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Published: January 29th 2010
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Hi everyone!
We survived our 33 hour bus ride from El Bolson with swollen feet (Dale: Laura needs ted stockings!), sore/cramped legs and serious bed head. Our next stop after our marathon bus ride was the small town of El Chalten. El Chalten is known for one thing, and one thing only, trekking! It´s considered the trekking capital of Argentina, and people come here mainly for 2 big attractions - Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitz Roy. Both of these mountains are fairly easily accessed by day hikes from the town center, and then more experienced climbers can actually scale the rock faces (obviously this was not for us).
We decided to head towards Fitz Roy in the afternoon after arriving from El Bolson simply because the weather was improving and we didnt want to miss our chance at a glance of Fitz Roy. One thing we quickly realised about Southern Argentina (Patagonia), is when the weather is good and the sky is clear you have to move. Waiting until tomorrow or relying on a weather forcast can ruin your hike because you simply won´t see a thing. So....a little groggy from the long bus ride we packed our bags
and started our 3 hour hike up to the campsite which sits at the basecamp for longer climbs up Fitz Roy. The hike was nice. It started up quite steeply and then moved along the side of a mountain for a great view of the valley below. After a short hike through pretty dense forest we caught our first glimpse of Fitz Roy. I must say, it took our breath away. You´ll see from the pictures it´s quite a draumatic and jagged peak. For me (Greg), this was a really great moment as I had a really great picture of Fitz Roy as my background on my computer for some time leading up to our departure date so seeing it in person was really cool! After the forest we walked along the shore of a small lake for a short time which you´ll see in the pictures. Following some more time in dense forest, we emerged to hike in a fairly unshelted section of the trail with more views of Fitz Roy and the nearby glaciers. Here we had our first taste of the famous Patagonian winds which can be very strong! We later arrived at a great campsite right
at the base of the Fitz Roy peak and spent the night. Our intentions were to leave our camp set up in the morning and head off on a 1.5 hour hike up further to a small lake even closer to Fitz Roy which has really great views and is often the site of the famous photographs of the mountain. Unfortunately, the weather changed to rain and cloud the evening before, and continued on into the following morning so Fitz Roy was totally covered in cloud when we awoke. We opted not to do the additional hike, and instead headed back down another 3 hours to return to El Chlaten.
Overall it was a great 2 days, and we were very happy we made the decision to go up the day we arrived instead of our original plan of the next day because we would have seen nothing! After a very rewarding lunch we repacked our bags at the hostel which stored our additional luggage for us the previous night and then headed out that night on a short (by our standards) bus ride of 3 hours to El Calafate. So...overall our time in El Chalten was short (and
a bit rushed), but we manged to see Fitz Roy and on top of that didn´t pay for 1 night of accomodation! This is always a cause for celebration when travelling on a budget!
Stayed tuned for El Calafate,
Greg and Laura
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