Ice!

Ice!

So after another quiet night on the hook.  I awoke full of good intentions and raring to go. Had a little difficulty with a ralcacient crew but was able to bribe her with warm clothes and a cup of tea! And we were up and gone by 0630 making our way to the Swartzen Glacier. You might remember or might not depending on your age or mental condition that we went to the same glacier last year but didn’t stop as the weather was going to turn for the worse. However this year it was quiet and was going to remain so for a couple of days at least. So we motored down the fjord and secured along the long pontoon at the bottom of the fjord three kilometers from the bottom of the glacier at 1315. There were a bunch of bikes for rent and since we were the only ones around we had our choice and took two of the finest. Pedaled our,,,,,, down the road parked the bikes, headed off on foot and started up and up and over and over small stones big stones, rocks, bigger rocks, bed rocks until we couldn’t go any further without going a way down again and then up some more. So we turned around and headed back and up a different trail. This one had chains on posts drilled into the bedrock so you could pull yourself up and up and up and more up this all on very smooth slippery when wet rock. Got to the last little bit and the chain ran out and there was only some tattered old rope between you and a vertical drop down into a very, very deep dark chasm. It was so deep I could barely see someone wearing a red suit holding a pitchfork  and tending what I think might have been a fire and beckoning to me.  I didn’t fall for that. So we stopped and had a look around and holy bejebus we were up high! And it was cold too. So now what? Decided smartest thing to do would be to head back down to where we didn’t need oxygen and a slip and fall wouldn’t necessarily mean death.

What a view though. The fjord and lake were tiny! The mast looked like a human hair at 10 feet away. Well worth the scramble.

Decided to go back down. Hang on and walk backwards. Zippity do daw bobs your uncle and there we were back at the bikes and pedaling back to the boat. Had a whiskey made Sally a Martini. And we called it a day.