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Home* Triplogs with photo galleriesAntarctic blog → Cale­ta Beau­lieu – 15 March 2018

Cale­ta Beau­lieu – 15 March 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.

Glacier, Cordillera Darwin

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.

Caleta Beaulieu

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.

Caleta Beaulieu

crev­as­ses and towers of ice and stone

Gal­lery – Cale­ta Beau­lieu – 15 March 2018

Click on thumb­nail to open an enlar­ged ver­si­on of the spe­ci­fic pho­to.

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last modification: 2018-04-05 · copyright: Rolf Stange
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