Blown away in El Chalten

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I arrived in El Chalten at 7am with nothing planned. I had nowhere to stay, didn't have a map, and all I knew was that I wanted to go hiking in the national park. My usual course of action in these instances is to hit the tourist office, but thats closed at 7am. It was blowing a gale out, so I asked a guy where the nearest hostel was, and went and took refuge inside.

This turned out to be a very smart move, as the hostel had a good map of the trails available around the area, and also a spot where I could dump my stuff before heading out into the National Park. As it happens, I wasn't the only one taking refuge in the hostel after the bus journey, and so it was that at around 10ish, I headed out on the trail to Camp Poincenot with 3 Israelis for company.

I'd heard the weather in El Chalten is often not that cracking, and that the mountains Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre that everyone comes here to see are often hiding in the clouds, too shy to come out and say hello. Well on this first day, we were heading up into the valley where Fitz Roy resides, and for the first hour or so of walking to the mirador, it was showing off as only a mountain can... by being visible. At the mirador I bumped into Russell, a friend of mine from uni who is travelling South America with his girlfriend Alex. We knew we'd both be in Chalten at the same time, but had made no definite plans to meet, but a mirador on the middle of the trail seemed as good a spot as any for a catch up.

After I left them to head back down towards town, I caught up with my Israeli walking companions and stopped for lunch at Camp Capri, with Fitz Roy still showing off. However, on the walk between here and Poincenot, a rather imposing cloud decided to park itself over the mountains, which was a little irritating, as everywhere else there were bright blue skies. Undeterred, after setting up camp at Poincenot, we scurried up a rather steep trail to Laguna de Los Tres, where ideally you get a beautiful view of the mountains with the glacial lagoon at their base. Or in our case, you get a beautiful view of the clouds with the glacial lagoon at their base. Bugger.

My compatriots gave up hope fairly swiftly, and headed back down to camp where it was warmer, and not raining. However, us English are made of sterner stuff, and as there wasn't much else to do for the rest of the day, I found myself a bit of shelter and decided to wait it out for a bit. Three hours later, with not much improvement, even I gave up, and headed back towards camp. About 5 minutes on the way back, I passed a couple just coming up the hill, and overheard the girl say "Wow, thats incredible!" I wasn't quite sure what was incredible about clouds, but turned around nonetheless, and was rather surprised to find that in the last couple of minutes Paul Daniels had obviously turned up and helped the clouds do a disappearing act. Cue about 50 photos in 2 minutes before continuing back down the hill.

I meant to wake up early the next morning to see the mountains turn red at sunrise, but my warm sleeping bag seemed a much safer option. So in the end it was about 11ish by the time we set off towards Laguna Torre to have a bit of a gander at Cerro Torre. Unfortunately, today the clouds showed no intention of shifting at all, and the Laguna itself was pretty murky, so we headed back down to El Chalten, where I spent the evening with Russel and Alex in their very warm (but rather pricey) hostel, before venturing out to my tent.

After failing to see the sunrise the day before because I didn't want to get cold, I decided to put all my thermals on before going to bed to make the getting up a little bit easier. It seemed to work, as by 7am I was on top of a mirador just outside El Chalten, where I found Russel had managed to beat me there. We were very hopeful for a glorious sunrise, as the entire range was perfectly clear, and we could see the red skies behind us. Sadly, the mountains never went red (apparently it was TOO clear) but it was amazing to see the entire range together, and without any of those pesky clouds spoiling things.

I had a bus to Calafate with the folks from Israel later that day, so there was just enough time for a visit to the bakery, and a bowl of porridge before my time in Chalten came to a close.

Stewart

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Photos

Perhaps a career in modelling isn't yet beyond me
Well... maybe it is