Advertisement
Published: March 2nd 2007
Parque Nacional Los Glaciares
After walking through town Stephen approaches the trail head to enter the park.Buenos Aires
We arrived in the capital of Argentina on 02/21/2007 on a flight that was longer than anticipated. There is not much to report here. We spent a total of three days in Buenos Aires... three jet lagged days in combination with some post-wedding planning hang over. Our days were filled with long naps, long pulls of smooth beer, and the occasional long walk through the city. We had hoped to experience more of the city, but we were mainly focused on getting a plane ticket to Patagonia, which turned out to be more difficult than originally planned (most flights were booked for two solid weeks). We were finally able to get a flight to El Calafate (southern Patagonia) on 02/24/2007.
Parque Nacional Los Glaciares
We arrived in El Calafate and quickly boarded a bus to El Chaltén. Looking back we should have picked up some supplies before getting on that bus, but you live and learn. El Chaltén is a small entry city into Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. The entire region is sparcely populated and the majority of commerce is tourist based. Think Wisconsin Dells minus about half the cars and neon trucker hats.
We
Parque Nacional Los Glaciares
The town of El Chaltén viewed from the start of the trail. had a few hours of much needed rest and then woke up to head out and pick up some supplies before we started hiking into the park. The first thing we noticed was the wind. My chest hair was ripped from its follicles, which Houa promptly tried to glue back on (although we lacked glue so it was a trite difficult). Sorry to say no chest hair was lost during this trip, but we hope this highlights the ferocity of the wind down here.
This was a Sunday and all of our bags were packed and supplies purchased to head into the mountains. Did we say all of the supplies? Actually we couldn´t find any gas for our camp stove as the hardware store was closed on Sundays. So what do two college educated people do when they don´t have fuel to cook a hot meal when they are out in the wilderness? They buy loaves upon loaves of bread and start hiking anyway. Most people would wait until the next day to purchase fuel, but that concept does not apply to those who walk with large testicles. It wasn´t as big a deal as it sounds save for
Mountain Vista
Our initial view of the mountains after climbing to the top of the foothills. the fact that we encountered sub-zero temperatures at night and our fellow campers all appeared to have exquisite culinary backgrounds (or was that fact compounded by us having to eat bread and beef jerky for 4 days straight?).
The hiking was spectacular. The initial landscape was similar to the barren foothills of the Rockies... brown, dry vegatation. Once we hiked over the foothills we were treated with some most impressive views of some white capped mountain peaks (the most famous being Monte Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre). Unfortunately the views were open to us only momentarily throughout the day as the area was experiencing cloud cover.
We experienced a variety of weather combinations. Throughout the day it would be sunny, then misty, then snowy, and then cloudy with temperatures ranging from 30 to 60 degrees. The strangest thing occured while we were hiking. There was not a cloud within a mile of us, yet we started to feel rain. The only thing we could think of was that the wind was blowing mist off of the river which was 300 yards away or the wind was blowing rain off of the mountains (the wind was that strong. I
Laguna Torre and Glaciar Grande
Our first encounter with a glaciar. Located just 100 yards from our campsite. Unfortunately, the view to Cerro Torre was clouded over (peak connected to Glacier Grande). was thinking about tying Houa to my backpack to see if I could partake in some Hmong kite flying.).
A few brief highlights of the hike (not the food) were camping at the foot of Glaciar Grande and Lago Torre, drinking fresh glacial water, and the mountain vista of Monte Fitz Roy and its accompanying peaks (not to mention the 1300+ feet climbed to get a really good view), and drinking fresh glacial water (we already mentioned that but it was so damn refreshing).
Our next stop is Puerto Natales, Chile. We will be hiking the 10 day Torres del Paine circuit and we´ll also try to stop by and check out a local penguin colony a few hours away.
That´s about it. Hopefully we didn´t bore you with too many details. If you would like us to expound upon certain aspects of our trip just ask. We hope all is well.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.072s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0367s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Kyle and Nisha
non-member comment
This is really cool. Thanks for showing us what you are up to. The pictures are pretty amazing. We hope you two are enjoying yourselves. Please keep posting. We are very jealous!! Take care.