Patagonia Part IV: Monte Fitz Roy & El Chalten


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South America » Argentina » Santa Cruz » El Chaltén
February 27th 2011
Published: February 27th 2011
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It was good to be alive! We had survived the inclement weather conditions of Torres del Paine and I had personally survived a post-camping-disaster-wife’s wrath. But we were, in all seriousness, looking forward to trying it again and going to Mount Fitz Roy.

Mount Fitz Roy is an Argentinean mountain located near El Chaltén village, in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, on the border with Chile. Chaltén comes from a word meaning "smoking mountain", due to a cloud that usually forms around the mountain's peak. Conditions can be extremely changeable and erratic here, so Sarah and I were bracing ourselves. This time however, Lady Luck was on our side as we enjoyed five glorious days of sunshine in El Chalten. We were told that this is certainly not the norm - some climbers had been in the town for over a month waiting for a break in the weather to reach the summit. The mountain has a reputation of being the "ultimate climb”. At over just over 11,000 ft, the peak itself is not amongst the tallest but because the sheer granite faces present long stretches of arduous technical climbing it is considered a ‘Mecca’ amongst climbers. Sarah and I were definitely not in this category, so we planned our hike and camping adventure for the next few days.

After arriving via a short four hour bus ride from El Calafate, we checked into our hostel and went for an afternoon hike to a beautiful and hidden trail to a mirador (viewpoint) of Fitz Roy. It was an easy 12-15k round trip and we got some nice shots.

Our second day was going to be a bit more challenging. We did a 24 kilometer hike that took us around to Lomo del Pliegue Tumbado, a trail to the south of Fitz Roy.

On our third day we took off for our overnight camp and trek. We rented a much better tent in the village and it was like a penthouse compared to our tent in TdP. I even managed to scope out a prime camp spot close to the river with a cracking view of Fitz Roy. From our base at Poicenot we trekked to the glacier and lagoon before cooking up and sipping some of the local firewater called Pisco. As the sunset and it got dark, we could spot tiny lights on the cliff faces above us. The climbers were working through the night! The next morning was going to be an early start…

We got out of the penthouse by 5:15a and began our 90 minute hike toward Laguna do las Tres. By 6.30a we were at the top, and the view was spectacular as you can appreciate from some of our photos - incredible. After hiking back down we had breakfast and crashed for a while. Later in the afternoon we hiked back to El Chalten via Laguna Capri.

Completing over 60 km in four days was just cause for a beer or two so we rewarded ourselves with a few brews at ‘La Cervezeria’; a cool pub at the foot of the mountains and at the entrance to the village. Next up, we were going to Bariloche in northern Patagonia to complete our adventure in this remarkable part of South America.

Check out our final Patagonia blog from Bariloche coming soon…



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28th February 2011

enjoyment
Excellent!!! Great scenery, smiles, terrain, wonderful documentation .... awesome, awesome, awesome!!!! Safe travels, keep on truckin', xoxo

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