Advertisement
Published: February 27th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Foerste skue mot El Chalten
Og Mt. Fitzroy samt Cerro Torre i skydekket El Chalten
El Chalten is situated in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares that is considered the greatest single tract of remaining wilderness in the country. It belongs to the Santa Cruz Province, which also El Calafate and the Perito Moreno Glacier are a part of.
The park was established in 1937 to protect a unique landscape totally dominated by ice age glaciation. It was declared a Unesco World Heritage in 1982, and your access to the park is controlled and restricted to specific areas.
What we climbers know this area for, are the two peaks Cerro Torre (3102) and Mt. Fitzroy (3405). Two peaks that attracts climbers from all over the world. In my hostel it´s a group of climber from the states who has been here for 2-3 month now. So if you have time, lots of climbing can be done. They told me that El Chalten is famous for it´s bouldering and also offers some sport climbing!
So if you don´t know where to climb next.... Save up all your holiday, head for Patagonia, and bring gear for all kind of climbing. And clothes for all kind of weather : )
El Chalten is a small town without
Rimelig store morener
Det var ikke anskelig aa se breeaktivitet ved Lago Torre! many facilities, except for the great placement of course! That´s also why it´s a boom of backpackers, going here to do some trekking. Under a decade ago, the town catered mostly climbers in the summer and housed the administration of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, Fitz Roy sector. Then it started to grow, and now you can find a welter of accomodation, supermarkets (not really well-stocked though) and a plenty of restaurants.
This results, of course, in the trails beeing crowded with people and it´s hard to get the real nature feeling!
The Hielo Sur (the massive glacier I wrote about last time) completely blocks out any maritime influence in this area, and it´s a more frigid continental climate. The Andes rabge abd Hielo Sur also gets most of the precipitation. From 5000 mm some places in the west, it drops to 1500 mm on the Andean foothills, and less than 400 mm on this side of the ice/mountain range. Strong westerly winds are drying out when they blow over the Cordillera.
I´ve been out for 4 days around in the park, and it´s even better than Torres del Paine. It´s more people though, but the mountains are much
more spectacular. The only drawback is the very unstabil weather of course. I was up by sunrise three days, but didn´t see the mountains any of the days.... And I think I might have experienced the strongest wind so far in my life. I had to hold on to a big rock to not blow away. And when I was walking up towards Lago dos tres, it was beanies, glasses, jackets and all kind of stuff dissapearing in the wind : ) A bad sunrise, but a pretty funny experience anyway....
The last days was spend in "downtown" Chalten. Good with some days without any activities now and then : ) Next on my list is a two days bustrip on Route 40 up to Bariloche. More about Route 40 later....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.133s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 72; dbt: 0.0802s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
DAVIDO
non-member comment
HELLO!!!
Herlige bilder Magga!!! Men syns du ser ganske slækk ut på det ene, trudde liksom du skulle gå en del og svette og greier jeg... jaja.. KØDDER ME REI Magnus, kjempefine bilder, sykt bra, du legger ned en del arbeide i det her, og det blir vannvittig bra!!! Blir det noe chicas på Valdreskongen der nede eller? :) Tango, vin , biff, Maradona og Evita veit du, snakker saker her altså!!! Jeg sjekker innom en annen dag også jeg, Geir O hilser masse i kroken sammen med Preben Brynekjellsen. VI snakkes kompis. Si ifra hvis du kommer over noen billige dunjakker :) DAVID