Expedition Explorers - Patagonia 2014 - part 1

The first part of this year’s Patagonian adventure took us down Rio Nadis to the mighty Rio Baker - the biggest river of Patagonia. Then we hiked up to Lago Guillermo - an inter-mountain lake surrounded with high cliffs where melt waters of three remote glaciers of Northern Patagonian Ice Field are collected to form Rio Ventisquero - 10 miles of never stopping high volume class III and IV whitewater just one degree warmer than freezing. We explored each of the glaciers and its valleys one by one: glacier Pared Norte, glacier Pared Sur, and glacier Piscis.

As always Patagonia delivered us all possible weather conditions from hot sunny days, crystal clear night skies illuminated by the light of the Milky Way to snow storms and torrential rains followed by flooding rivers. And all of this in environment of spectacular beauty of Patagonian Andes untouched by human presence.

When I look at the photos I took during that trip one moment always comes back to me. It is the evening when we were paddling between icebergs along sky tall cliffs of Lago Guillermo and more than a dozen of Andean condors were circling above us in seemingly motionless dance. Later that evening I found out that there is a big colony of these majestic birds high on those cliffs. I hope all of you one day will have a chance to inflate your packraft in this land at the end of the world.

Please see the photo story from this expedition at the link below.

Jarek.