I never expected the blue. Living in a land where ice comes in shades of white and off-gray, the brilliant blues and violets of Glacier Grey were startling, invigorating. The lake itself a silver-gray mirror with a surface brushed roughly by the wind, dotted with chunks of glowing blue.
Our journey, from Zodiac to tour boat and back again, was one of the roughest of my life, awash in giant waves and hurricane-force blasts off the ice field. But the blue, the blue, made it all worthwhile. This corner of Torres Del Paine National Park in Chile will always occupy a corner of my soul, lit in blue.