Now it’s time to go fishing.
Lonnnnng day of travel but made it for sunset. This works. 
Day 4 was our final day at Calafante, a place that really struck a cord. we knew we needed to seize the day. it was a goal of ours to summit mt friase, the mountain behind the hotel. it was a mile or two to the top and about 2500 ft of vertical. It looked simple but we have learned that everything looks smaller in Patagonia… We headed out at 10:30am. I was weighed down with a full pack of water, wine, foul weather gear, and boxed lunch (plus gear: camera, gps etc). Katie of course looked great in her latest mountain trekking outfit. Most of the hike was off trail and rambling through the brush. This was a very different experience because we got to pick our path. we had to read the land and our bodies. We would traverse when we got tired and shoot towards the top when we felt good. of course there were moments where we had no choice but climbing stairs. eventually we made our way to the rancher’s road the wound its way around the peak. we followed that around the back of the mountain and came across a family of Guanacos, similar to Lama’s. they startled us about as much as we startled them. At that point we saw the road start heading down and we made the choose to summit. the final push was through a forest of weathered trees whose shapes spoke to the intense winter winds of the Patagonian winters. We rose over a hill and finally saw the valley floor before us. the views were worth the trek. We enjoyed a glass of wine at the summit and got to look down on the falcons circling the valley. the snow covered chilean peaks were in the distance. you couldn’t ask for a better backdrop. after a nice break at the top, we started our decent down the front face of the mountain. we had horse back riding scheduled at 2:30pm. half way down we took a quick break for lunch just above Eolo. We found a cover patch on the leeward side of a knoll where we probably would still be laying had it not been for the scheduled horse back ride. once back at the hotel we collected ourselves and headed out to the horses. It was nice having the horses carry us across the valley floor to a lagoon. I don’t think there was anything left in our legs.
We rode horses. I didn’t fall. Tomorrow we RIDE AGAIN!
The “Big Eye” Moreno Glacier ‘hike’ did not disappoint. They call it a hike but it was more mountaineering. We crossed the interior glacial lake on a boat and disembarked at the company’s log cabins. They divided the group into english speakers and non-english speakers, about 20 people in each. We were the first group up the trail. It started with very well constructed boardwalks but quickly turned into a narrow dirt trail running parallel to the glacier. We reached base camp after about an hour. We had climbed a thousand feel in elevation over a little more than a mile and a half. The views continued to get better and better. At base camp we were outfitted with crampons and harnesses – this is when it set in that this was no joke. Once at the ice we split in to two groups of 10, each had two guides. The lead guide, Jorge, would be the front of the line while the second guide, Fabio, seemed to buzz all around us. I think this served two purposes; he scouted out cool formations and brought them to the Jorge’s attention and secondarily, if a pocket gave out below us he would be out of harms way and ready to assist. Lucky for us the outfit was extremely well run. Our guides had degrees in geology and were experienced mountaineers- to this day there hasn’t been serious accident on the ice. They also had a stand up routine that I found most amusing. Particularly when turned on the self-absorbed California techies who continually slowed us down by trying to capture photos of each other mid air/jumping…
We worked our way out onto the glacier and an hour later found a nice spot for lunch. The glacier provided water to refill our bottles. That was pretty cool. Eolo packed us a nice lunch which after the amount of walking we had done, we completely inhaled. After lunch we pushed further into the interior of the glacier and came across some caves. Around this time the sun also came out and our surroundings turned deep blue. It was breathtaking. We rambled about and eventually met up with the other groups on our walk back to base camp. The clouds continued to clear and ice field spilled down the mountain frozen in time radiating colors never before seen. The crevasses were glowing with alien blues confusing the mind – unnatural and so purely natural. Pictures hardly do it justice. Back at the cabin we were greeted with coffee followed by a cocktail on the boat of whiskey over glacial ice.
After nearly 24 hours of travel from New York, through Buenos Aires, through Bariloche, we finally touched down in El Calafate and made our way to Eolo along the turquoise blue shores of Largo Argintino. Eolo is located on 40,000 acres of untouched world. Those acres are surrounded by 800,000 acres that some other guy owns; he hasn’t gotten a chance to do anything to his land and is cool with guest walking around. The last thing to scar this landscape was the Glacier you can see retreating up the valley and human beings haven’t yet gotten their chance to ‘muck it up’. Lets hope never do.
Upon arrival we asked if there was a place to hike. The receptionist, Vanessa, pointed us to the large barn doors that lead out of the central court yard and said ‘Its all there to hike’. We changed and headed out and up.
I picked up Bruce Chatwins 1975 classic, ‘In Patagonia’. He did it right, so we did the same. In his own words:
“I climbed a path and from the top looked up-stream towards Chile. I could see the river, glinting and sliding through the bone-white cliffs with strips of emerald cultivation either side. Away from the cliffs was the desert. There was no sound but the wind, whirring through thorns and whistling through dead grass, and no other sign of life but a hawk, and a black beetle easing over white stones.”
― Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia
Our first hike:
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