El Magnifico Paso John Garner
After we passed Glaciar Los Perros and Campo Perros, the trail ascended up the Valle de Los Perros toward Paso John Gardner. As part of another story I'll get to soon, the Paso should actually be 'John Garner' without the 'd,' but somehow the extra consonant has crept into all of the official maps. Regardless, the elevation of the pass is actually relatively low, at just over 1200 m. However, due to the southern latitude and harsh weather, the tree-line is around 1000 m, so the pass is nearly barren of plant life. Once we moved up out of the trees and into the alpine proper, the trail was marked with daubs of orange paint on the sides of numerous boulders. On the clear, warm, windless day we made our way over, these were very easy to see as the trail steeply climbed. That said, I could imagine that the route would be pretty difficult and miserable to follow if the clouds and wind had treated us to more normal fare. To amuse ourselves as we climbed, we speculated that John Garner must have been a tweed-sporting late 19th century Englishman, likely wearing both pince-nez and ascot as he blazed the trail, and commanding claret at mid-morning stops. The reconciliation of this vision with the truth is part of that other story I'll get to soon.
At the top of the pass, the weather was beyond compare, especially considering not two weeks previous to this, there were 40 cm of snow on the ground, and visibility was zero. To pay proper homage to John Garner, we brewed a cup of the Queen's finest tea in the lee of a rock windbreak, and toasted his chutzpah for forging such a fine route. The view here is to the west, from just below the saddle of the pass. The massive Grey Glacier stretches for miles up and down the valley, and its dimensions, and the volume of ice implied, defy easy comprehension. The glacier stretches over 30 kilometers from the cirque of its birth to the front that ends in Lago Grey. At this point in its path, the glacier is almost 4 kilometers across, and likely over 300 m deep. It is utterly staggering to behold, and its color is enchanting. Its immensity and its temperature mean the air is humid and cold as it rushes off the ice in all directions. For scale, note the people sitting on the rocky slope to the left.
To make this image, I took 9 hand-held vertically oriented images, and stitched them together in Photoshop. The resulting original panorama is almost 19000 pixels across the top edge and 6000 pixels in height.
Thanks for reading and for your comments!
El Magnifico Paso John Garner
After we passed Glaciar Los Perros and Campo Perros, the trail ascended up the Valle de Los Perros toward Paso John Gardner. As part of another story I'll get to soon, the Paso should actually be 'John Garner' without the 'd,' but somehow the extra consonant has crept into all of the official maps. Regardless, the elevation of the pass is actually relatively low, at just over 1200 m. However, due to the southern latitude and harsh weather, the tree-line is around 1000 m, so the pass is nearly barren of plant life. Once we moved up out of the trees and into the alpine proper, the trail was marked with daubs of orange paint on the sides of numerous boulders. On the clear, warm, windless day we made our way over, these were very easy to see as the trail steeply climbed. That said, I could imagine that the route would be pretty difficult and miserable to follow if the clouds and wind had treated us to more normal fare. To amuse ourselves as we climbed, we speculated that John Garner must have been a tweed-sporting late 19th century Englishman, likely wearing both pince-nez and ascot as he blazed the trail, and commanding claret at mid-morning stops. The reconciliation of this vision with the truth is part of that other story I'll get to soon.
At the top of the pass, the weather was beyond compare, especially considering not two weeks previous to this, there were 40 cm of snow on the ground, and visibility was zero. To pay proper homage to John Garner, we brewed a cup of the Queen's finest tea in the lee of a rock windbreak, and toasted his chutzpah for forging such a fine route. The view here is to the west, from just below the saddle of the pass. The massive Grey Glacier stretches for miles up and down the valley, and its dimensions, and the volume of ice implied, defy easy comprehension. The glacier stretches over 30 kilometers from the cirque of its birth to the front that ends in Lago Grey. At this point in its path, the glacier is almost 4 kilometers across, and likely over 300 m deep. It is utterly staggering to behold, and its color is enchanting. Its immensity and its temperature mean the air is humid and cold as it rushes off the ice in all directions. For scale, note the people sitting on the rocky slope to the left.
To make this image, I took 9 hand-held vertically oriented images, and stitched them together in Photoshop. The resulting original panorama is almost 19000 pixels across the top edge and 6000 pixels in height.
Thanks for reading and for your comments!