Lago Esmeralda

 

Today we did the trek up to Lago Esmeralda (Emerald Lake).  It is about 9 km return, steep and rocky in places and quite muddy.  The forest stretches were very quiet - we hardly saw a bird - and there was no understorey plants.  The open stretches were much more interesting and the views of rocky mountains, snow and glaciers were again spectacular.

Some old infrastructure on the walk.  There were newer boardwalks as well over some vulnerable areas.

Introduced beavers are wrecking habitats by building dams and flooding areas that shouldn't be flooded so trees are dying.  The government can't seem to decide whether to make them a tourist attraction or treat them as a pest and get rid of them.,


The water in the river coming down from the lake was COLD.

I wouldn't call the lake emerald coloured, more pale turquoise.

Still working on the selfie taking.  That's the end of the glacier that fills the lake behind us.


Probably a Patagonian fox (Zorro sp), closely related to jackals and wolves.


Steve finally saw a condor in that bit of sky!  It was a fully coloured up adult male.


Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 2, 2024 at 3:19 PM

    Pale turquoise lake is still stunning.
    We will just have to trust that Steve sees what he sees. As long as he's happy. R

    ReplyDelete

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