Glaciar Luis Martial

Over breakfast in a cafe I decide to give myself a shake and walk to the local glacier (Glaciar Luis Martial). As an aside I notice that the same 3 students I saw last night were also in the cafe. I set off at 14:00 and it's a good 40 minutes walk out of town to the start of the woodland path. It's a really good, well trodden, well marked trail with yellow rings painted around tree trunks marking the way. I put on a good pace for an hour, forever acceding until I reach a sign post. It informs me that I can either turn left up a road to use a chair lift or I can turn right to climb a really steep, difficult trail to the top. Naturally I turn right. This path is definitely not well trodden. The lack of footprints in fresh mud tell me it's not been visited for days. It's a healthy, uneven climb to the top through a couple of unforgiving mud swamps.

I note I've not seen anyone on the whole trail, except for a woman eating lunch towards the start of the first section. I figure she must have been heading down, as anyone who's organised enough to make a packed lunch must be organised enough to set out in the morning. (Note: I only had a bottle of water!) At the top of the chair lift things are different. A constant stream of people (old and young) are descended down from the mountainous walk to the glacier. (It's too late for normal people to be walk up! Just me and another lazy couple.)

Half way up I see the 3 students descending with the others. I say, "Hello!" as the dark haired girl had also noticed that I had kept popping up. A mad scrabble to the end and I make it to the glacier in under 3 hours. 3 hours uphill at pace - that must have been a shock to the body. It's been sat on a bus, drinking beer for the past month!

On the glacier itself a group of 3 guys are attempting to climb higher - 2 with crampons, 1 without. The one without has an ice axe and is struggling both on the glacier and on the rocks. I quickly survey the landscape, whip across the ice, over a rock face, up the bed of a trickling stream and wait for him at the top of the section. It's one of the few things I "know" I'm good at. (Girls keep telling me I'm good at other things, but they could be making it up!?) He seems a little upset and as he starts acceding the next section he says, in a very public school boy accent, "And I suppose Mr Fancy pants here will waltz past me again reading a newspaper!" "I'm afraid not," I reply, "I forgot to bring a newspaper." Again, I survey the landscape then begin scaling a sheer rock face as my companion struggled up the icy glacier with his axe. Halfway up I'm over come by common sense and decide to descend instead. Should I slip (very unlikely but I've heard it's possible) I had no means to arrest myself and I'd feel guilty relying on 3 strangers to attend to any resulting injuries.

I enter the cafe at the bottom of the chair lift after walking down the snow-less ski slope, only to greet the 3 students again who were just leaving! I felt it impolite not to introduce myself. They leave, I order a beer, I notice they were all drinking soft drinks. I whizz down the wood land trail, run out of the woods and spot the students again. I greet them with a, "Either you walk too slow or I drink too fast!" suspecting the answer to be a bit of both. I chat to Vicky, Claire and Jez on the walk back to town and get invited to dinner. They're cooking in their hostel so I take round a bottle of white, a bottle of rose and a bottle of red - just to cover all tastes! (Shesh, it cost me twice as much as dinner out would have!)

Dinner was a perfectly reasonable Bangers'n'Mash with green beans and sweetcorn. We then retire to the lounge upstairs with more wine, to join the guitar playing foreigners. Not my ideal setting but the girls make up for it by being riveted to my stories of jungle, machetes and adventure. So much so, Jez gets bored and packs in early! Oops! Unfortunately the lounge closes at 01:00, the girls head for bed and I leave, but not before we arrange to meet for dinner the following night.

Posted by Steve Eynon