1. Patagonic Ice Camps: The End of the Earth

Medieval cartographers imagined a flat Earth; to which extremes was not really One of the key moments of the expedition was crossing the Cordón de Aisén, a mountain range close to 3000 meters of altitude that crosses the Ice Camp. José and Hilo found themselves forced to ascend with bad weather through very steep slopes with frequent avalanches, and to look for the so called “Paso Colonia”, the only pass that, according to the information of former expeditions, offers a frank access to the other side of the mountains. Luckily, they got to reach the pass just in time to mount the tent as long as the wind was getting worse. The following storm kept them trapped for two days, until the third day when the conditions got better enough to let them see the way down. “It was really lucky”, Hilo reminds. “A squall can stay in North Ice Camp for weeks”. After that, the expedition members went on south direction negotiating cracks until, on the 13rd of December and after 25 days, they stepped on green grass once again, at the Steffen glacier’s foot. Nevertheless, the ice end did not mean the trip end at all.

The end is the beginning

“When you get to the grass, you leave the glacier by one side right at the end of the ice mass, and you have to go looking for a settler couple that are supposed to live over there”, Mijares remarks. “We didn’t even know if they were there; there was no way to contact them beforehand”. Fortunately, they were at home, but not only that they were very open and willing to help transporting the expedition members and their load by horse and boats, during two days through valleys and rivers full of icebergs, to the closest inhabited town: Caleta Tortel’s village, a group of shacks hanging over the fjord, and with the look of being the last place on earth.

Despite of the difficulties found along the way, José and Hilo can only keep good memories of what they call a “fabulous trip” along lands where there’s no trace of human influence. “During all the way we did not see anybody”, Mijares comments. “Following the daily planned direction, between cracks and fog, was an adventure. And in the moments when the clouds let us, we saw the infinity of summits that have not been climbed yet”.
For this reason, both are impatient to start the second part of this stage: South Ice Camp, the third biggest ice extension of the planet (after the Antarctic and Greenland) and the biggest out from the Polar Regions.

Back to South

José and Hilo already knows what it’s waiting for the: they know the type of terrain, the weather, the material they must carry. Nevertheless, South Ice Camp raises a lot of questions. Its extension, four times North Camp, will make them carry a very heavy load, no matter how good they optimize each gram, and the access to ice are going to be long and complicated.
Chances to manage a rescue en case of problems are really lower than in their previous expedition. The absence of references or level curves on the maps and the enormity of the glacier plateau once on the ground will make really hard to trace routes and to have a right orientation. Besides, here they won’t find any settlers who help them to go back to civilization when they get out of the ice. In fact, arranging the logistics of this trip will be a challenge almost as big as crossing the ice. But everything is possible with patience, work and some inventiveness.
After weighing up a lot of options, José and Hilo think that have found with the solution to the problem of the access to the glacier. They will approach and leave the ice by canoe. And with it this will become a double expedition, by sea and by ice.