Training Archive: stoneIn the 7 days ending 2007-02-11:
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Sunday Feb 11 | ||
| Running (Hiking) 3:00:00 [2] | |
| going back from Laguna de Toro. On the way, I went up to another pass to watch and get some pics of Cerro Torre and Fitzroy, the mountains this place is famous for. I definitely know now why for climbers around the world, these are real test-pieces. Hundreds of vertical meters of rock and ice and snow and usually bad weather.
Going up to the pass (800m uphill) was quite tough with the heavy backpack... Cerro Torre (left) and Fitzroy (right): http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... | ||
| C • ahhh... 1 | ||
Saturday Feb 10 | ||
| Running (Hiking) 2:30:00 [2] | |
| went up to Paso del Viento ('Windy pass') to look at the ice field. On the way up, I met Ryan from California, so I had some nice company for the day. I wasn't walking slow, but he was almost keeping the speed, so I thought that he must have done some kind of training before. So eventually it turned out that he did a lot of track and cross country running some years ago, now he's more into trekking. His personal best on the mile was 4.10 when he was in high school...
We had to cross a river (which is REALLY cold and had some water in the evening) and walked along a glacier along the way. Up on the pass, the sight and weather were simply fantastic!!!! I've heard there are not many days like this one here. We looked down on the Viedma Glacier, it's 1000km2 big (compare it to Aletschgletscher, the biggest in the Alps I think and about 200km2), just one huge mass of ice. And in the distance, more ice. As mentioned before, it forms a small part of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, which I've heard is possible to cross, that would be about 7 days on 100km of glacier, cold and strong west winds, and an awesome experience. So this is also one of my (many) future mid-term projects ;-) Awesome day, absolutely amazed by the masses of ice I saw and crossed today. This is where I belong, not in an office staring at a screen. View on the Southern Patagonian Ice Field; the mountain in the back is about 30km away, and more ice follows behind it: http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... A small glacier we had to cross at the bottom on our way up (mom, don't worry, it wasn't dangerous ;-)): http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... Painful river crossing in 0 degree water: http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... | ||
Friday Feb 9 | ||
| Running (Hiking) 3:00:00 [2]+700m | |
| travelled to El Chalten yesterday evening to spend some days in the Fitz Roy National Park. Originally, I didn't plan to go here for reasons of time, but when then I found some good maps of this park in El Calafate and saw that there are some possibilites here to do some longer treks where a) probably not many people go and b) it's possible to go to the edge of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, smth which is not possible on the usual tourist programs.
Due to previous experiences with maps here in South America and although this map here at least looked pretty good, I decided that I would ask the park rangers for more details about what I was planning to do. I needed a permit ;-), which I don't really understand why, as it was (mostly) just following a trail, and they told me that I'd have to cross some rivers. So, having learned from the last tours to mnts and knowing that poles can be a big help to keep the balance, I rented two of them (I wouldn't have done this back home, as real men don't need them ;-), but I must admit now that they can come in quite handy once in a while ;-)). With 20kg on my back I hiked up to Laguna de Toro, a place to camp. What a pleasure, only a few people around and not the masses of tourists. Was really tired after the 4hr hike, the lack of training and the weight on my back took their toll. | ||
Thursday Feb 8 | ||
| Note | |
| went to the Perito Moreno glacier, one of the most impressive glaciers in the world that are still left. It ends in a lake, and all the time, huge chunks of ice break off at the front. The glacier is 5km wide at the front and about 60m (!) high, a vertical wall. Extremely impressive, never seen anything like it! And the amazing thing is that this glacier and all the other ones around here (there are much larger ones, but they're not that impressive because they don't have such a high wall of ice at their front and aren't easily accessible) really just form small fingers running down from the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, which covers an area of 600x100 km2 and is many hundreds of meters thick.
Perito Moreno: http://www.denissteinemann.ch/archive/pictures/SA0... | ||
Wednesday Feb 7 | ||
| Note | |
| in El Calafate now after a lot of travelling through the Argentinian pampa. Will see the famous Perito Moreno glaciar tomorrow, looking forward to it.
I also booked a flight to Puerto Williams next week, the real southernmost 'city' in the world (usually Ushuaia in Argentina is called like that, but it's not true). It's quite close to Cape Horn and there are supposed to be excellent trekking possibilities for several days. The new tent will certainly be tested there by the harsh weather conditions. But 'you can go to Mount Everest with this tent', the dutch guy in the store in Santiago said... | ||
| C • tent 3 | ||
