Posada Altas Cumbres El Chalten

... rocks to prevent being blown off, all the while being blasted with hail.<br>The highlight was walking on glacier Grande and climbing the ice using picks - a rather surreal landscape of jagged ice, brilliant blue tunnels and crevasses amid streams of melting glacier.

... 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. <br><br>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. <br><br>A traverse of ...

... the warmest accommodation available, despite having lugged a tent all the way here.<br><br>The second day we woke to a beautiful, windless, blue sky. We crossed the first of many rivers that trip, having exhausted all other options before resigning ourselves to wading in the icy water. We climbed to a small glacier, walking along it for an hour before climbing up the Paso del Viento...where we were greeted by a suspicious absence of wind (thank f*ck) and an amazing view over ...

... paisagens planas com pouquissima vegetacao. Pra mim que gosto dos desertos foi legal. Varios trechos sao retas muito longas na estrada que saindo da Ruta 40 segue em direcao ao Lago Viedma ao Norte.<br><br>Faltando uma meia hora para chegar a El Chaten, a paisagem comeca a mudar com as montanhas da Cordilheira dos Andes aparecendo ao longe. Em certa parte do caminho eh possivel ver o Cerro Fitz Roy, ficando obvio que El Chalten estah proxima.<br><br>A cidade ...

... the vegetation is worn away, there is nothing to hold the dry, fine soil in place so simply it washes away). Some people (most notably Douglas Tompkins, the founder of ´The North Face´ clothing brand) have taken matters into their own hands and privately bought up thousands of acres of land and imposed strict limits on the numbers of visitors. Whilst I feel lucky to have seen some of this amazing scenery in a ...

The day we came, we conquered and we almost broke up..... he he: So we came to El Chalten.... the trekking capital of Argentina to stretch our legs a little.... well turned out pulled a few ...

... run, without a break so that i could get back before sun set... Fuelled on but together podcast mixes, which is so not the spirit of hiking but was the only thing to get me up that mountain... i was so lucky also as the weather cleared up and i had perfect views... (thank you evil nine for getting me through that last hour ) i came back a broken woman, however nothing a steak the size of my head couldnt sort out!!! another day, on our way, to BA!!!!

... at the Park Tourist Centre about how to behave in the wilderness, was met by the local rep of Andes who had organised my itinerary, shown to the best local snack bar for some Tortilla, settled in to my B&amp;B and then set off for my first trek. It was ten minutes to the signpost at the base which was full of helpful suggestions about what to do if one met a puma, apparently wave the arms to look bigger, throw stones, and if one survived report ...

... region, validated the legacy that had preceded it. In fact, the strange town even deepened these impressions with its rugged frontier nature that reminded us a bit of New Zealand and Alaska. Home to an array of high-end designer outdoorwear boutiques, fancy souvenir shops, fine-dining parillas (steak houses), and snarling dogs tied up to rusted beatup pickup trucks, this ramshackle little town seemed to have little rhyme or reason to it. The ...

... but this place is clearly a very young and prosperous town, so it's got a great vibe to it.<br><br>The location of El Chalten is also fantastic, in a wide valley in the shadow of the tall snow-capped mountains around it, making it the perfect stop-over for those people heading to/from the Moreno Glacier and the Torres del Paine national park ...