March 13 2023 – Estero Las Montanas and Bernal Glacier

Estero las Montanas (Fjord of Mountains)

The zodiac in the foreground gives you an idea of the size of Bernal Glacier we were to approach

Today after cruising along the Estero Las Montanas surrounded by tall mountains with lush slopes and host to may glaciers, we loaded into zodiacs to be off-loaded on the rocky shore where we were to walk to the face of the huge Bernal glacier a few Km inland - I know it doesn't look that far but it was!  

We were surrounded by damp vegetation as we walked through the misty rain

The huge melt lake - at least one of them

Top L: Magelanic fuchsia, Top R: pretty daisies buried amongst Devil's Strawberries,
Bottom: an unidentified flower or seed cone and lots of different grasses and mosses. 

No,  not someone's pet rock but brilliant slashes of hematite.

The glacier face was further than we thought but it was quite breathtaking along the way through dense vegetation, over rocks and stones of many colours (red, soft pink, green, yellow), across melt lakes to finally crunch through rough gravel (moraine) and over massive boulders - and just to add to the atmosphere it was raining off and on!  All this just so we could touch this shimmering blue river of ice moving imperceptibly slowly until it could not support its only weight and tumbled great blocks of itself into the growing melt lake at its base. It was worth it. What an amazing beast.

We were dwarfed by the landscape

We stopped to take a selfie and admire the flowers (and take a breather)

We were aiming for that spot circled in blue - it seemed so far away over terrain that was a little challenging at times but absolutely worth the effort!

The glacier is stunning up close - the colours had to be seen to be believed.

And we made it. The last 100m or so was over big slippery boulders (I simply walked in the water). Lindsay climbed up to touch IT but it was a 'glacier too far' for me. I got within arms reach but by this time my vertigo was doing a crazy dance in my head so I didn't want to risk falling - and I was very aware that we had a 2-3 km walk to get back to the zodiac. But I got very close and touched the rocks it was temporarily resting on. I was happy!

The zodiacs were a very welcome sight.