We’ve gotten pretty used to our friend, writer and consistently interesting photographer, Jacquie Osman, popping up all over the world on a last minute adventure. Japan. Australia. Russia. But then came the email about penguins. And Patagonia. Now, when someone tells you they’ll basically be traveling to the tip of an iceberg, it doesn’t exactly sink in at first. It’s when the photos of pickaxes and crevasses in the most sublime but deepening shades of turquoise blue start filtering in that we realized just how epic this trip would prove to be. And be thankful that we could experience the natural wonder from good ol’ terra firma.
Through Jacquie’s lens, dispatched from the end of the earth…
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It started out as a simple apartment swap in Buenos Aires, and the next thing I knew I was having a picnic lunch in the middle of the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentine Patagonia wearing a harness, wielding an ice pick and battling blisters the size of pesos.
“Bring something to sit on, otherwise it is a cold lunch, my friend.”
– tip from a friend who had previously done the Big Ice trek
We hiked for about an hour-and-a-half along the moraine, and at one point, directly through a waterfall (thank you, loaner GORE-TEX® jacket), before we reached the entry point of the glacier.
There, we strapped on our crampons and our harnesses (slightly less kinky than that sounds), got a quick lesson in how not to entangle one’s pants in the spikes and then trip and fall into a crevasse or sinkhole, and stepped out onto the glacier.
There’s nothing that’ll make you feel smaller and more humble than walking on a massive glacier with nothing but windswept ice formations as far as you can see.
And that blue! It’s unreal. I think pictures will do a better job here although they don’t do justice either:
Not gonna lie, 4 hours was a long time to spend out on the glacier. The footing was a bit dicey and the threat of falling into a deathtrap loomed constantly. And as our very warm and reassuring guides made sure to point out, “If you fall into a sinkhole, the only thing we can send for you is flowers.”
No pressure.
When we finally stopped for lunch, it was a welcome break. The food wasn’t meant to be the highlight of the afternoon – it was just a boxed lunch packed by our hotel that morning – but it was pretty tasty nonetheless. Some kind of roasted chicken sandwich with delicious avocado, tomato and the ever present in Patagonia mayo-like condiment. Side note: I don’t know what’s in their soil down there, but even the mediocre tomatoes in Argentina are write-home worthy. And I washed it all down with glacial water I’d collected from a stream.
As the only member of the hiking group not outfitted in proper waterproof gear, my Levi’s and I decided it would be a good idea to heed my friend’s advice and bring an extra Baggu to sit on, which did the trick just fine.
On the boat ride home, they served us whisky over chunks of glacial ice. If you’ve never had whisky over glacial ice, well, it tastes pretty much like whisky over regular ice. But still.