees just wouldn´t take walking downhill without my poles these days.

Lunch spot looking back down to the start of the pass

Looking up the pass at lunch time

So we began our ascent up the pass. This involved walking on snow still in the avalanche zone. It was a little tense because running from where we were sat having lunch would have been a doddle but running across a steep slope covered with snow and crevasses weren´t going to be that easy. We weaved from side to side of the galciar avoiding crevasses. It was so steep I only dared look down a couple of times! (I wanted to stop to take a photo but Richard said no, Phil).

Out of the avalance danger zone things became a bit more relaxed. We continued working our way up a steep snow covered glaciar. This was the first wet glaciar that Phil had walked on where people hadn´t been tied together on a rope but our guides knowledge of the moutain was first rate and he knew where roping up would be necessary. After an hour or so we reached the edge of the crevass and the guide said we could rest there for a while, they had estimated it would take us about 8 hours of walking - it took us 5 hours. (Much thanks to the lack of the expected 30mph headwind) As a wind started to pick up the guide decided that it would be safer to camp where we were and cover the top of the pass in the morning.

It was such a beautiful place to set up camp, the views of the surrounding mountains was breathtaking. Given the steepness of the slope we were on it was amazing that a flat place existed where we could pitch a tent but there was and this time Phil became slightly obsessed with building a wall around the tent to protect us from the wind.

Freddy showing Vicky the way with the top in sight

View from second night camp

Day 3

Woke to another beautiful sunny day with very little cloud so we packed up and continued on our way. We left pretty early to get the best of the weather and to catch the snow before it had turned slushy under the sunshie. We carried on up the pass crossing scree and a snow field. At the top of the snow field it was time to rope up. This was a good job as I´d already stepped through a bit of snow and my leg disappeared through a crevass. Apparently it had been farily obvious that it wasn´t a place I should stand, doh! (Not fairly, really really really obvious, Richard and I had a laugh at Vicky´s expense and hoped that it might have been an instructive lesson).

One Vicky didn´t miss.....

By this time we´d reached the top of our pass so we began to go downhill a bit on to the snow fields behind the Fitzroy Moutain range. Freddy was worried that this bit of hill would be covered in crevasses and had warned us before hand of what to do in case us or others fell into a crevass. To Phil´s great disapointment we didn´t fall into any crevasses.(I really wanted a photo of Vicky in a crevasse, Phil) It was stilll fairly early so the snow had´t yet melted. We got down the hill and into the snow field proper.

The snow field was one of the most beautiful things I´d seen. The weather was perfect so we could see from one side to the other in both directions. There was just masses of snow in front of us with absolutely no sign of any of other people around for miles.

We moved fast to try and get there before the snow turned to slush under the sun and we sank knee deep with each step, which would make the going very hard and worse than that, very wet. (Being the resident fat one, I was like the Canary in the mine and started breaking through the frozen crust on top of the snow about half an hour before anyone else, Phil).

We reached our camp spot and it had to be the most unique camp we have ever camped or ever will again! We were based in the middle of the snow field facing the back of Cerro Torre. Not many people could claim this view so we considered ourselves to be very lucky indeed!

Setting up camp on snow is fun. We had to first of all build a snow wall to protect us from the wind. It looked like one side of an igloo in the end!Our guide also made a bathroom for us behind the snow wall and over a crevass!

As the weather was so good we sat outside for a long time taking in the view. We also watched an amazing sun set that turned the surrounding mountains various shades of pink and orange.

Arriving at camp with the west face of Cerro Torre behind

Building half an igloo

This is actually the sunrise behind Cerro Torre, but hey the sunset was good too.

Day 4

Another beautiful day. We couldn´t believe our luck! We set off across the snow field in the sunshine. Never expected to be wearing a t-shirt on the snow.
The snow was very different today as it was covered in crevasses. Our guide skillfully weaved us around or across crevasses and ice hills. Again to Phil´s disappointment I didn´t fall down any serious crevasses. Every now and again I´d put my foot in another ´obviously´ weak cover of snow but was able to pull my leg back out.

One even I spotted


Crossing the glaciar

With just a small bit of ice travel remaining and all the snow gone from the glacier so we could see the crevasses our guide relaxed somewhat... To his folly. Freddy just said ´don´t step on the snow´ There were only small patches of snow where little snow bridges remained and we could step across the crevasses witout using them, so no worries, ´don´t step on the snow´. Then I saw Freddy and Phil had crossed a crevass in front of me using a snow bridge. I hadn´t seen them cross and when I saw it required stepping on snow it felt a bit wrong as we´d already been told not to step on the snow. However, as Freddy had stepped on it logic said it must be ok! So across the snow bridge I went. It took about a second for me to fall through said snow bridge up to my waist with the crevasse waiting below (remember we were not roped up at this point!). Luckily I only went as deep as my waist and with a look of fear in his eyes our guide was able to grab me and pull me up. Phil was meanwhile stood behind Freddy holding him as he had blisters and had taken his crampons off earlier! This unfortunately meant for Phil that he was unable to take the photo he had been so longing for. Think Freddy learnt a valuable lesson in not being complacent on the ice.....

(Now it should be said that Vicky has undergone a transformation. Once she was clumsy footed and incapable of rolling up her own thermarest. After all our travels, she´s pretty sure footed, puts up the tent herself, can work our rather complicated camping stove, make packet soup without lumps [I can´t], pack her own bag and carry her fair share of the trekking kit in it too. She´s not quite queen of the mountains, but she´s transformed. Sadly this transformation hasn´t involved the aquisition of any sense of self preservation or mountain sense. I saw the snow bridge, I worried about it a bit. The crevasse was wide, I guessed a 10m fall if the bridge broke. I´m heavier than Freddy who had already crossed. But I looked carefully, picked the strongest looking spot. Noticed that Freddy´s first footprint hadn´t really indented the surface and that the second one had sunk in. I moved quick, close to freddy´s fotsteps and made my second footfall as weightless as possible. I still sank in to my knee, but I was across and on to solid ice too fast to fall anywhere. Vicky, looked at it, figured we´d done it and walked hapily onto the weakest looking part nowhere near our footsteps. I was so frightened my voice wouldn´t say ´No!´. So pleased she stopped waist deep, couldvé been bad! Phil)

We covered a long distance on the snow and ice and eventually reached the point where we left the snow to walk on the scree. Before this point we had our first sights of the Viedma glaciar which was very beautiful. The patterns on it were incredible. On this final bit of snow Richard got his rewards for pulling a sledge behind him for two days on the snow - he was able to sledge down a long steep hill!

The remainder of the trek took us through terrain that reminded us both of trekking in Scotland. After the barreness of the mountain and the white of the snow everything looked so green and the yellow, white and red flowers were so pretty.

Our home for the night, looked like paradise after the snow.

The camp we stayed at that night was like a little bit of paradise. It was next to the galciar but surrounded by a lagoon and lots of greenery. The Company had also sent over a couple of porters replenishing our food supplies. On arrival we had a swim in the lagoon (it wasn´t that cold and it was nice to have a bit of a wash after 4 days of being minging!) dried off then had a feast of a meal (made very well by Richard) accompanied with a nice bottle of red wine. A good reward for covering the hardest part of the trek. (I went off over the moraine to find a loo spot. As I set off I thought probably better to put my boots on rather than these flip flops, sharp rocks and all that. Then I wandered off in my flipflops anyway, slipped and took all the skin off the end of my big toe. I returned to camp with a flip flop full of blood and a feeling of self loathing. So much for my mountain sense! Phil)

Day 5

We left our bit of paradise to trek uphill over the pass into the next valley. My legs were feeling a little tired today and I was glad we were now onto the "easy" days. That said it was a massive pass to cross with a gale force wind whipping up behind you so it didn´t feel that easy! At the top of the pass though we were rewarded with glorious views over the mountains and Viedma glaciar.

View from the pass. (and of me trying to brain Vicky, 5 days in a tent is enough for anyone!)

After crossing the pass we pushed our way through moutain trees to reach our nect camp. From this camp there were outstanding views over the Viedma glaciar and we sat for a while watching Condors swoop above it. Another glorious sunset too.

Condor (and ice berg)

Day 6

This day involved a very very steep 600m descent down to the place where our boat would pick us up.

The ground was loose and sandy so the going was pretty tough. At one point you needed a fixed climbing rope to descend. Very tough on the knees and by this point the idea of resting the next day was very appealing. (I was so pleased there was no skin on my big toe for the big decent down where it banged against the end of my boot with every step, I just can´t tell you how much fun it was, Phil)

Before getting on our boat we had a final round of Maté with our guides. Maté is a herbal tea drink. It´s a very sociable tradition as the drink is passed around everyone by the person making it, everyone takes their turn.

The boat then picked us up and we were given baileys on ice and argentinian chocolate to munch on as we had our final views of the glaciar. (it´s quite a cool feeling to radio a boat and have it beach in a deserted bay to pick you up.

An absolutely perfect end to the most perfect trip. Think it may well be my best experience so far!!
The gang enjoying a well earned Bailey´s on the way back