Advertisement
Published: October 25th 2010
Edit Blog Post
El Chalten and Los Glaciares National Park is a place that is difficult to describe through words or pictures. Its really just a place that needs to be experienced. I'm not trying to sound dramatic, its just that the place constantly reminded me how far in the middle of nowhere we are. It first hit me when we took off from El Calafate and didn't see another building until we got to El Chalten, which was 220 km away. Then once at El Chalten, you realize there aren't really many people here either which just seems so crazy given the huge moutain ranges, pristine lakes and rivers, and massive glaciers that surround the city.
The city of El Chalten in itself is an interesting story since it is the newest town in Argentina that was first established in 1985. And the only real reason for constructing a town in the middle of nowhere was to secure the disputed country boarder with Chile. Now it servers primarily as a starting point for mountain climbers and hikers that want to explore Fitz Roy, Cerro Torre and the other nearby mountain ranges, and from what I heard, its really only a functioning town
for the spring and summer months.
We had several options of hikes that we could do, but we decided to take the trail that leads to the base camp of Mt. Fitz Roy. Fitz Roy is known for its odd shape which looks like some giant dropped a massive boulder on top of the mountain. Even though its only about half the height of Mt Everest, it is supposedly one of the most difficult mountains to climb due to its sheer granite faces and unpredictable weather. As you can see from the pictures, we didn't lucky enough to see the entire peak as it was covered with clouds, which is apparently really common even though the Italian tourists we met in El Calafate got clear pictures of it about 2 days before our trip. Oh well, considering we got lucky with the weather in El Calafate and got to see the Orcas in Pinnsula Valdez, it was about time that our luck evened out.
Despite the cloud cover, we were still pretty lucky with the weather as it didn't rain much during our entire hike. The thing that really set this hike apart from others than I have
been on was the fact that we were completely alone out on the trail. And this was the most popular trail in the area! This would be like hiking Yosemite without seeing anyone else, it just simply doesn’t happen. In fact, we hiked a total of 8 hours and around 20 km and over that period we didn't even see 10 people. To make things more exciting, we came a little early in the season and the trail was washed out in parts from the melting snow. In order to follow the trail and make sure you don't wander off, you had to take detours through trees and thick brush and wind back around to reconnect with the trail. On top of that, the weather would change abruptly which just made the place feel a bit eerie at times. As it turned out, it was actually nice to see someone from time to time on the trail just to reassure yourself that you were still on track.
I will admit that this day trip was almost an afterthought while planning the trip. To me it didn't make sense to fly to Southern Patagonia just to hike on the glacier
(although in hindsight it probably would have been worth it), but when I found out that we could also make it to El Chalten, I figured we might as well. Besides, I had just watched the movie 180 Degrees South which is about a 6 month trip that the founders of Patagonia and North Face took to climb a mountain around Fitz Roy, which helped to further sell the journey. Anyway, it turned out to be a place that I would love to come back to spend more time exploring the other trails. I think it would be a great place to visit in the summer when you can swim in the lakes and the trails would be easier to navigate. I've decided not to go to Chile on this trip and save that for another time since it would be too rushed and I didn't bring a wetsuit or surfboard, so maybe I will get another chance to further explore Los Glaciares National Park from the Chilean side. So we'll see if that happens but this was a great way to end the 8 day trip through Patagonia. Tomorrow Jeff and I are headed to Buenos Aires for a
couple days before I start work in Uruguay. Patagonia was both an awesome and exhausting adventure, but the trip is really just getting started as I still have 5 more weeks in Uruguay before I head back to the States.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.072s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 11; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0393s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb