Geographical names are a window in the history of the territory, a window that sometimes lets you see very far, to a place described only by stories that were never written and exist only in people's memories. Many of these stories have been lost, and we are proud to have rescued a few of them. We will try to share some anecdotes about geographical names periodically. Today we will start with Kudahasu glacier, which descends from Cordón Navarro in the Cordillera Darwin towards Martinez fjord. The name was coined by the Japanese expedition from the University of Hokkaido of 1966. This expedition wanted to make the second ascent of Mount Sarmiento. Although they did not achieve that goal, they carried out an extraordinary exploration, which included three virgin summits and two Indian passes. At first, we thought that this strange name, of which there was no explanation in their reports, was some word in Japanese, but it turned out that there is no such word. Then, with the collaboration of Professor Francisco Hervé, we managed to make contact with Tsuyoshi Nishimura, who participated in that epic expedition of 1966 and whom fate led to settle in Chile. Mr Nishimura told us that a Patagonian storm had them tent-bound for three weeks in that glacier, and the only fun they had was a deck of cards with which they spent long hours playing. It was then when name Kudahasu was born, which turned out to be an acronym that combines the first syllable of the words Kurabu (ク ラ ブ), Daiyamondo (ダイヤモンド), Hāto (ハ ート), and Supēdo (スペード). In Japanese, these words mean Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades, the four suits of the deck of cards that distracted them in those three stormbound weeks over the Kudahasu (クダハス) glacier (氷河).
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