DAP AVENTURA 2016 - 2017

Aventura al fin del mundo 2016 - 2017
Evan captures the first light of the morning (left); first sunrays on the peaks of Cloue Ice Field (right) / Evan toma fotos de las primeras luces de la mañana (izquierda);
primeros rayos de sol en las cumbres del campo de hielo Cloue (derecha).
remote area such as Tierra del Fuego. The
lack of information, maps, communications
or possibility of a rescue make it necessary to
employ 80% of the time dedicated to exploring
access and strategies, only leaving 20% for
the activity itself. With this in mind, and with
the ship standing by on a safe area, Evan
and Ibai dedicated several days to establish a
camp at sea level, and another one on height.
The next day, March 26th, temperatures
suddenly rose and the team found itself
under very bad conditions of snow and ice,
but the climb was already underway on the
inferior ramps of Mount Cloue (1356 m), finally
leading them to achieve the first ascension
into the highest mountain of the area. The
descent was marked by strong landslides
and strong wind gusts, but they were able
to reach the camp.
On March 27th, the team moved at dawn on
skis, towards the base of a beautiful tower
without a name, which is possible to witness
from the interior of Fouque fjord. The roped
team climbed ramps and bergschrunds until
reaching the base of the great dihedral. The
bad conditions of rock and water falling through
the line, literally like a cascade, did not keep
them from reaching the end of the great
dihedral to the summit of the tower (1323 m),
which they decided to name “Saia” (harpoon
or water lancet in the Yaghan tongue of the
extint locals, the Yamana). The descent by
rappel was tedious.
Glacier cartography and other works
The glacier fronts of the ice field have
been an important object of study for the
expedition, work led by Eñaut as investigator of
Universidad de Magallanes. Using cartography
of shapes and glacier deposits, air photographs
and batimetric measurements (depth of the
fjords), the Incognita Patagonia team has
marked a drastic retreat of the ice masses of
the area, with a loss of mass of approximately
20% in the last 70 years (1945-2015), being
this retreat much stronger in the last few
decades (1976-2015). However, they also
observed some glacier fronts have actually
advanced strongly in some cases; this is due
to very particular local conditions of snow
overfeeding in one of the areas with more
rainfall in Patagonia.
In that respect, it has been interesting to
witness how several areas in the perimeter
of Cloue Ice Field have suffered important
changes as glaciers have almost completely
disappeared, giving place to new landscapes
free of ice, starting to be colonized by flora
and fauna (as well as the non-native beavers).
Eñaut, Caesar and Keri, on the other hand,
worked on fine tuning some meteorological
stations installed and formerly maintained by
Charlie Porter since 2002. These automatic
meteorological stations allow to understand
with instrumental measurements the weather
conditions in these southernmost latitudes,
later being able to relate the climatic variables
with the changes observed in the glaciers,
and then to be able to include this important
data in monitoring networks to predict future
changes for glaciers in the regional level.
Finally, the team has recollected local toponimia,
old partial maps of the area, and names linked
to the fueguino indigenous (Yamana, as well
as Kaweskar), to rescue this information and
presenting it on a cartographic map that may
serve scientific, cultural, or educational purposes,
as well as input for future expeditions in this area.
Eñaut and Caesar working on Pía Bay’s meteorological station (left); Caesar mounts new sensors on Diablo Island’s station (right) / Eñaut y Caesar trabajan en la estación meteorológica de bahía Pía (izquierda);
Caesar monta nuevos sensores en la estación de isla Diablo (derecha).
10 Adventure at the End of the World