Laguna San Rafael

(The final of the three posts on our trip to Patagonia)

On the last Thursday in December we awoke at the ungodly hour of 5:15 am (I am not a morning person, can you tell?) and once again picked up the pajama'd sleeping girls and took them on a trip.  This time we would be spending the day on a catamaran, not a plane, which made it a bit more comfortable.  The catamaran that would be our home for the day was spacious and with only about 30 of us on the boat, there was plenty of room for the girls to wander around if they got bored.  Which surprisingly, none of us did over the course of the 16 hour trip.  Yes, 16 hours.  On a boat.  With two toddlers.  It could have been horrible, but wasn't.  They were amazing and so were the sights.  We ate, we slept, we played games on the iPad.  We watched a documentary, we played Bingo and we did it all as we crossed through the Laguna San Rafael National Park.

The Laguna San Rafael Park is the largest in the Aisén region and it includes the entirety of the Northern Patagonia Ice Field.  The Ice Field is a remnant of the Patagonian Ice sheet that covered all of Chilean Patagonia and the westernmost part of Argentine Patagonia during the Ice Age.  Covered it in a sheet of ice that has been retreating now for thousands of years, and is still the second largest continuous sheet of ice outside of the polar regions.  And it is splendid, blue, shimmering ice.  Sheer and opaque at the same time.  Blue and white and gray.  Pure.  And getting to and through the ice fields is no easy feat - hence, the slow 16 hour boat ride.  At first, it was easy going but I learned that it was just because we were still in the open waters just outside of Puyuhuapi.

Good-bye civilization.

After passing the last bit of civilization we would see until docking we started our passage through the winding fjords (channels) that would lead us to the most impressive sights we had seen yet on this trip (and we had already seen some impressive sights - see Puyuhuapi  and The Lodge and Spa at Puyuhuapi).  The tallest of the Andes mountain peaks are located here, with the highest summit of all, Mount San Valentin (4.058m or 13,313 feet) about 2 hours from Puyuhuapi and as I went out front to see it as we passed I didn't take my camera out to shoot it.  Let's just say it is a pretty tall mountain.

And then it began.  We started to cross over into the Northern Ice Fields.  Randomly you would see a chunk of ice floating by...

 Then chunks would start passing by in groups...

and then they got bigger...

 and bluer...

Truly impressive and pictures really can't do them justice.  They were everywhere and you started to wonder how the boat was going to navigate through them all without hitting any of them.  These were not ice bergs but our boat also wasn't the size of the Titanic.  These "chunks" could have done some serious damage.  We did end up hitting one somewhere along the way, but it must have been small as we were on our way with engines running in no time.

And finally, we were there.  The San Rafael Glacier - huge and imposing even from miles away.  The San Rafael Glacier is largely in retreat, as are most of the 28 glaciers in the region and it is still around only because of it's elevation (about 3,600-4,900 ft) and the fact that it has a cool, moist, marine climate.  It is also one of only two glaciers that reach almost sea level on the Pacific Ocean side (San Quintin is the other).  And like other glaciers in retreat, it is impressive to see the huge pieces of ice break off and come crashing down into the lagoon.  And then to hear the huge cracking noise it makes.  Yes, you see it first and then hear it - making it difficult to catch on camera.  Because by the time you hear it and can locate where it came from it is already in the water (remember, you are starting at a huge white sheet of ice - and the piece breaking off is also white.  Makes it hard to locate).  And then the waves start.  Some pieces make huge waves, some barely a ripple.  Either way, it rocks your boat.  

We took turns getting into little rubber boats that launched off of the back of the Catamaran.  They held about 8 people each, plus the navigator (our navigator was the captain) and we took a 45 minute tour of the glacier area.  We got close.  I mean close.  About as close as you could get without being in danger of one of those ice chunks falling on you.  It was majestic.  It was quiet and it was once in a lifetime.  

A big chunk fell off, and the waves rocked us for minutes afterwards.

Tasting 30,000 year old ice!

Another boat from our crew.  That tiny dot - that's them.

 And then we got on the Catamaran for the trip to Chacabuco where we were sleeping for the night and catching the bus to the airport in the morning.  A great trip with a spectacular ending!  I highly recommend it.