Meeting Edgar

Edgar is how I named a giant glacier in Pumalin national park. The wilderness park was just recently given back to the Chilean government after being in private hands for 25 years. Unfortunately, I only had one day here, but fortunately got to make the most of the little time.

The three of us started around noon - my French travel buddy Nicolas, our new friend and adopted travel cousin Leo, and I. The plan was to hitch hike to a campsite from where we would do a 6 hour hike to the "Edgar" glacier and then hitch hike back. We got a ride quickly, but only for parts of the way. So we simply started hiking along the road. And of course, we were joined by a dog, as it always seems to happen in Chile :) (pic 2)

We soon figured that it would take too long to go all the way. So we decided to hike up a viewpoint so we could at least see the glacier from afar. On the base, a sign greeted hikers with an estimated 2 hours to get to the viewpoint. This convinced Nicolas to turn around and enjoy the rest of the sunny day in town ;) Having come all the way, Leo and I walked up the steep trail and up there, saw the beautiful glacier and the trail to it (pic 3). We were soooo close. And it was only midday. We did the math and long story short: we hiked all the way to the glacier, finishing 40km and 10 hours of hiking in beautiful weather (until it got dark and we hiked with our headlamps). And a lovely family gave us a ride back to town just after 11pm.

We certainly missed Nicolas, but had a great adventure that won't be forgotten.Read more