Cerro Torro and Fitzroy

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The other great area of granite towers in Patagonia is the Fitzroy and Cerro Torro group, north of El Calafate on the Argentinian side. The small town El Chalten sits right under the mountains so another early start on the public bus gave me a full day to walk one of the trails up to the Cerro Torro glacier. The morning started brightly and there were great views as I walked up through the town, wind and cloud built through the day, but I still caught tantalising glimpses of Cerro Torro through holes in the cloud. This is possibly the most stunning mountain of all, being a slender granite spire, dominating surrounding peaks and glaciers until the land again rises for the equally vertical but broader Fitzroy. These mountains may be little over 3000m, but they rise straight up from near sea level and are heavily glaciated. The only landscape I have seen that can compare are the Karakoram of Pakistan, some of these peaks are stunning, like Layla Peak, but they can not match Patagonia for dramatic impact. Only the sheer scale of the Karakoram with peaks between 6000 and 8600m allows it to compare to the towers of Patagonia.

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