Glacier Alley
Day 3 of this insane cruise, I casually wake up to this.
We've retraced our route to the Beagle Channel and sailed westward along the southern edge of Tierra del Fuego into a section of Alberto de Agostini National Park called Glacier Alley or Avenue of the Glaciers. We all file in to the dingys and we reach Pia Glacier. In the Pia fjord off the Beagle Channel, Pia Glacier is at a height of a massive 100 meters, being the highest in South America. A DREAM! Literally like what is going on?! I can’t believe my eyes from what’s surrounding me. It’s beauty overload and I can’t believe were on this piece of land in the world.
We did a little bit of a muddy hike to a panoramic viewpoint from which we were
able to fully appreciate the spectacular Pia Glacier, whose main tongue stems from the mountain tops down to the sea. Along the way we kept hearing the ice calve into the water. It sounded like thunder every time it fell. Once we got up to this insane point we all sat on a rock and soaked up the beauty.
Ever wonder why a glacier looks blue? It is so blue because the dense ice of the glacier absorbs every other color of the spectrum except blue - so blue is what we see. Trippppyy….
Once we make our way back down from the viewpoint we all sit down for a front row seat to watch and admire the glacier. Before we get back on the boat the crew offers everyone some hot chocolate and whiskey! You may be scratching your head on that one but I can assure you its tasty!
A couple of hours after that wonderful experience, the captain pulls the ship right up to Garibaldi Glacier. Garibaldi is one of only three glaciers in Patagonia gaining mass rather than staying the same or slowly shrinking. So there we were, surrounded by an ice field and the striking mountain range behind it. Oh and sea lions! It was fascinating.
