Hiking our way around El Chaltén

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Another 12 hours down the Ruta 40 took us to the town of El Chaltén, a place clearly constructed just for tourism. It was apparently only founded in 1985. Whilst it was expensive to stay and eat there, we did have one exquisite meal in the Fuegia Bistro which matched anything we had eaten in Buenos Aires for taste.

The real purpose of the town is trekking, and specifically to reach the base camps for climbing the Fitz Roy mountain and also Mount Torre. Unfortunately your ability to do this, or even to see said mountains, depends entirely on the weather. I am sure we are not alone in having visited the area and never seeing the Fitz Roy!

Still, we did some pretty spectacular walking. We lunched at glacial lakes and were awed by the glaciers glowing brilliant electric blue in the sunlight (when it came through the clouds). We were pleased to have Factor 30 for our faces, and decent raincoats for when the icy winds blew and the freezing rain fell. The walks were easy enough to do without a guide and even without a proper map as they are fairly well marked and very well maintained.

After 2 days of hiking around 6 hours a day, it was time to move on. How people walk day in, day out for much longer I really don’t know!!

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Photos

And the second one!!
This one has left some icebergs floating in the lake.

Warning sign
Having been told (in Las Grutas) not to throw stones at the parrots, the advice is very different if you encounter a puma in the mountains!

Comments

[Dawn Smallwood]

I loved the walking there! Looking forward to returning there (Hopefully in December).