South Patagonia Ice-Cap: a view from above

A beautiful image of a portion of the Ice-Cap, taken in March 2007 by NASA (file in public domain taken from Wikipedia).

We can tell the photo was taken around mid-morning because the teeth-like shadows of the mountains are projected on the flat surface of ice pointing roughly south-west. The height from which the photo was taken is undisclosed.

The denuded granitic intrusion that makes up the FitzRoy and Torre towers is at the lower left corner. The long glacier tongue extending to the right with a distinct medial moraine is Glaciar Chico flowing towards Lago O´Higgins.

The nature of the Ice-Cap can only be fathomed from above, as is portrayed in this image: the vast areas of featureless ice standing between seemingly isolated mountain groups indicate that relief below 1500 meters above sea level is buried under thick layers of ice.

Among the mountains rising "like islands in an ocean", the bulk of Volcán Lautaro (up to 3627 m high) stands out at the top of the photo, a little to the right of the center.

Future entries in this blog will deal with volcanic activity in the area, and with the heroic first crossing of the Ice-Cap, in 1951.

Receding glacier in the Fitz Roy area

Glaciar Grande at Lago Torre (photos from 1990 and 2013)

As far as I know, no photos have been published comparing the dramatic changes this glacier has gone through in the last few years.

In the early 1990s the glacier still held a grip on the peninsula and island, but its loss of overall mass was becoming apparent on its "deflating" surface. 

By 1999 local mountain guides were regularly taking tourists onto the ice for a short hike with crampons. The front of the glacier was becoming detached from the tip of the peninsula. Most noticeably from 2002 onwards was the fact that people had to walk a little further down the slope from the forest above in order to reach the ice.

More and more people enjoyed the experience of this "Glaciar Torre Ice-Trek" while the tongue of ice moved away from the island around 2005.

In november 2011 the ice remaining in the corner of the peninsula and the slope gave way. With its melting away the slope directly above it became so unstable it made scrambling down it extremely dangerous. Now only climbers going to Cerro Torre and other mountains approached via the glacier attempt to navigate the loose boulders and rocks to reach the ice.

The terminal part of this glacier has now all the signs and symptoms of a terminally ill one. The section on the right of the photo has become stagnant and is fast turning into a mass of rock cemented by ice, while the front in the central and left side recedes alarmingly and becomes thinner every year.

The older photo was scanned from Lonely Planet´s "Trekking in the Patagonian Andes" (1992 edition), the most recent one was taken by Mike Wrob last March (2013). 

A brief history of the exploration of the area, aided by interesting old maps

An introductory glance at how the area was known at different times in the recent past.

The old maps were borrowed from the David Rumsey Map Collection (davidrumsey.com)

This German map of 1844 depicts the degree of knowledge then possessed about Patagonia and, with the added southern polar area, how land in the southern hemisphere was believed to lie in relation to the recently "discovered" Antarctic. This view of land-masses nearest to the South Pole is, I believe, quite accurate for the time.

Regarding our area of interest, surprinsing detail is given to the coasts of Patagonia while the hinterland appears almost entirely blank. Scale is 1 : 7.700.000 for Patagonia. More details shown in the next map.

This map of 1857 is of roughly the same scale as the one above it, but I have zoomed on our study area to see details more clearly. Within the still blank hinterland a large lake appears just north of what would be the 47º S parallel. 

The belief in the existence of this body of water dates back to the 1750s, but the source of this knowledge is obscure. The lake was given different names, and it´s outlet was mistakenly drawn to the east or south. It was not until the late 1890s that it became conclusively proved that it drained through it´s western end to the Pacific. This shows how recently the area became fully explored.

A great leap forward in the exploration of this latitude was given by Musters` (1870) and Moyano`s (1880) overland trips. Their paths from south to north are shown in this map of 1883 (they diverge at the indian camp called "Pagie").

Moyano had more time and instruments for mapping. He named and accurately placed "Zeballos Mt", and christened the big lake "Buenos Aires", though he could only explore it´s eastern section. With some inaccuracies, the river valleys of the eastern side of the map fall into place.

This map hints at a boundary between Argentina and Chile but absolutely lacks all features pertaining to the high mountains and valleys of the area. Almost twenty years would elapse before the outlet of the lake became explored, the mountains charted, and the international border drawn in 1902.

And finally, a satellite image borrowed from Google Maps. The eastern body of the lake is joined to a long fjord-like arm extending to the south-west. A large ice-cap separates it from the islands of the Pacific. This "North Patagonian Ice-cap remained shrouded in mystery until the 1920s, when it was first explored. Its true extent and main features did not become known until aerial observations were carried out in the following decades.