Cabanas La Loma El Chalten

... Morena von einem weiblichen Puma ("Leona" im patagonischen Slang) schwer verletzt. In der Folge wurde der Flusses und auf Grund seiner Forschungsverdienste der Gletscher nach ihm benannt.
Das kleine Paradies Helsingfors (9 Zimmer) ist 180km von El Calafate entfernt und liegt verträumt am Lago Viedma gegenüber dem viel besuchten Bergsteiger- und Hikerkaff El Chalten. Die hochkarätigen Kletterpadiese mit Cerro Torre und Fitz Roy sind, falls nicht in Wolken ...

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Arriving late Saturday night, I quickly passed out in our cozy hostel, Aylen Aike. The next day, Andreas and I temporarily split up. He had decided to do a day of glacier-hiking with a local tour company. Luckily, his group, in their hike returning to town, would pass by the campsite at which we´d planned to stop on the first night of a three-day trek. After Andreas woke up early to hike up to the ice, I slept in for awhile, bought my food for the ...

... noon. We headed to Campemento Augustini at the base of Cerro Torre and the shores of Lago Torre. This was a fairly flat trek thru low bushes, thorny calafate brush, and the occassional hop over a creek or two.

The viewpoint of Glacier Grande and Cerro Torre is not one to be reckoned with. All of these sites have been amazingly wonderful to enjoy and each time they just get better and better.

A traverse of ...

... A thick band of freezing, grey cloud with snowstorms and strong winds had swallowed the peaks. As I said, we were extremely lucky with the weather.

El Chalten is an amazing place. Personally, I want to come back to go on an eight day trek across the glaciers and onto the Hielo-Sur Ice Field which skirts around the back of FitzRoy and Cerro Torre. Neither Louise or the Bank Manager however will allow it this year but I hope to come back before my bones are too old!

... an hour!). The layers of thermal underwear, long sleeved t-shirts, fleeces and wind jackets helped!!!

Today we got up early again to take an ice hike on the Viedma Glacier. We took a boat over Lake Viedma to the glacier and climbed up and over the rocks to walk in and over and around this huge glacier! One half of the glacier recedes at 20cms a day and the other, more jagged side of the glacier recedes at almost ...

... sneak in and just collapse on the heated tiles before being chased out. Loucy really as its bitter out and they just want the heat.
We were off to Cordoba the following day so we did some packing and had an early night as we deserved it. An episode of Father Ted on the dvd player (which is coming in very handy) and we were conked for the night!! It was probably the most tiring day yet but great to have done it and good preparation for Machu Pichu and the Inca Trail!!

... here (access to the National Park from Calafate is very limited) is to see the Perito Moreno glacier, a finger-like extension of the ice field into Lago Argentina. The glacier rises to 60m (above the water) and is 5km wide where it meets the lake. Having seen a few glaciers up now, I was still shocked by the size of the thing, and the immense sound that resonates in the valley when the ice detaches from the front of ...

... First day we headed for the Laguna de los tres in the Cerro Fitzroy. We were very lucky to have sunny weather, so got some fantastic views, but we also got to experience the famous Patagonia wind! It is fierce strong and nearly sweaps you of your feet. We had sent up camp early so decided to take a wee trip to the Glacier Piedras Blancas were Toby lost his sunglasses as he set them on a rock and the wind swept them into the Laguna. Next day up early ...

... the lake, but we couldn't find it anywhere so we had to retrace our steps from earlier.



We were back at our hotel by 3:15pm, so had completed the walk in under 4.5 hours which was pretty good going considering our half hour lunch break.

Once back we showered and then I was able to watch the mighty Barnsley (!) beat Chelsea in ...