EXPEDITION OBJECTIVES

BIGICE2017 was conducted between the 10th and 17th of April 2017. It was a reconnaissance mission on the South Patagonian Ice field, with two main goals:

1. Reach and scout the Falla Reichert ice fall, located about 180km from our insertion point near the town of El Chalten.
2. Spend as much time as possible on the ice and get used to the conditions and challenges of the ice field.

We only had 16 days for the expedition. Considering the annual cycle of glaciers, this time of the year offers the worst conditions. We wanted to see the ice field at its worst, so we wold better be able to gauge the challenges of crossing its entire length.

It wasn’t going to be easy but this was precisely why we were going!

APPROACHING THE ICE FILED

22km over mountain trails, a technical glacier and some 200m of easy rock bands separated us from Paso Marconi – the portal to the ice cap. We were hoping to make it on day one but our 40-kg packs weren’t helping to make the going easier. After ten hours we had only gained 12km of distance. Another 10km and 1000m vertical gain separated us from the ice.

On day two we reached the so-called “Serac Barrier” – the first serious challenge on our way. This obstacle lies on Cerro Marconi Norte’s east face and is “populated” with overhanging ice cliffs – seracs. As soon as the sun gently touches these slopes with its morning rays, they begin to release tons of ice. This dance of deadly ice-blocks continues all day and through most of the night as well.

We moved through this area as quickly as possible. Ice falls missed us by a single hair several times and time stretched almost to infinity while in range of the seracs. After a grueling marathon of 15 hours and 36 minutes over ice & rock , at 01:36h on the next morning we made our first camp on the ice field.

It was time to begin observing conditions and learning from them!

HIELO CONTINENTAL

Preliminary information from the National Parks service indicated that conditions on the glaciers surrounding the Nunatak Viedma are appalling and crossing this area will be of significant difficulty. This is exactly where we planned to go. Reaching the crevasse fields to the north of Nunatak Viedma took us two days over fairly easy ground. Conditions, however, were much worse than anticipated.
High temperatures during the day and a minimum of -10 degrees Celsius at night were dictating major changes in the ice over the course of each single day. The easier crevasse fields were mogul-like formations filled with partly re-frozen melt water.

While we could quickly and easily move with skis over the flat areas, covered in firn snow, crevasses were forcing us to use our crampons and ice axes. Our movement was thus extremely slow.

We managed to penetrate 35km into the ice field, to a camp below the alpine faces of the Mariano Moreno massif. We then received info over sat phone for an approaching major storm. Our window was closing fast!
At least 4 days of low temperatures, heavy snowfall and hurricane-force winds were expected to hit after no more than 36 hours. Winter was definitely on the advance!
This meant that smaller crevasses would be covered by new unstable snow, turning the move through never-ending glacier obstacles into a game of Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun. Patagonia was discretely baring her teeth at us…

We judged the objective risks as too high. We had already learned many valuable lessons and definitely didn’t want to turn back. It was time, however, to pack things in and head for safety before we turned into another epic story of ignorance and over-reaching.
We had to listen to what the mountains were telling us.

We had two options for evacuation off the ice.
Returning through the Serac barier of Paso Marconi or finding a way to Paso del Viento, where a 25km mountain trail would lead us back to El Chalten. Without having to think too much about it, we chose the second option.

Paso del Viento was located about 12km east of us, as the crow flies. Going straight there would require us to cross the entire width of the Viedma glacier and the terrain looked absolutely appalling…Facing the choice of either going back where we came from for over 36km or crossing 10km of crevasses, we opted to try our luck with the latter, hoping to exit the ice before the bad weather comes in.

Three hours and barely 2 kilometers further the ice was getting much worse and hour speed dropped to a discouraging 134 meters per hour…With every step crevasses seemed to become bigger and harder to move over. The terrain all around us resembled an endless hell of frozen waves. It was time to stop playing about. The mountain, obviously, wouldn’t let us pass through here.

Whoever came up wit the phrase “When hell freezes over”, must have meant this exact spot in the universe…

We turned around and followed our tracks back where we came from. On ground we already knew, we moved a lot faster. We crossed the crevasses and moguls from the day before “at lightning speed” – 2km per hour… We had the luck of being able to see our trail and followed it easily. After a total of 13 hours’ work for the day and several more encounters with crevasse fields, after having navigated by amazingly beautiful ice formations emerging from the ground, we had covered 23km.
We set up camp 5km from Cerro Torre and it looked as if it was only a kilometer away. Over here, the term of “scale” grows to proportions, almost foreign to this planet.

By our camp in the middle of nowhere we found the only other life form on the ice, besides the two of us – a dead sparrow…

EVACUATION – PART ONE

“…Are you sure the pulk will go through here!?…”

On the next day we headed straight for Paso del Viento. Thirteen kilometers of ice lay between us and the Laguna de los Esquies below the pass where we planned to camp. The sunrise was unbelievably beautiful but soon turned into a godawful sight – a harbinger of the ominous storm to come. Clouds quickly covered the entire sky, the wind was biting stronger at us and temperatures were dropping fast.
We had to get off the ice at any cost!

Following the line of least resistance at the best speed we could keep up with – 4km/h – we managed to halve the distance to our objective in less than two hours. That’s when we entered the biggest crevasse field so far. Smaller and more dispersed in the beginning, they resembled a slightly turbulent sea but soon evolved into a full-blown ocean storm frozen in time….Colossal crevasses, over 50 meters wide and deep. A labyrinth of sharp ridges, intersecting each other in every direction, thus creating beckoning chasms, acting as magnets for the sledge.

Speed equaled safety and thus it was a priority. We were moving as fast as possible and with little or no protection…at about 500m per hour and our nerves were stretched to the limit. We were descending into crevasses, so we could climb up on the other other side and used the ridges between them for fast travel. Every little patch of easy ground was used to get some rest and return a bit of sense of normality to our brains…

The last few kilometers of ice turned into such a horrendous ordeal, that the sledge was constantly trying to pull us into one of the yawning turquoise chasms. We transferred our gear to the backpacks, so we could continue safely. It seemed as if the packs hadn’t gotten lighter despite the six days we’d spent here so far…

A little before sunset, after a short distance over easy ice and a few hours “in a stone quarry” we reached the crystal clear waters of Laguna de los Esquies. The nightfall bid the storm welcome…

We had spent about 148 hours on the ice. Only 32 of these presented no direct threat to our lives. But that was the end of it.
…Or so we thought…

EVACUATION – PART TWO

“…This wind is like a wild beast…it lurks everywhere around us…as if trying to sniff us out and prey on us…”

The morning greeted us with winds from the W-NW, gusting at about 15-20m/s and a light drizzle. That’s what we started calling “a breeze”. We might have come off the ice but we were far from getting off the mountains. Over the last two years, this was going to be our third time climbing through Paso del Viento – “the col of winds” – and the name was in no way coincidental…

All the way to the col, the winds were having a brawl and we had to go right in the middle of it. Our intended route climbed to the col and then had to descend the northeast slopes of Cerro Huemul in order to reach the safety of Campamento Laguna Toro. The entire area of the descent is on the leeward side of the col. This might sound reassuring, but in reality, the growing wind speed turns the slopes into a very turbulent funnel where wind gusts are extremely strong and practically unpredictable.

The more we descended into the Rio Tunel river valley, the more the wind got stronger. Upon hearing the sound of jet streams, we had about a second to react and take cover.

We would hug large boulders as though they were our most beloved friends. Other times we’d just drop to the ground or simply “go airborne” across a short section and pray for a safe landing. And there were times that felt as if Thor himself was pushing us to the ground with his hammer and kept us there until he decides we’d had enough of it. We would run from cover to cover as if under heavy machine gun fire. An endless string of bursts of running and wild terror, followed by curling up in embryonic state behind rocks and praying not to fly over them into a gully…

There are no visual means, suitable for portraying this invisible and wild element of nature. But maybe that is just how it should be. Some things simply should not be seen by our mothers…
The wind was like a wild beast…like a predator, roaming and roaring across the mountainsides – fast, cruel and relentless – searching for its next petty and helpless victim – another fool, daring enough to leave tracks on the slopes…
We realized the absurd of thinking the wind was out, specifically to kill us, but this wasn’t helping make things less horrifying….

After a 16-hour-long grueling battle with the winds, we arrived back in town. We were completely exhausted, quite frankly – scared shitless – and had a profound respect for Patagonian weather. The first conversation we had, however, was about when we would come back to the ice.
Soon after, we put our heads on the floor and slept like the dead…

The conditions on the South Patagonian Icefield are really unique and cannot be encountered anywhere else in the world. Over there, we faced a very steep learning curve.
The time spent on the ice taught us so much more than we could ever imagine.
Due to ice conditions and safety concerns, our expedition failed in reaching its main objective – the Reichert Fault – but the experience we gained about the ice field and the nature of its challenges is absolutely invaluable.

We will be back there again!

THE OUTCOME

We covered over 50km on the most technical ice field on the planet and gained invaluable experience for some of its key areas;
We studied two of our potential evac routes during the North to South crossing – Paso Marconi and Paso del Viento;
We confirmed – in practice – our opinion that getting on and off the ice will be the hardest and most dangerous parts of our future expedition;
We identified the fourth crux area of the icefield – the glaciers flowing between Nunatak Whitte, Nunatak Viedma and the plateau of the ice just south of Cerro Munoz;
We studied the boundaries and specific conditions of crevasse fields between Paso Marconi, Nunatak Viedma and Paso del Viento;
We scouted the area around Paso de los Cuatro Glaciares and confirmed our suspicions that the northern part of the icefield will be one of the easier sections;