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This is the main entrance to Torres Del Paine National Park. The lakes are really that color, due to glacial silt. Many of the lakes have glaciers calving off into them. Some are salty, and are a vibrant blue color. |
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13
Nov - 1 Dec 1999
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To see the larger picture, just click the image and a new window will open. Keep that new window open for each image; no need to close it.
This is the main entrance to Torres
Del Paine National Park.
The lakes are really that color, due
to glacial silt. Many of the lakes have glaciers calving off
into them. Some are salty, and are a vibrant blue
color.
Guanaco. They're plentiful in the east
side of the park. They sit in the roads, but they'll move
when you come up to them.
Friends Joni and Roy at Lago Grey. The
Grey Glacier calves off big icebergs into the lake. We
wanted to take the boat cruise to the foot of the glacier,
but there were so many icebergs in the lake that it wasn't
running.
Me overlooking Lago Pehoe.
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Chris at the edge of Salto Grande (Big Waterfall), which drains Lago Nordenskjöld. |
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Along Lago Nordenskjöld, with the Cuernos del Paine behind us. (That's Horns of Paine in English). The left one is Cuerno Prinicpal, some 2600m tall... and the lake is roughly at 180m elevation. The gap between the two horns is roughly 1000m deep, or some 3000' or so. |
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Me again. Hiking. This picture was taken after nine hours of hiking... on a very grueling 20km hike (with 1000m elevation gain) that Lonely Planet's "Trekking in the Patagonian Andes" book called "easy-medium". I don't call hikes that average 100m elevation gain per km to be easy. Not even with daypacks. (For the non metric minded, it's about 540 feet of elevation gain per mile.) |
Milodon. On the way to the park is the
Milodon cave, where an explorer found a snippet of fur and
bone around the turn of the century. Since Patagonia wasn't
fully explored, this find caused lots of 19th century
romantic adventurers to try and capture one of these giant
ground sloths alive. They were a bit too late, though. The
last milodon died some 10,000 years ago at the end of the
last big glacial period.
The southern end of the Panamerican
Highway, at Fuerte Bulnes, Chile, some 50km south of Punta
Arenas.
The trees are Nothofagus
something-or-another. They're closely related to oaks and
beech trees, and are very common in Patagonia and throughout
the wetter parts of Chile. They're cool looking.
Watch out for big, flightless birds on
the road!
Peek-a-boo! I can see you! And I know
what you do!
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