Patagonia

This is Mt Osorno in Southern Chile. As you can see its a volcano and has a perfectly shaped cone which is permanently snow capped as it is above 11,000 ft.

Some more images that we took when up on the side of the mountain.

View of ice fields at the top of Mt Osorno

Looking down from the cone of Mt Osorno. The volcano is covered with ash, and nothing grows here. Its also very hard to walk up.

"Hello my Friend, big cardigan, I make special price"

Exploring the lower slopes around Osorno

The view of Mt Osorno accross the bay from the town of Puerto Varas

L in front of Mt Osorno in Southern Chile. This volcano is a perfect conincal shape and is snow covered year round.

After leaving Chile we travelled by public bus through the Andes and crossed into Argentina. Our next stop the town of Bariloche. Bariloche could not have a better location. It nestles at the foot of snow capped mountains on a lakeshore and is only about 60KM from Mt Tronador, an 11,000 footer in the Andes.

Here is L in the town square. It has a very Alpine feel with timber buildings everywhere.

At the base of Mt Tronador, the glacier is a lake full of meltwater and huge icebergs. Only about 10% of the icebergs shows above the water. As the wind whips accross the lake it gets absolutely freezing.

You can see the river of ice at the back of the lake. At the bottom of the glacier where it does not snow as much the ice gets covered with dirt so it doesn´t look very white, more a grey sludgy sort of color. Higher up it is kept white by constant snow cover on the mountain.

The sides of the valley around Mt Tronador are steep. The tops are permanently covered in snow and glacial ice which melts around the edges producing large numbers of cascading waterfalls.

This is a view from of Mt Tronador further up the valley.

Can take the heavy winter gear off now!! Its a bit warmer down here at the base.

That´s it from this corner of the world. We really need to stop wearing matching clothes.
( Check out the trousers!!!)