At some point Vicky noticed that you could go up to a place called lago del Desierto she also said you could have a walk to the lakes in Chile. It’s supposed to be beautiful and as very few tourists go there, rather untouched. Sounded good to me, so I had a closer look at the map. It turns out you could indeed cross the border there into Chile. And with a bit of work you can walk to Chile’s national park O;Higgins. Of course to get there and back you have to walk for a few days, wade through 5 or six rivers and cross a glacier. I was hooked! Vicky on the other hand, was not sleeping on account of getting dreams about dying in a crevasse on said glacier. After three days of worry she decreed that she wasn’t going.
I was gutted.
I even went for a run up a hill for an hour… I do not run! I definitely do not run up hills!
After a further 2 days Vicky decided that watching me be miserable was worse than dying in a crevasse. So the big trip of lunacy was back on.
So we went and bought ice axes, crampons, rope, ice screws, karibiners and enough food for a 10 day trip. Oh, and we worried my parents a bit I think. Being sensible we left a message saying where we were going, and a contact of a company that would be prepared so send some people looking for us if we didn’t come back on time. It was sensible, in the end we didn’t see anyone for 7 days. So a broken leg would have been a real problem, but I guess my parents may have worried a bit. (Sorry)
Anyway, I was happy. Vicky was not, we were still packing and sorting things out at 2am. Which, is officially well past her bedtime unless she’s drunk, and she wasn’t. She was stone cold sober, tired and worried about snuffing it in a crevasse.
So day 1 and we got a transfer to Lago Del Desierto and then the police launch took us across to the northern end of the lake. They stamped our passports to let us exit Argentina and then pointed 15km further north on the map, to where the Chilean Carabineros would happily stamp our passports to enter Chile. This was something of a blow, because we were supposed to be going about 8km west that day, not 15km North. Why the hell would you put 15km between border posts? A gate and 200m seems to be more normal.
So laden with very heavy bags we set off for the Caribineros. 6 hours later we arrived. They were very helpful. They took a record of where we intended to go and when we were due back. They asked sensible questions….
Have you got a first aid kit? - Er… Gaffa tape, a big dressing, Anadin, blister patches and some insect repellant.
What will you do if you break a leg? - hop
They seemed less than impressed with these answers. They told us to take their radio frequency and try to call in occasionally to let them know we were ok. This led to …
Have you got a radio? - No
So they suggested that we call in at one or two of the estancias who do have radio’s.
It’s probably worth noting at this point that there are 3 Estancias in the area we were headed for, each of which has one small wooden hut, at least one resident (sometimes 2) and about 100 square miles of empty land. Part of our route required crossing back across the lake with the aid of a boat from one of the Estancias. We did ask the Caribineros if the estancia had a boat. ‘They said yes, no problem, you can cross every day’.
Anyway, we agreed to radio in from the Estancias. This made the border official happy and happy border officials are good for being able to continue your trip.
However, we didn’t have any Chilean pesos with which to pay the Estancias for the use of their lands, or radios. So we lied about where we were going and headed off in the other direction with no intention of radio contact.
We had to cover another 4km in order to reach a suitable campsite. So we headed off on our first trail marked in dotted lines instead of nice, regularly used paths marked in solid red. We followed what looked like a path and after about an hour it took us to an open grass area and a disused half broken wood hut. Nice place to camp, First day done, excellent day.
It snowed overnight. I failed to get out of bed until 11. So at about 12 we set off following the same path like thing, but this time it rapidly turned into something that looked nothing like a path. It did look a lot like a hillside covered in trees and deep shrubs with snow and bogs. 4 hours later we fought our way into the valley we wanted and were rewarded with some open ground and a river to wade.
I was gutted.
I even went for a run up a hill for an hour… I do not run! I definitely do not run up hills!
After a further 2 days Vicky decided that watching me be miserable was worse than dying in a crevasse. So the big trip of lunacy was back on.
So we went and bought ice axes, crampons, rope, ice screws, karibiners and enough food for a 10 day trip. Oh, and we worried my parents a bit I think. Being sensible we left a message saying where we were going, and a contact of a company that would be prepared so send some people looking for us if we didn’t come back on time. It was sensible, in the end we didn’t see anyone for 7 days. So a broken leg would have been a real problem, but I guess my parents may have worried a bit. (Sorry)
Anyway, I was happy. Vicky was not, we were still packing and sorting things out at 2am. Which, is officially well past her bedtime unless she’s drunk, and she wasn’t. She was stone cold sober, tired and worried about snuffing it in a crevasse.
So day 1 and we got a transfer to Lago Del Desierto and then the police launch took us across to the northern end of the lake. They stamped our passports to let us exit Argentina and then pointed 15km further north on the map, to where the Chilean Carabineros would happily stamp our passports to enter Chile. This was something of a blow, because we were supposed to be going about 8km west that day, not 15km North. Why the hell would you put 15km between border posts? A gate and 200m seems to be more normal.
So laden with very heavy bags we set off for the Caribineros. 6 hours later we arrived. They were very helpful. They took a record of where we intended to go and when we were due back. They asked sensible questions….
Have you got a first aid kit? - Er… Gaffa tape, a big dressing, Anadin, blister patches and some insect repellant.
What will you do if you break a leg? - hop
They seemed less than impressed with these answers. They told us to take their radio frequency and try to call in occasionally to let them know we were ok. This led to …
Have you got a radio? - No
So they suggested that we call in at one or two of the estancias who do have radio’s.
It’s probably worth noting at this point that there are 3 Estancias in the area we were headed for, each of which has one small wooden hut, at least one resident (sometimes 2) and about 100 square miles of empty land. Part of our route required crossing back across the lake with the aid of a boat from one of the Estancias. We did ask the Caribineros if the estancia had a boat. ‘They said yes, no problem, you can cross every day’.
Anyway, we agreed to radio in from the Estancias. This made the border official happy and happy border officials are good for being able to continue your trip.
However, we didn’t have any Chilean pesos with which to pay the Estancias for the use of their lands, or radios. So we lied about where we were going and headed off in the other direction with no intention of radio contact.
We had to cover another 4km in order to reach a suitable campsite. So we headed off on our first trail marked in dotted lines instead of nice, regularly used paths marked in solid red. We followed what looked like a path and after about an hour it took us to an open grass area and a disused half broken wood hut. Nice place to camp, First day done, excellent day.
It snowed overnight. I failed to get out of bed until 11. So at about 12 we set off following the same path like thing, but this time it rapidly turned into something that looked nothing like a path. It did look a lot like a hillside covered in trees and deep shrubs with snow and bogs. 4 hours later we fought our way into the valley we wanted and were rewarded with some open ground and a river to wade.
FIRST VIEW OF THE VALLEY
Thankfully the river was only a foot or so deep, so out came the flip flops and across we went. We spent another 2 hours heading up the valley into strong winds and found some sheltered flat land to camp on the pass just before the valley heads down the other side.On the third day we got down into the next valley and got the first view of the glacier.
FIRST VIEW OF GLACIER CHICO. (our route runs left to right just above the rock buttress you can see on the right of the glacier.)
It didn’t look that far away. After 4 more hours of walking it still looked just as far away as it had at the start. That had a fair amount to do with the fact that it was a long way away, but far more to do with the fact that we couldn’t find a path and so had to kick through shrubs again. But we got to a really nice field to camp in with a view back over the lake at the end of the day. There was also a stream nearby to take a bathe in and the sun was out to warm us back up afterwards. 
REALLY NICE CAMP
Fourth day and we set off for the glacier again. Thanks to more path absences we managed to move about 5km in around 5 hours. We were knackered, but we found a path at a river crossing at the right altitude and so figured we were only about half an hour from a campsite. So happy in the knowledge that we were nearly home for the night we headed off for camp. Vicky promptly slipped on a marshy bit of land and sprained her ankle…
There were a few very worrying minutes, but after a bit she found she could walk well enough to hobble to camp. (Along the way was another river to cross. Unable to hop across, Phil threw some big rocks into said river so that I could work my way over. The ‘Patagonian Man’ was emerging – Vicky.) The camp was terrible, infested with tiny biting flies and 20 minutes walk from the nearest water. Still, it did for the night.
WORRYING TIMES<>
So day 5 started with us heading off towards the glacier (again) this time a little worried about Vicky’s ankle. We immediately lost any trace of a path and after 3 hours of kicking our way up steep slopes through shrubbery and trees it was clear that Vicky’s ankle had been thoroughly tested and it was ok. Her ankle was weaker, but wasn’t hurting too much and she could hike no problem. One worry off the list. We had lunch on top of the mountain at viewpoint Agostini and then headed down to our next river crossing. It took me 45 minutes to find a place I was happy to cross the torrent of water that was tumbling down the hill at about 45 degrees. We were close to having to turn back and even when we did cross, it was on ropes, just in case.
IS MY WIFE AMAZING OR WHAT? (mind you I did have to say smile for the camera to get the second photo)
We got to the glacier fairly easily about 2 hours after that.
GLACIER DAY!
I was so worried that after all the hard work getting there, the wind would pick up again and it’d be too dangerous to cross. But thankfully we had a calm overcast morning and so we headed off onto the glacier. The crevasses were big but safe enough and crossable. The centre of the glacier was even easier and thankfully, getting off at the far side was ok too. We used the ice axes to make life easier and safer a few times, but it would have been enough just to have crampons. It took us 3 hours to cross.
The map indicated that we just drop down the first valley on the far side of the glacier. Nope, that would be a cliff face. Try valley 2…nope cliff face…head for valley 3. Big fat gorge 50 meters deep. Ok head uphill till you get to the top of the gorge. It was about 2km and 300m higher up, but we finally got ourselves above a big waterfall to where the river wasn’t in a gorge and could be crossed.
Up until now we’d crossed rivers in perfect, warm sunshine. The wind had risen to gust 30mph and it was blowing drizzling down from the ice field. Still the river didn’t look too deep. I stripped down to boxer shorts and stepped in. Up to my knees, not too deep… Two more steps and my cahonas were getting wet. I’m 6’2” and while wading glacial rivers, I promise, my cahonas are pretty high up. There was only one good side to this I reasoned. Vickys 5’6” and was going to get soaked! It got up to her belly button and the look on her face was pure misery and very funny.
Having crossed the river we still had to get down into the valley bottom. The next gully over after the gorge turned out to be ok to get down. It was still steep enough not to want to fall and we filled our hands with splinters (in my case my arse too given that I had five points of contact on the steepest parts - Vicky) down most of the gripping the thorny plants on the way down, but it got us to the bottom.
By this time the wind was up to 50mph at times and hard to walk against. It stopped me dead on one occasion in the valley bottom and sat Vicky down on her bum at one point. Anyway we found a spot behind a big pile of rocks that we could set up a tent. Took us 11 hours in total to get there.
(Vicky - Have to say this was the toughest day of trekking I had EVER done in my life. Crossing the glacier was psychologically scary for me but apart from landing heavily on my knee at one point whilst crossing a crevasse, it was actually no problem. However the following 8 hours involved a physical and mental battering and at several points I really thought we wouldn’t make it to the next camp. Thankfully, my ‘Patagonian Man’ was in his element and was leaping all over the mountain finding us the best route and stuffing me with food and drink to keep energy levels up. No meal will ever beat that Beef stew and the steaming mug of hot chocolate we had that tucked up in our tent that night. Will also never forget how the wind sweeping through the valley sounded that night. It was like a hurricane coming towards you that you first hear two minutes or so away. You then have to sit and wait in your tent as it gets closer and louder on approach. When it hit the tent would rock and at times I felt it lift our legs. Listening to the wind was far more exciting than sleeping. Needless to see, Phil slept like a baby through the night!)
Next morning, I was dead on my feet. The route led straight up the next hillside at about 45 degrees for 400m of ascent. The previous day I’d been the one encouraging Vicky on, that morning it was the other way around. We made good progress though and got up and over the next pass another 350m up at 1250m in about 3 hours. There were some amazing views out onto the icecap and at new glaciers in o’higgins national park. Then we headed down to the camp a few hours walk away.
'PATAGONINA MAN' LOOKING PLEASED WITH HIMSELF ON THE BOAT HOME.
US ON THE BOAT HOME.
REALLY NICE CAMPFourth day and we set off for the glacier again. Thanks to more path absences we managed to move about 5km in around 5 hours. We were knackered, but we found a path at a river crossing at the right altitude and so figured we were only about half an hour from a campsite. So happy in the knowledge that we were nearly home for the night we headed off for camp. Vicky promptly slipped on a marshy bit of land and sprained her ankle…
There were a few very worrying minutes, but after a bit she found she could walk well enough to hobble to camp. (Along the way was another river to cross. Unable to hop across, Phil threw some big rocks into said river so that I could work my way over. The ‘Patagonian Man’ was emerging – Vicky.) The camp was terrible, infested with tiny biting flies and 20 minutes walk from the nearest water. Still, it did for the night.
WORRYING TIMES<> So day 5 started with us heading off towards the glacier (again) this time a little worried about Vicky’s ankle. We immediately lost any trace of a path and after 3 hours of kicking our way up steep slopes through shrubbery and trees it was clear that Vicky’s ankle had been thoroughly tested and it was ok. Her ankle was weaker, but wasn’t hurting too much and she could hike no problem. One worry off the list. We had lunch on top of the mountain at viewpoint Agostini and then headed down to our next river crossing. It took me 45 minutes to find a place I was happy to cross the torrent of water that was tumbling down the hill at about 45 degrees. We were close to having to turn back and even when we did cross, it was on ropes, just in case.
IS MY WIFE AMAZING OR WHAT? (mind you I did have to say smile for the camera to get the second photo)We got to the glacier fairly easily about 2 hours after that.
GLACIER DAY!
I was so worried that after all the hard work getting there, the wind would pick up again and it’d be too dangerous to cross. But thankfully we had a calm overcast morning and so we headed off onto the glacier. The crevasses were big but safe enough and crossable. The centre of the glacier was even easier and thankfully, getting off at the far side was ok too. We used the ice axes to make life easier and safer a few times, but it would have been enough just to have crampons. It took us 3 hours to cross.
START MIDDLE AND CLOSE TO THE END OF THE GLACIER CROSSING.
The map indicated that we just drop down the first valley on the far side of the glacier. Nope, that would be a cliff face. Try valley 2…nope cliff face…head for valley 3. Big fat gorge 50 meters deep. Ok head uphill till you get to the top of the gorge. It was about 2km and 300m higher up, but we finally got ourselves above a big waterfall to where the river wasn’t in a gorge and could be crossed.
Up until now we’d crossed rivers in perfect, warm sunshine. The wind had risen to gust 30mph and it was blowing drizzling down from the ice field. Still the river didn’t look too deep. I stripped down to boxer shorts and stepped in. Up to my knees, not too deep… Two more steps and my cahonas were getting wet. I’m 6’2” and while wading glacial rivers, I promise, my cahonas are pretty high up. There was only one good side to this I reasoned. Vickys 5’6” and was going to get soaked! It got up to her belly button and the look on her face was pure misery and very funny.
Having crossed the river we still had to get down into the valley bottom. The next gully over after the gorge turned out to be ok to get down. It was still steep enough not to want to fall and we filled our hands with splinters (in my case my arse too given that I had five points of contact on the steepest parts - Vicky) down most of the gripping the thorny plants on the way down, but it got us to the bottom.
REWARDED BY A RAINBOW AFTER CROSSING THE GORGE.
VIEW DOWN TO THE GLACIER (We're headed for the valley to the left of the glacier, the valley bottom is 500m away and 500m down.)
By this time the wind was up to 50mph at times and hard to walk against. It stopped me dead on one occasion in the valley bottom and sat Vicky down on her bum at one point. Anyway we found a spot behind a big pile of rocks that we could set up a tent. Took us 11 hours in total to get there.
(Vicky - Have to say this was the toughest day of trekking I had EVER done in my life. Crossing the glacier was psychologically scary for me but apart from landing heavily on my knee at one point whilst crossing a crevasse, it was actually no problem. However the following 8 hours involved a physical and mental battering and at several points I really thought we wouldn’t make it to the next camp. Thankfully, my ‘Patagonian Man’ was in his element and was leaping all over the mountain finding us the best route and stuffing me with food and drink to keep energy levels up. No meal will ever beat that Beef stew and the steaming mug of hot chocolate we had that tucked up in our tent that night. Will also never forget how the wind sweeping through the valley sounded that night. It was like a hurricane coming towards you that you first hear two minutes or so away. You then have to sit and wait in your tent as it gets closer and louder on approach. When it hit the tent would rock and at times I felt it lift our legs. Listening to the wind was far more exciting than sleeping. Needless to see, Phil slept like a baby through the night!)
Next morning, I was dead on my feet. The route led straight up the next hillside at about 45 degrees for 400m of ascent. The previous day I’d been the one encouraging Vicky on, that morning it was the other way around. We made good progress though and got up and over the next pass another 350m up at 1250m in about 3 hours. There were some amazing views out onto the icecap and at new glaciers in o’higgins national park. Then we headed down to the camp a few hours walk away.
GLACIERS FEW PEOPLE EVER SEE 
Day 8 we set off early, both having admitted that we were a little nervous about being able to cross the river at the Estancia, we wanted to get there early. And that’s what we did, by 11am we’d made it to said estancia to find there was nobody home. This wasn’t good. If we couldn’t cross we had 5 days of backtracking to do with only 3 days of food remaining. After a bit of sweating we found his little row boat and as the lake narrowed to only 100m I rowed us and the bags across. Unfortunately, the boat belonged on the other side, so I rowed back. I debated swimming back across. 100m, easy I thought. I got to mid thigh, admitted to myself that I couldn’t feel anything below the knees and realized there was a good chance I actually couldn’t swim 100m in water that cold. So Vicky went off to the other Estancia to see if they had a boat. It was about 40 minutes away. I sat. Then I thought about what I’d say if the Estancia owner returned to discover I’d used his boat. Sorry seemed a good start and my Spanish was up to that. However explaining why I was sat there enjoying the sun in a pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt was probably beyond my Spanish speaking abilities. So I borrowed his boat for a second time and went to get the trousers I’d left on the other bank when I was planning on swimming. Then I sat some more.
Vicky returned to tell me that the other Estancia owner was at home, was a cat lover, seemed very helpful, but didn’t have a boat. So now it was wait and worry time. We had a look around. Estancia is quite a grand word, what it really means is lots of land and a garden shed to live in. And you need to picture your great grandfathers garden shed here, held together with huge nails, putty applied with a knife and badly fitted chunks of tree. It wasn’t going to fall down, but ‘shelter’ is a much better description than ‘home’. God knows what it’s like in winter. I was just getting to the stage of looking for driftwood for a raft when the estancia owner returned.
PHIL ROWS THE BOAT BACK
Thus began a ten minutes conversation in Spanish with a man who doesn’t use his lips when speaking. He had a cigarette in his mouth the whole time and it didn’t ever wobble when he spoke. There are some conversations that go faster if you’re a girl. If I’d had breasts and a winning female smile, it would have been easy. I had a beard, a 7 day without a wash smell and a lot of difficulty explaining how my wife was already on the other side. In the end though he was happy and we settled on a price of 500 pesos (50p) per person to cross. I didn’t have any Chilean pesos, so I gave him the next best thing, a twenty quid note. He was a little unsure, but I’m confident that one day, he’ll be very happy.
Anyway we set off again and headed back up the pass to camp where we were on night 2. Safely on the route back.
On the last day we set off early, returned to the Caribineros and then headed back to Argentina.
Day 8 we set off early, both having admitted that we were a little nervous about being able to cross the river at the Estancia, we wanted to get there early. And that’s what we did, by 11am we’d made it to said estancia to find there was nobody home. This wasn’t good. If we couldn’t cross we had 5 days of backtracking to do with only 3 days of food remaining. After a bit of sweating we found his little row boat and as the lake narrowed to only 100m I rowed us and the bags across. Unfortunately, the boat belonged on the other side, so I rowed back. I debated swimming back across. 100m, easy I thought. I got to mid thigh, admitted to myself that I couldn’t feel anything below the knees and realized there was a good chance I actually couldn’t swim 100m in water that cold. So Vicky went off to the other Estancia to see if they had a boat. It was about 40 minutes away. I sat. Then I thought about what I’d say if the Estancia owner returned to discover I’d used his boat. Sorry seemed a good start and my Spanish was up to that. However explaining why I was sat there enjoying the sun in a pair of boxer shorts and a t-shirt was probably beyond my Spanish speaking abilities. So I borrowed his boat for a second time and went to get the trousers I’d left on the other bank when I was planning on swimming. Then I sat some more.
Vicky returned to tell me that the other Estancia owner was at home, was a cat lover, seemed very helpful, but didn’t have a boat. So now it was wait and worry time. We had a look around. Estancia is quite a grand word, what it really means is lots of land and a garden shed to live in. And you need to picture your great grandfathers garden shed here, held together with huge nails, putty applied with a knife and badly fitted chunks of tree. It wasn’t going to fall down, but ‘shelter’ is a much better description than ‘home’. God knows what it’s like in winter. I was just getting to the stage of looking for driftwood for a raft when the estancia owner returned.
PHIL ROWS THE BOAT BACKThus began a ten minutes conversation in Spanish with a man who doesn’t use his lips when speaking. He had a cigarette in his mouth the whole time and it didn’t ever wobble when he spoke. There are some conversations that go faster if you’re a girl. If I’d had breasts and a winning female smile, it would have been easy. I had a beard, a 7 day without a wash smell and a lot of difficulty explaining how my wife was already on the other side. In the end though he was happy and we settled on a price of 500 pesos (50p) per person to cross. I didn’t have any Chilean pesos, so I gave him the next best thing, a twenty quid note. He was a little unsure, but I’m confident that one day, he’ll be very happy.
Anyway we set off again and headed back up the pass to camp where we were on night 2. Safely on the route back.
On the last day we set off early, returned to the Caribineros and then headed back to Argentina.
VIEW OF FITX ROY AND CERRO TORRE FROM THE BORDER PASS
There was a boat on Lago Del Desierto at 7pm and driven by the need for a shower we covered 30km that day. Shower was fantastic.
'PATAGONINA MAN' LOOKING PLEASED WITH HIMSELF ON THE BOAT HOME.
US ON THE BOAT HOME.
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