Monte Tronador

This weekend I went with three fellow students and an Argentine to Monte Tronador, the highest mountain in El Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi (Bariloche is located in this national park). Its name is Spanish for Mount Thunder. It’s called that because it’s summit is enveloped in a glacier, and a handful of times throughout the day, sections of the glacier plunge more than a hundred feet to the valley below, and the noise it creates sounds like, well, thunder. Later in the trip, when we were hiking back down into the valley, we went to the base of the cliff and saw five or six waterfalls and the glacier perched precariously on the edge. At one point, a massive chunk of ice broke off, and for me the experience was more like watching fireworks. The ice seems to explode into thousands of pieces, and the sound each piece makes when it hits bottom sounds like the multiple explosions of an elaborate firework.

We trekked four and a half hours to a Refugio (like a camp) at the base of the glacier and stayed there overnight with 75-100 people. It was a very interesting scene. A number of people braved the cold and set up tents behind rock walls that blocked the wind. The rest of us slept on the second floor of the refugio, which was a not particularly large open space where they laid down dozens of mattresses, and people crowded in like so many anchovies in a can. A friend and I were assigned one and a half mattresses, because they had more people than mattresses, so four people had to squeeze onto three twin size mattresses. However, the pair next to me was a couple, and let’s just say Argentine amantes are quite affectionate in general, so I got a mattress to myself.

Some in the group felt moved by the virtue of patience the glacier seems to symbolize. I didn’t feel the same sensation. Certainly, seeing the glacier was a profound experience, but it was also startling when huge hunks of ice would suddenly break off and thunder down the sides of seemingly bottomless crevasses or off the cliff ledge. For me, I felt more the grave consequences of humans living in excess. Perhaps the ice has always stretched and contracted, but I was surprise by the frequency with which this mountain thundered, and I’ve read about Argentina’s tourism industry booming as thousands upon thousands visit each year to see the glaciers before they disappear. I felt lucky and guilty at the same time to be there.

I also got quite sunburned. Even through my clothes. Turns out the ozone above Argentina is quite thin.