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Published: April 1st 2012
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El Chalten is 3 hours north of El Calafate by bus and is at the entrance to the northern sector of Parque National Los Glaciares. It’s a lovely little town and is full of tourists hiking the surrounding mountain ranges including the Fitz Roy. I got the afternoon bus with Christian and Zoe from England whom I met at the Glacier the day before and were on a three month trip of South America. We arrived in El Chalten around 6pm and had a quick stop in the Park Rangers office to get a talk on the hiking trails that were available. I was staying at a different hostel so we arranged to meet at the La Cerveceria Pub and Restro-a German style bar for some local microbrew beer before heading to a magnificent restaurant in a log cabin. The lamb stew was superb and the red wine very tasty! The next day we hiked to Laguna Torre which was an 8 hour round trip (very exhausting after 6 months of traveling without much exercise!!). Unfortunately the weather turned out pretty awful so although we got good views for the first few hours we didn’t see Cerro Torre. After the trek
we were exhausted and soaking wet so headed to the nearest café for some hot chocolate and food. Christian and Zoe were heading back to El Calafate that evening so we said farewell and I headed back to my hostel for the best hot shower ever. I got chatting to a couple of other travelers from the UK and Canada who recommended trekking Torres Del Paine in Chile that was I was thinking of doing but wasn’t sure of the logistics. I got some good advice and planning and decided to go four days later when the weather forecast was good.
The next day I headed up the mountain again to tackle the Laguna de los Tres trek. This was another 8 hours round trip and took in the amazing Fitz Roy mountain range. Fortunately the weather was sunny and clear! The trails well marked and there were lots of other people trekking so I was comfortable doing the hike alone. It was simply stunning hiking through forests and past small lakes especially when the Fitz mountain range came into view. It was great motivation when the trail got steep especially towards the end when it’s a really steep
1 hour climb to the glacial Laguna de los Tres and a close up view of the 3405m Fitz Roy. It was incredible being that close and it was so quite with small drops of snow floating in the air that must have come down from the mountain peaks.
On the third day I spent most of the morning recovering from the last two days of hiking (some 36k in total) and did a small hike in the afternoon to laguna Sucia that had great views of the Fitz Roy. After a good night’s sleep the next day I headed back to El Calafate for one night and then an early morning bus across the border in Chile to Puerto Natales where it’s possible to access Parque National Torres Del Paine and the Navimag ferry journey through the Chilean fjords to Puerto Montt.
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