Day 458 - Up the glacial valley

Last night we met a kiwi and her Spanish boyfriend and we all decided to take a day hike today up through a valley towards a glacier and a couple of small lakes. The valley is green and surrounded by forest with animals scattered all over the terrain. On either side of us steep snow tipped mountains jut up into the crisp alpine air, which made for a very enjoyable walk. The first couple of hours went relatively well, although we spent a lot of time jumping from mound-to-mound to avoid boggy marshland that flanks the river we were following. At some stage someone decided to climb over a mound of rocks with the hope that we'd get a view of where we needed to go - however what we really got was an hour and a half of treacherous boulder hopping, where the rocks would frequently move and trap ankles or throw us into prickle bushes. Once we made it down, we ended up separated from the other 2 and it was nearly 3pm. Adam made a dash up to the end of the valley to get a glimpse of the glacial face, but unfortunately not the tongue of the glacier that was the target for the day. As we wound our way back along the river we talked to a horseman and asked him if he had seen 2 other tourists, which he hadn't, but after he rode a few more minutes up the river he spotted them and called back to us to let us know. Our new friends had been waiting for us after they had managed to make a steep descent down out of the rocks that we had managed to make our way over. So while we sat down for lunch they went to catch a look at the glacier too. We never came across the lakes because it turned out we had missed the turn off we were meant to make and walked an extra hour or more up - this meant the glacier we saw was completely different to the one we were originally aiming for, so it was pretty good walking that we even managed to see the face of it! We had walked the entire length of the valley but to make it to the glacier would have meant walking over another hour or 2 of rocks.
We spent the next 2 hours ambling our way back but basically waiting for the others to catch up - which they never did! With daylight fading fast we made a break for home, almost getting lost in the process. When we arrived back we began to really worry that something had gone wrong, so we packed up sleeping bags and another traveller offered to join Adam on the four hour hike back up. Luckily a few minutes before they were ready to set off we caught a glimpse of the weary hikers making their way down - they hadn't made it to the glacier but made it far enough to catch sight of the tongue.

All safe and sound we set about cooking our repeat meal from the 2 days before, and while Adam stayed out in the cold boiling water for drinking the next day Liv fell asleep in front of the fire with the guesthouse kitten on her lap! We'd been walking for 8 hours today so a weary body was to be expected - not to mention tired eyes from the immense amount of gorgeous alpine scenery we absorbed.

Adlibing it in sight of the glacial face.