Patagonian rainbows
Karen had an earlier post titled "Patagonian blues" but I´ll title this one "Patagonian rainbows". In Patagonia, our weather has been a bit hit and miss. In Chile, we hiked 4 hours uphill to get a view of Torres del Paine only to get a nice view of fog. In Argentina, I hiked almost 2 hours uphill to get a view of Mt Fitzroy (or El Chalten) only to get a nice view of ... fog. These mountains are the tallest things around, so the clouds coming from the Pacific just sit on top of them, even if the surrounding lowlands are bathed in sunshine. This rain/sun duality is a common feature of the Patagonian weather.
One of the main advantages of this weather, though, is the sheer abundance of rainbows that one sees. You are almost guaranteed to see at least one a day, often several different ones. And these aren´t the fleeting types you see when the sun comes out after a rainstorm. These things last for 30-60 minutes or more. And once one disappears, you can usually find another. Plus you usually get to see the full arc of the rainbow with such wide vistas. You can see where the rainbow ends (although I didn´t find any pots of gold or leprechauns, even though I was hiking on St Patrick´s Day).
Some pictures of rainbows. If you want to read about how rainbows form etc. then read this explanation.
Frankly, these pictures still don´t do justice to the intensity of the rainbows I saw. In this next picture, you might just be able to make out the second inverted rainbow (VIBGYOR rather than ROYGBIV) to the left of the main rainbow. It doesn´t come out so well in the picture but seeing a second inverted rainbow is an extremely rare occurrence.
Now you might be tired of rainbows by now, but let me share just one more thing. On the way back from our hike, the sun started to clear away a lot more of the clouds but there were still some left. I looked back at one of the clouds and saw this:
It might not look like much, but if you look back you´ll see that the bottom of the cloud is lined by a ... rainbow. Although it´s not called a rainbow since it´s not formed by rain and is not bow shaped. Instead it´s called a circumhorizontal arc and according to the article linked, "it is often thought of as the RAREST NATURAL OCCURRENCE in the world". I didn´t know that at the time but I was still pretty psyched to see it. I pointed it out to a few others but I think they were rainbowed out by then. If only I knew how rare this was, I would have insisted more. So, I still don´t know if every cloud has a silver lining, but I do know that seeing a cloud lined by a spectrum is a pretty awesome sight. My picture of the phenomenon is only so-so. The link above has some tremendous pictures of this thing. I still have never seen either the aurora borealis or australis so I´m still looking forward to seeing that one day.
I got these pictures during a 12 hour hike in El Chalten (one of the windiest towns you´ll ever find). Karen decided to take it easy and chill out in town (she even found a good masseuse in a town of 500 or so people!). The hike was from 7 am to 7 pm. It consisted of about 4 hours hard hike uphill to get to a glacier to climb on. I highly recommend doing at least one glacier hike in your life. The colors are amazing and the water pools on the ice are awesome to see. The water tastes great, right from the source - 10,000 year old water is very refreshing.
To get to the glacier we had to do a small zipline over the glacial meltwater river. It was extremely windy on the way back. (That´s not me in the pic)
Once on the glacier, we had great scenery, even though it was thick clouds on one side (where the mountains were) and brilliant sunshine towards the lowlands.
One of the activities we tried on the glacier was an ice climb up a 10 meter or so ice wall. The angle was about 80-85 degrees or so at the bottom. The first two guys in my group to go did it quite well and I thought that it looked like fun and overall not too difficult. This is how it looks when done correctly.
But then after the first two guys did it, the two girls in our group tried and were unsuccessful. And then 2 other guys did it and failed as well. And then I was last to go. And, well, let´s just say that I was terrible and made it absolutely NOWHERE up the wall. It´s much more difficult than it looked. I knew getting the crampons on my feet stuck in properly was going to be a problem after watching the others, but I thought at least the ice picks in my hands would hold me for a bit. But I didn´t even get the hang of that. It was disappointing not to make any progress but I´m glad I tried it.
We are now heading north through Argentina. We´re currently in Bariloche which is a very nice town. Has a very Alpine feel to it. Today is a beautiful day with pleasant temps and nice sunshine. And here is a picture of a beautiful and pleasant Karen enjoying the nice day down by the lake in Bariloche.
One of the main advantages of this weather, though, is the sheer abundance of rainbows that one sees. You are almost guaranteed to see at least one a day, often several different ones. And these aren´t the fleeting types you see when the sun comes out after a rainstorm. These things last for 30-60 minutes or more. And once one disappears, you can usually find another. Plus you usually get to see the full arc of the rainbow with such wide vistas. You can see where the rainbow ends (although I didn´t find any pots of gold or leprechauns, even though I was hiking on St Patrick´s Day).
Some pictures of rainbows. If you want to read about how rainbows form etc. then read this explanation.
Frankly, these pictures still don´t do justice to the intensity of the rainbows I saw. In this next picture, you might just be able to make out the second inverted rainbow (VIBGYOR rather than ROYGBIV) to the left of the main rainbow. It doesn´t come out so well in the picture but seeing a second inverted rainbow is an extremely rare occurrence.
Now you might be tired of rainbows by now, but let me share just one more thing. On the way back from our hike, the sun started to clear away a lot more of the clouds but there were still some left. I looked back at one of the clouds and saw this:
It might not look like much, but if you look back you´ll see that the bottom of the cloud is lined by a ... rainbow. Although it´s not called a rainbow since it´s not formed by rain and is not bow shaped. Instead it´s called a circumhorizontal arc and according to the article linked, "it is often thought of as the RAREST NATURAL OCCURRENCE in the world". I didn´t know that at the time but I was still pretty psyched to see it. I pointed it out to a few others but I think they were rainbowed out by then. If only I knew how rare this was, I would have insisted more. So, I still don´t know if every cloud has a silver lining, but I do know that seeing a cloud lined by a spectrum is a pretty awesome sight. My picture of the phenomenon is only so-so. The link above has some tremendous pictures of this thing. I still have never seen either the aurora borealis or australis so I´m still looking forward to seeing that one day.
I got these pictures during a 12 hour hike in El Chalten (one of the windiest towns you´ll ever find). Karen decided to take it easy and chill out in town (she even found a good masseuse in a town of 500 or so people!). The hike was from 7 am to 7 pm. It consisted of about 4 hours hard hike uphill to get to a glacier to climb on. I highly recommend doing at least one glacier hike in your life. The colors are amazing and the water pools on the ice are awesome to see. The water tastes great, right from the source - 10,000 year old water is very refreshing.
To get to the glacier we had to do a small zipline over the glacial meltwater river. It was extremely windy on the way back. (That´s not me in the pic)
Once on the glacier, we had great scenery, even though it was thick clouds on one side (where the mountains were) and brilliant sunshine towards the lowlands.
One of the activities we tried on the glacier was an ice climb up a 10 meter or so ice wall. The angle was about 80-85 degrees or so at the bottom. The first two guys in my group to go did it quite well and I thought that it looked like fun and overall not too difficult. This is how it looks when done correctly.
But then after the first two guys did it, the two girls in our group tried and were unsuccessful. And then 2 other guys did it and failed as well. And then I was last to go. And, well, let´s just say that I was terrible and made it absolutely NOWHERE up the wall. It´s much more difficult than it looked. I knew getting the crampons on my feet stuck in properly was going to be a problem after watching the others, but I thought at least the ice picks in my hands would hold me for a bit. But I didn´t even get the hang of that. It was disappointing not to make any progress but I´m glad I tried it.
We are now heading north through Argentina. We´re currently in Bariloche which is a very nice town. Has a very Alpine feel to it. Today is a beautiful day with pleasant temps and nice sunshine. And here is a picture of a beautiful and pleasant Karen enjoying the nice day down by the lake in Bariloche.
posted by Kevin at 3/18/2007 03:51:00 PM
1 Comments:
What an amazing study in contrasts--Kevin climbing an ice wall and Karen sunning herself on the ocean. Truly amazing pics from this trip....just don't make me site through a 10 hour slide show when you visit Chicago.
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