Caleta Beaulieu – 15 March 2018

Posted on 15. March 2018 by Andrea Sievers

Thu
15 Mar
2018

It had cleared up a bit during the night, so it was nice and calm in the morning. Perfect reflections of the scenery around us on the water were the first thing we saw in the morning. The clouds had lifted a bit and now we had a free view of the Cordillera Darwin: a rugged, high-alpine mountain scenery, strongly ice-covered with a mighty glacier coming down to the fjord.

And that was the thing for today.

As close as possible: Glacier, Cordillera Darwin

A longish Zodiac ride took us to the rocky shore west of the glacier. Even without the glacier, the place would be worth a visit. Glacier-polished gneiss with amphibolite lenses, beautiful to see no matter if you understand the background or not.

And then there was the glacier itself. A mighty calving cliff of ice and behind that a chaos of crevasses and ice towers. The higher parts framed by a wild alpine panorama and the lower part by – forest! That is quite unusual for me: either glacier or forest, but both of them together, that is quite unusual for an Arctic fox like me. Actually, the glacier has obviously advanced into the forest quite recently: broken trees are lying under boulders on the steep edge of the glacier. Yes, an advancing glacier! There are not to many of them anymore, but still a few. A shame we don’t have more of them.

Either glacier or forest? Both!

You don’t have to do much at a place like that, just find a nice spot – there were plenty of them anywhere – and keep an eye on the glacier (and the rest of it, for that sake). A permanent rumbling and thundering, the glacier was very active and pieces were constantly breaking off and falling into the water. Amazing!

Obviously, the hours were going by quickly.

After a little rest on board, we went once again for yesterday’s little walk up the mountain. Doing it without rain did not do any harm.