Hanging Glaciers, Posada Magic and more!
Things were not looking good when we headed towards Queulat National Park and the trailhead of the Mirador Ventisquero Colgnate, also known as a Hanging Glacier. The cloud level was quite low and light rain was falling. Nonetheless, we had booked our entry tickets the day before and started the 3.3 km climb with 450m gain. Not an easy hike despite the local designation as Moderate, we were rewarded with mostly whiteout conditions but quite an audible show as chunks of the slowly moving glacier broke off and fell down the cliff.
Turn up the volume and watch the ice fall in the distance
A second hike to a lago at the bottom of the glacier afforded more visibility.
Crossing the suspension bridge
It was late in the afternoon leaving the park and we had dirt roads ahead with a major steep 600m climb, so we hoped to find a wild camping large enough to hold 4 tents before the hill. As the road turned up, we spotted a closed gate on the right advertising a Posada. Andrew opened the gate and disappeared down the long path inside. He returned 5 minutes later with a big smile, the house was not open for business but we could stay there for free. Serious trail magic!
Two brothers, Juan Carlos and Diego, had purchased this property recently with the goal to renovate and reopen the business. They opened up one of the cabanas, brought us a load of firewood and told us to come over to the kitchen for cooking and wifi.
Diego and Juan Carlos treating us like family
They cooked us biscuits and crepes to go with our dinners and told us details of the area plants and animals we may encounter. It was a great exchange of us trying to speak Spanish and them English and they seemed as excited to have us as guests as we were to be there!
The brothers told us of a natural thermal bath 2km away beside the river, so after dinner we went in search of a digestive soak. Unfortunately, it was high tide so the bath was flooded by the cold river water (the rivers here are affected by the ocean tides). That didn’t stop our two cold-climate friends Lara and Andrew from jumping in and finding the bubbles rising from the bottom of the bath area.
After nice hot showers and sleeping beside a glowing wood stove, we woke up refreshed, went back over to the brothers’ kitchen and discovered Diego had cooked us more biscuits during the night. We had a great morning together and they loaded us up with more bread for the day to get us through the upcoming climb. We sadly hugged goodbye and pushed off to tackle 600m of steep dirt ripio switchbacks on our way to the next village for the night with looming dark clouds ahead.
Hopefully our trail magic would hold out till the afternoon and we wouldn’t get too soaked!