Walk to the lake

27th February 2012

I had a terrible night sleep, mainly due to a guy who returned to the dorm at 1:30am and rustled plastic bags and then proceeded to snore for the rest of the night. Sarah left me in bed a bit longer to get a little more sleep which helped a little. Once I did get up Sarah informed me the Abe had mailed and apologies for Not seeing us again and offered to take us out for lunch and do the interview today, but we were organised to go for a walk and we just couldn't make it.

The planned walk was at Lake Esmeralda which was 18km north of Ushuaia. We got a bus there and he dropped us off at the start which was a dog sledge centre, here we had to register and pay $10 each to cross their land, it was money well spent. The guy we paid gave us a map and told us a few thing to look out for and how long it would take. Apparently 1 1/2 hours, I recall it taking only an hour and we weren't even pushing it. The walk was lovely, nice and quiet and nice scenery. It must be said though, that after the last 10 days I am struggling to find anything here to inspiring me, but this little walk was very pretty.

The path was very well marked and was a steady climb, but nothing to hard.We passed beaver dams which is the first time I have ever seen them and I was amazed on how well they were built. These little creatures are true engineers! The dams were perfectly built and in places they had built tiered pools. The rest of the walk took us through forest and then a peat bog. It actually surprised us when we found ourselves on the lake edge. Like all the lakes in this area it was a milky blue colour, this is due to the presence of glacier flour the very fine dust which the glacier produces as it grinds its way through the cliffs. We sat for awhile to enjoy the scenery and have a bite to eat and then headed up and around the lake towards the glacier itself. This part of the walk was a little more climbing and eventually ended in the snow line. This was a nice end as our position gave the impression of being much higher than we actually were.
We returned to the Sledging centre who called for our bus. They picked us up and returned us to Ushuaia. We needed to do some shopping and once done we returned to the hostel for dinner and inevitable bed.