Glaciar L’Martial Hike

 Here we go!

 The view of the Andes across the Beagle Channel.

 Mr. Enthusiasm.

 Beautiful spring time weather.

 Lots of sticky deep snow, stay in the tracks.

The end of the trail.

 John continues up to get a better view and ...

Then slides back down.

Mr. Graceful.

 What goes better with a beautiful, warm, spring, day?

A Patagonia Sierra finch picking up scraps around us.

Wednesday, November 13^th.

John and I were up by 7 and had the included breakfast which had much fewer options than the ship. We spent some time getting sorted out and then decided to go for a hike to a glacier that we were told about. We took a taxi to the start of the hike which was about 10 kilometres north of Ushuaia. First, we had a coffee at the café. Then we began the ascent to Glaciar L’Martial. We walked along a path which climbed steeply up past the tree line to where there was snow on the path. The temperature was about 14 on a beautiful sunny day and with the exertion we were able to walk in a t-shirt or  light fleece. There were a number of people on the trail. At a couple of points the path was steep with a lot of snow and the footing was slippery. There was a steep drop off too. When we reached the end point, we sat on the edge of a moraine and enjoyed the stunning view looking back out over Ushuaia and the Beagle Channel. Then we continued up to another view point climbing up through snow. Again, we sat on a rocky outcrop and enjoyed the views. We watched as three people on skis climbed the mountain up through the snow. Then John decided to go further up. He climbed up through the deep snow for a while and then slid down again on his bottom. When he got back to me, we headed down, sliding on our backsides and getting quite wet in the snow. I wound up with snow in my underpants! When the snow ended, we continued back down to the café. We sat outside in the glorious warm sunshine and had a couple of beer and then shared a pizza. Eventually the three skiers showed up. Turns out they were on split skis. They looked like a snowboard on their back when they were walking, but they split length wise and became skis. The bindings could be moved from the snowboard position to one on each ski. Plus, they could put a skin on the ski to prevent them from sliding backward as they climbed. Very cool. They were from Lake Tahoe. We also talked to two young Canadians, one from Thornhill, on a South America trip.

We stayed there a couple of hours before descending by taxi back to our hotel. After updating photos and emails we went out for dinner at a restaurant recommended by the hotel. We sat on sheep skin benches and had a very nice lamb in orange and honey dinner and a bottle of red wine. We went for another wander on the high street before settling in for another little ice cream. Then back to the hotel where we watched a Netflix film called ‘The Accountant’.