David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Views of people from around the world
A long day on the road as we traveled from Argentina to Chile. On the way we stopped at a sheep ranch (Estancia). After going through customs/immigration at the Chilean border we traveled to Lazo Estancia right next to Paine National Park.
This morning we took a boat across to the Perito Moreno Glacier. There after some history of the glacier by the local guides we hiked to the glacier where we were fitted with ice crampons. These were a relatively old style crampon that fit any boots. The guide then took us for an 1.5 hour hike on the glacier. This was a great photo opportunity to see the deep blue ice and all of the features on the glacier up close. At the end of the hike, we had a drink with glacial ice. Even though I only took one DLSR and one lens, I got many great images on this hike. During the afternoon, I started working on some images from the early part of the trip.
There were definitely more clouds this morning, and I am glad that I did the night sky images the previous day. The goal for the day was to hike to Laguna de Los Tres. This is a glacial lake at the base of Fitzroy. Both Thom and Tony were under the weather, so did not attempt this hike. The hike starts right in front of the Hosteria, and goes through some really nice wooded areas. Since it was overcast, this made for some great photo attractions but had to keep the time we stopped short to make the entire hike. There were several views of glaciers along the trail, and we heard the boom from several ice falls. As we got to the Poincenot campground we could see that the remaining part of the trail was a series of very steep switchbacks. I decided to stay around the campsite, have lunch and wait for the rest of the group to come back. Rob figured that they would be back in 2.5-3 hours. After 2 hours I could see the group through a telephoto lens still going up the hill, which was now in full sunlight. It took the group an extra 1.5 hours to do the round trip to Lago des Los Tres. As soon as the group got back to the campground, it clouded over again with wind and some light rain. The group hightailed it back to the Hosteria. Soon after we got back, the sun peaked though to give us a bit of a rainbow. I went to the back deck to try to photograph the rainbow. As soon as I did a couple of horses came into the back courtyard.
Some of us got up early in the morning to see what Fitzroy would be like at sunrise. Thom didn’t even need to leave his room since his window looked right at the Fitzroy massif. I actually went out to look a bit earlier to see the southern night sky, and realized that Orion was upside down. I hope to get some night sky and star trail images later in the trip if the weather continues to cooperate. I was able to set a camera up in several locations just in front of the El Pilar for as the early morning light began to develop.
After breakfast, we set off to El Chalten to pick up our guide and start a hike to Laguna Torre. This was a long hike with some elevation gain, bringing us to a glacial lake at the base of Fitzroy. It was relatively warm, and on the way back I could tell that I was overheating – and needed to cool down. At one point Rob, our Wilderness Tours trip leader poured some cold water from a glacial stream over my head. The rest of the hike back was then OK as long as I kept a slow pace.
We started the day riding horses on a trail to an alpine lake. Most of the group chose to ride the horses, even though many of us had not been on a horse for many years. The horses brought us to a point near the end of the trail which we needed to complete on foot. Our gaucho took an image of me riding the trail with my Leica V-Lux 20 point & shoot camera. One thing that all of us on the horses learned was the need to apply sunscreen to the tops of our hands, which were all sun-burned by the end of the trip. That afternoon after getting back to Helsingfors, we checked out and took the bus to Hosteria El Pilar just outside of El Chalten. This location is much closer to Fitzroy. So far the weather on the trip has been unusually clear for Patagonia. Note that I don’t like the color profile for these out-of-the-camera jpg images.
