Lake Tahoe

A wind-blown Lake Tahoe. It truly lives up to the hype, although I never saw the sparkling blue water that you see in the postcards. It was steely grey and steely blue in turn, but not brilliant blue.

Gaucho

A real Argentinean gaucho leading us on one of the pretties trail rides I've ever been on. And I learned to ride in Wyoming!

Under the Glacier

After hiking on the glacier, we took a trip under the glacier. Where the glacier meets the rock at the side of the valley the ice has melted back so there's an overhang. Sarah and I are looking at all the little rock bits trapped in the ice. And, yes, it was that blue.

Viedma Glacier

This is the face of Viedma glacier. We took a ice trekking tour on this glacier. To get there, we took a boat across Viedma Lake. We later found out that the winds that day were from the south, which is very unusual for this lake. As a result, there were pretty large waves. It was a challenge to get photos with the horizon straight across. The glacier itself was the bluest I've ever seen. So pretty.

Condor and Poincenot

A condor soars in front of Poincenot. This shot would have been exceptional if I had Sarah's telephoto lens. Although if I had, I probably wouldn't have gotten it because I would have still been digging in my pack trying to get it out. Like Sarah was. :)

Us at Lago de los Tres

This one is probably going to end up in the Christmas card this year. It was impossible to get a bad photo here. Fitz Roy may just be my favorite mountain in the world.

Piedras Blancas - Closeup

Here's a closer view of the Piedras Blancas glacier and the small lake it drains into. This is the closest we ever got to this glacier.

Piedras Blancas

We hiked toward Fitz Roy along Rio Blanco. The mountain was visible in front of us pretty much the whole way up the river valley. The weather was absolutely perfect. One of the cool things about hiking in along Rio Blanco is that you get a wonderful view of the Piedras Blancas glacier in the way in. The other nice part is that the elevation gain is gradual up to the last ridge. Coming in from El Chalten, you have to climb over a large ridge first thing.

Sunrise from El Chalten

The first installment of what I'm sure will be many Patagonia photos. I woke up at about 6:30AM the first day in El Chalten because somebody rolled a very noisy cart down the hall. Since we were getting up at 7:00 to get on the trail for our Fitz Roy hike, I decided to just get up a bit early and see if I could catch the sunrise on the mountains. I had to go back to the hotel before the sun really hit the peaks, but I still got some nice color. Fitz Roy is the big peak on the right. Cerro Torre is the single spike in the middle.