El Chalten

Trip Start Feb 19, 2007
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Trip End Sep 04, 2007


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Sunday, April 13, 2008

For some reason I had a vision in my head that El Chalten would be like a pretty swiss mountain village, but it wasnīt! Instead it was really windy and wild and ever second building in the town was under construction, apparently its going to be the next hotspot in Patagonia.   Thatīs probably because you donīt have to pay  (yet) to get into the national park and you can camp in the town for free. Its also really accessible for hikers, you can do a hike and get back to the town in one day if you donīt want to camp.  We did a few short hikes and two really big ones over two days, Laguna Torre and the Fitzroy walk. the first day we walked for about 8 hours altogether and arrived at a glacial lake where you could see the Cerro Torre peaks. They are some of the hardest peaks to climb in the world so I decided not to climb them and just view them from a safe distance! There was some snow on the ground but nothing too crazy. The next day we hiked to the Fitzroy viewing point. We thought it would be a similar hike to the day before. The first three hours were fine, but the last hour was a nightmare, with over a foot of snow and a really steep hill (with lots of complaining from yours truly whose socks were soaking). However the views at the top were decent, and it was pretty cool to see the mountain covered in snow and it was really clear for photos!
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