Alberto de Agostini National Park-Chile

The ship repositioned over night into another Fjord that is part of a national park in Chile. We had a morning Zodiac landing at the Agostini Glacier. Actually the landing was on a portion of 'beach' that is composed of all the rocks that are crushed by the movement of the glacier. We had about a 1 mile walk to the small lake formed by the melting summer glacier water. We were able to get fairly close to the rocks and glacier that was carving them on both sides. We had absolutely beautiful weather - sunny skies and about 40 degrees. Very different than Antarctica. The views of the sharp mountain peaks and valleys carved by the glaciers were incredible. On our walk back to the landing, we stopped to talk with one of the Expedition Crew Members and she took us on an unofficial private tour off the walking path into the wooded area below the glacier. It is like no forest we have ever been in. It is more like a rain forest with the trees all covered in bright green moss. The ground is completely covered in thick layers of moss and lichen that is very springy and soft when we walked over it. Then back to the trail to our Zodiac back to the Polaris.
In the afternoon we had a Special OPs boat ride. They use these to get farther away from the ship than the Zodiacs can go. We went about 5 miles through fjords to view another 2 glaciers. It was similar with the steep mountains, rocky walls eroded by ice and the glacier in the valley ending in the ocean. As usual, the views were just amazing with the mountains, blue skies and blue glacier ice.Read more