Camp 18 etc: The day started with a huge egg, meat and fresh milk breakfast. That came good at we had to carry down to the Laguna. Luckily the horse took some of the weight.

At 1pm the boat came. With our somewhat useless spanish it was a relief. The voyage over to Tortel took 4 hours. In a way, this is the end of our journey. Here is the first shower. Here is the first bed, and here is the first ordered dinner! Tortel do not have any Cell phone coverage, BUT more important,  they got connected to the world by road some years back.

So tomorrow, someone will come down with a minibus from Coihaique and take us back there and close to the nearest airfield. The journey takes 10-12 hours. We will spend one day there before flying to Santiago.  There awaits another night before we board for Norway where we expect to touch down Wednesday the 2^nd.

It has been an extraordinary trip. The landscape unbelievable, the challenge great, the teamwork perfect and we are all in owe. We plan to repeat the trip next year, so if you are keen on a multi-adventure just sign up!

Greeting from Bengt, Thorleif and Børge.

Camp 17: Another extraordinary day. As we are of the (infamous) ‘never go twice generation’ we chose to pack it all in one load. So with some 40 kilos on our backs started the trip down. We must have looked like drunken (or dying) sailors, as we soon had a Condor floating above. That this carrion bird at times came as close as 10 metres says volumes about the sight of us struggling under our backpacks…

After some 7-8 km came we upon a very small farm. Here a settler couple lived with a handful of cows, no electricity and only that the earth could chip in. It was overwealming to be treated in the way we were.

Later we worked for the food, logging, fetching the cows and getting water. In the evening we were treated to a real brotherhood gathering. Though we were deeply embarrassed and sad our Spanish was as bad as it is. But the Satellite phone helped out a bit.

Through their only means of communication, a VHF radio, we now believe the husband will take us down the river in his boat tomorrow, and that another boat from Tortel will pick us up in a day – or two.

Camp 16, Bent reports: This was a big, big day. It started pretty wildly with us trying to jump off the Stephan Glacier. It was all a very rough ice, ups and downs and sledges that was not keen to cooperate at all. But at 1130am we stepped onto the moraine.

Then we repacked from sledges to backpacks and the carrying could start. The rest of the day we followed the moraine and late in the afternoon we set foot on ‘real’ land. By that the Northern Glacier was crossed, and this part of our adventure behind us. Now awaits the next. Walking down and towards the laguna, and on.

But first, we just enjoyed the day. It was wonderful to light a bonfire and smell all the earthy smells. This is called the horse Camp, and was the very first sign of human activity since we left. A truly great day.

Camp 15, Thorleif reports: Another fabulous day. But luckily not as sweltering hot as yesterday, as we have been working hard.

We ended up doing 4,5 kilometres. But that was in a straight line. We had to take two long scouting trips to find possible routes through what is a totally broken up icescape. It is far fro easy, pulling a sledge, being roped up and negotiating steep ups and downs on skis. Bothe abilities and minds have had overloads today. But we have had great fun and really enjoyed this wild ride.

Now we are close to one of the moraines, and this is possibly our last night on ice. Out aim is to reach the Horse Camp tomorrow, possibly by the moraine ridge. If we do that we will be very pleased.

Camp 14: We have had the most perfect day. Not a single cloud, excellent snow and a landscape out of another world. The mountains here are not only dramatic, but the weather down here plasters them with snow and ice. It is like they are dressed up in a fairytale world. How the ice can cling onto those ultra steep mountain sides are beyond belief. It is like walking in a japanees comic strip, your fantasy cant quite cope with it all.

Vi put 23 kilometres and a 1000 metre vertically behind us today. That was excellent and due only to the superb conditions. The first part was easy, but then we entered the upper part of the Stephan Glacier and crevasses started to appear. We soon had to rope up as it became pretty wild as we zigzaged onwards.

In this reflection bowl the sun was unbelievably strong. The radiation here is really high. Our faces will stay tanned forever, and we used just undershirts most of the day. That was very comfortable, apart form for Bengt. His Brynje Mesh shirt was not the thing to have. It is brilliant most always, but not against the sun. See photo…

We have now camped in an enormous crevasse field as we see down the glacier. But we can se both some moraines and some good step-off points. But we are in no doubt the next days will be adventuroues.

Camp 13, Bengt reports: After 3 days waiting, we desperately wanted this to THE day. We peaked out at 5am and were met with gale winds, snow and zero visibility.

At 6 it was no better

But at 7am we saw the mountain! That got us going. We hurried through the routine morning stuff and scrambled out. – Only to be med by total whiteout.

We continued as if nothing. Packed the sledges, pottered around a bit and waited, refusing to give in to this blindfolded chess game with Mother Nature.

AND, at Noon it broke up! We hurried away. It was very steep, high and hard. The conditions were heavy but ok. As we neared the summit (the Paso Colonia), it all closed in again, but up we got!

We were extremely happy and it felt like a major victory. On the way down we got a huge bonus. The wind died down, the whiteout dissolved and the clouds departed. And for the thousands time we were completely flabbergasted to see these fantastic mountains appear around us. It can’t we described by words, and again our memory card in our cameras took a sever beating. It is just plain impossible to stop taking photos.

As we camped, it was a stunning sunset, nice and cold, and downright the 3 happiest campers in the world.

We have gotten a few extra shots from their ordeal in the snow. If anybody had doubts of how hard it can be to break free of the ‘white powder’ – this should be proof of the pudding.

Camp 10/12, Thorleif reports: Well, we are still here. The wind has died down considerably, but still with total white-out and some snow. There are no chance to even contemplate trying the pass.
But, today we at least got some exercise. We have gotten a frightening 2 metres of snow and the tent was as good as buried. So at noon we all got out and started digging. It took us some 4 hours to clear the tent, and move it ten metres.
Now we are back on our backs. Here on the inside our living space has doubled, outside it is still light snow, and we just relax, have a good time and are eagerly awaiting tomorrow. Will we get the break?

So farit is the weather that hasheld all the aces

Camp 10/11: Da ble vi virkelig truffet hardt. Dette utviklet seg til en vanvittig storm. Vi måtte ut og sikre teltet med klatretau. Tjoret det ned som best vi kunne.
Det hjelp. Som en sikkerhet har vi dobbelt sett med telt stenger i alle kanalene. Det var vi glade for, for vi har ingen tro på at teltet hadde klart seg uten.
Heldig vir løyet vinden noe, så nå kan vi slappe av med musikk, lydbøker og kort mens det laver ned ute. Det er ting som tyder på at vi kan få et værvindu søndag, men helt sikre kan vi jo ikke være, så vi er over på halve rasjoner. Det er helt greit nå når vi ligger i ro.

We had to tie the rent down with climbing rope

Camp 10, Bengt reporting: The day has had it’s ups and downs. First of all were we met with loose snow reaching over our knees. Then we got whiteout for the entire day. But the temperature has fallen and we now have lovely cold weather. That makes, among other things, life inside the tent much better.
We did some 8 kilometres, and are now in position under the pass we must get over. We got a glimpse of it as we camped. There is no doubt that we need both a clear view and much better weather to challenge it.
The forecasts is not good. The best estimate in Sunday, so now we are confined to the comfort of the tent. It seems only Thorleif is not that enthused…
We have just gone over food, route, kilometres, fuel etc etc and found we have 10 days full rations left. And we believe we can scale the pass and get off the glacier in 5 good days, so so far everything is no sweat and just three happy campers.

The blue is not a clear sky

Camp 9: We are pretty happy with today. 16 kilometres was good as the conditions were far from ideal. We started out in white-out and that lasted the day. After lunch the wind picked up, and continued to do so. One hour before planned, we camped out of security as everything was just white chaos.
The snow today has been like glue. It has stuck to the skis all the time not respecting our ski wax at all. But, that made the small grey ones wake up. We experimented with both sun screen and sausages and had great success! – Things like that is not bad for the spirit.
The routines today was Thorleif in front. He did marvels. The two first was tied up, while the last was left to ponder the world. In the end we the thing was to count the teeth. Our tongs agreed on 16 apiece both up and downstairs.
We have 12 km to a fairly serious pass. We would love (meaning neeeeeed) better weather for that. But it does not look good. Outside now all hell is loos.

Camp 8, and Thorleif reports: We had a staggering 50 cm of snow last night, so the hope of real progress was not great in the morning. But 16,5 km was good. As it turned out, the weather was very warm so that the snow packed up well and gave better conditions as we went. – We even had a good spell without jackets!
But, then it changes again. First white-out came sneaking, then a full blast snow-storm came out way. It was 3 wet gents that hit camp at 8 pm after 9 hours of labour.
In fact, we have had more drying of wet clothes and equipment than expected. That has resulted in two things: One is hat the morning session takes longer than planned. Sometimes as much as 4 hours. Then secondly we use more fuel than we normally do. We have brought some extra, but have little to spare.
We would not mind a somewhat easier weather pattern, but all in all we are very content with progress, spirit and the whole experience.

Camp 7: Never a dull moment! This day was packed. We started out in poring rain, dressed up in rain ponchos! But, now being up on the plateau, conditions are good. That was until we got white-out. Then we had to get the rope out for safety. That was just as well, as I nearly ended up in a crevasse.
We navigated on following a route plotted on the satellite photo we have. It is a very good route, and now at 1200 metres we believe the last crevasse is behind us.
But all of a sudden everything broke up and in seconds the clouds parted, the sun came out and huge mountains on all sides came and went in mystic and cloudy light. I have never ever seen the shades of blue that we were treated to.
We are now well over the St Raphael glacier and are eating kilometres. Everyone has found a good rhythm and we are coping extremely well with both the tough going and the sudden weather changes. And that is just as well, as at the end of the day it all changed again and we camped as huge wet snowflakes fell.
Bengt sends his greetings to wife and kids, Thorleif to the store and I to Max and Eva-Liv

Camp 6: What a day! It has been one of those rear days that completely overwhelms you. The sun was out. And together with black clouds, blur icefalls, white snow and raging mountains that plays hide and seek in low clouds and fog it was a light show like no other.
It was even nice and war. For several hours we were just strolling around in our under shirts and even got a solid tan.
The distance is just 4 km, but that was due to 2 small but wild icefalls. Lots of crevasses and most hidden in loose snow meant we had to have max security and even use ice screws.
Now we are in camp, enjoying dinner. We are on a beautiful flat plateau and have packed the crampons down for good. At least till we reach the other side.
Can’t wait for tomorrow.

Camp 5, Bengt calls in: The day has been very good. Started out in good weather on crampons and ice axe. Carried the first load tilt the snowline and returned for the second run.
Then the bliss started. We put on belts, sledge and skis! It was a wonderful feeling to do that after all these days as ‘tramps’. The snow and ice conditions seems to be quite ok, so we are hopeful of good progress further on. Today we did 6,5 km. Not very much, but still better than all the other days combined.
I must say the landscape and trip so far has been mind bugging. The contrasts and dramatic, and just like a fairytail. The weather has been more familiar. Just like at home in Trønerlag in Norway… a little of everything all the time.
Everything is fine, apart from a small burn on one foot due to spilled hot water. But it’ll grow.
As we are out now free of all the mountains we have better satellite signals and send some new and old pictures. Enjoy!

Camp 4: Another long day, but better. All in all we progressed just 1 kilometre, but the everything was better. The weather was good and stayed dry all day, which meant we have now dried everything.
But the best thing is that we now believe we are done with heavy carrying up all the mountainous passes with difficult climbing. We did not loos out direction at all!
Today we even had a good spell on snow! But before we came to that we passed over a brow and had the mist stunning view yet. The hole forest, the fjord and the rolling glacier under us. Spectacular!
Tonight we have the first camp on snow and ice. That is a very good feeling, and we are looking very much forward to getting on skis proper.

Camp 3: Today we managed just 1 kilometre in a total of 9 hours! That should say everything about the going down here. Even thou the rain forest ia behind us, is is so lush and difficult to find a way forward. At times we also have to harness up for safety and one time we even had to go onto the ice itself to find a way.
But for the second run today we found a better path and saved some time.
All in all, not very impressive progress, but great work and very high spirit. We are definitely getting higher and closer to the plateau.
Sorry, no photos today either. There are way to many and high mountains around us for transmitting anything other than short messages.

Camp 2: A hard days work. Coming straight out of the rainforest, the weather has not been on our side today. That did not make things easier, though, we climbed some 800 metres, covering 12 kilometres in 11 hours.
The going is spectacular and we have had to harness up quite often. The camp is not quite where we had planned, but it is still very good, and we are very pleased to have carried all out gear with us. Tomorrow we will continue climbing and hope to reach the plateau in a few days.

Today we have had one of the most stunning walks in my life. Everything has worked out as planned and we have camped in a very lush jungle like forest. It is mild, beautiful and very exotic.
From here we have carried 30 kilo of gear all the way up till the glacier. To come straight out of this green and onto a dramatic, white and rolling glacier is an experience worth a hole trip.
Tomorrow we will move all the rest up and get some snow and ice under our feet.

Finally on our way. Sunday after noon the ferry steamed out from Puerto Montt. This very scenic voyage takes you normally all the way down to Puero Natals, but we will jump ship close to St. Raphael. There we will be taken ashore in a rubber dingy to start out real trek.
We have already been up on the bridge for a briefing with the captain to ensure our selves we all are coordinated on the exact coordinates. In this area you find hardly any roads og other means of transport. The ferry is IT, so we have one chance to hit our spot.
So for now it is just to lean back, enjoy the ‘cruise’, observe that the landscape looks very similar to Norway and take encouragement from the snowline that keeps creeping closer and closer to the water.