Volcano climb - piece of cake!

OK, so it was actually quite tough but we made it. We set off at 8am armed with ice picks, crampons and a rucksack full of protective clothing. We arrived at the crater of the volcano about 1pm after Sharon´s brush with death as she almost fell off the side of the mountain. She was saved by plunging her ice pick into the snow and "hanging" from it.

Actually, in reality the snow was very soft and the only danger she was in was having to climb up the same part of the volcano twice. But given how shattered she was, she might not have made that!


At the top, the views were lovely and we got to see inside the crater as well - lots of bubbling magma and sulphurous gases - yuk, they made you choke. We just about had time to eat lunch before the descent back down. We´d been dreading this as most of the ledges we´d climbed up were pretty narrow and steep. But we didn´t climb down, we slid down which was great fun (but cold and wet). The only problem is using your heels as brakes does tend to spray cold snow into your face - not pleasant! But you can get quite a speed up sliding down for 1000 metres!

The photos don´t really do it justice as we spent most of the time desperately clinging on to ledges and ice picks so could only take photos on the flatter bits.

Next, we travel down to El Chalten, which will take us a couple of days including an over night ferry through the Chilean fjords (shame it´s at night). Then we might do some more climbing at Mount Fitzroy if our legs have recovered!