Laguna Esmeralda was my first glacier lake and first hiking outing of my backpacking trip.
Scrolling back through my photos, this is a favourite of mine from my hike to Ushuaia’s Laguna Esmeralda.
At the time, sunshine loving me would have loved a sunny and blue sky day. In fact, if I’m being honest, I was likely a little disappointed with the grey clouds.
Looking back now, I see the snow scattered surrounding mountains, the grey skyline, the green-hued lake – so so still – reflecting the light, and I love it. Very Ushuaia! It’s the contrast and the atmosphere that the grey and green hues create (too poetic I think!). I love how I feel reminisicing about this picture. Calm and very present. Like I’m back, standing on Esmeralda’s shore.
Walking to and from Laguna Esmeralda wasn’t too much of a trek (think 9.5km round trip hike taking 4-5hrs). It’s a beautiful hike and mostly flat.
What made it challenging was the mud fest we experienced – better described as the peat bog marsh section! Not something we’d been expecting! It had rained the days before. Evidently the peat bog had absorbed all that water and not yet dried out! I don’t think it ever fully does. Rain = more mud. Consider how much mud there may be!
I’m laughing hard remembering our efforts – balancing on logs – to stay relatively mud free. Avoidance was quite futile really! The winning way was to embrace the mud, move and leap fast and lightly to what we hoped was solid ground.
Melly, my hiking buddy, led the way and one of her leaps landed her calf deep in mud (I knew to pick another path!). Thankfully neither of us lost hiking boots to the bog, though we did finish with squelchy feet. Other walkers weren’t so lucky and we witnessed a few saving their shoes from the bog!
I’m smiling again thinking about the mud, the beautiful scenery and the laughs we had! A good reason to continue writing my ‘On this Day’ posts!
If you’re interested, you can read more about Laguna Esmeralda in my Ushuaia post…
