Ice Trekking

El Chalten, Argentina

The crew is off today on the ice trek, except for Alison, Martin, Neal, Rachel and myself. The ice trek involves about a three hour hike up to a little river where you have put a harness on, attach yourself to a cable and pull yourself across. Then they hike another hour or so along the glacier fed lake until they reach the glacier itself. That’s where they put on

Leigh, the intrepid Scottish ice climber

crampons and walk on the glacier for another hour, hopping over crevasses, until they reach an ice wall. There they have a chance to try out ice climbing on the 25 foot wall, before making they’re way back.

It’s a long day, but everybody seemed to enjoy themselves. Apparently, everybody made it up the ice wall. The star of the day, surprisingly is Naomi, who apparently flew up the ice wall and is starting to really enjoy this whole outdoors thing. The only scary bit was when my Dad took a bit of a spill, but he bounced up and despite a couple of bumps and bruises, was all right. I spend most of the day in the microbrewery with Martin, Neal and Rachel.

That evening there is a big celebration in the town gym. They have a couple bands playing, so Andy and I work our way down there for a bit. Andy tired out pretty quickly, so we headed back early.