Nahuel Huapi Traverse

Trip Start Jan 20, 2005
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Trip End Feb 20, 2005


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Where I stayed
Venieza Hotel
(Bariloche hotels)

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Wednesday, January 26, 2005

On January 22nd we caught a cab in Bariloche and went to Cerro Catedral, the local ski hill, where we started our hike. The weather was beautiful, sunny and crisp. We hiked into the first refugio or hut called Frey in around 4 hrs and set up our tent by Laguna Tonchek in a sheltered spot as the winds were strong. Unfortunately we discovered that our fuel pump was broken (bought a new stove for travelling to avoid hassle of having stove taken away at airports as traces of fuel inside). The gasket that allows pressure to build up in the fuel container kept falling off. After about 2hrs of shivering and eating some cold food, we were able to hot glue (thanks Peter for the gift of the emergency hiking kit!) the gasket on and get pressure in the pump to make a meal. Needless to say this put a damper on our trip as we wanted to do a 5 day hike and were now not sure whether our stove would last.

After a chilly night (sleeping in toques and fleece!) we woke up to another sunny day and thankfully were able to make another hot meal with our stove. We left Laguna Tonchek in strong winds heading up to another pass, limping a bit as our feet were a bit blistered already (should have hiked more around Calgary the last month before we left!). The trail was quite steep and windy, and we passed Lake Schmoll (and great views looking back down a Laguna Tonchek) along the way, up to the pass which is called Cacha de Futbal because it is like a little football field. The views at this pass were stunning, and we could a couple of mountain ranges and valleys. a) Flowers on the trail
a) Flowers on the trail
 Down the scree we went, and the rain began so we called it a day and camped at a little campsite in the Arroyo Rucaco valley (full of purple flowers and yellow lady slippers).

Awoke to another nice day and headed up the second pass to decend down to Laguna Jacob. On the descent we caught up to a group of about 30 Argentinian teenagers who were slowly picking their way down the mountain, hence we made our own trail down the scree, almost skiing past them with our poles, far enough away to not drop any rocks on them. The campsite at Refugio Jakob was pretty, right on the lake, and we were able to set up a nice sheltered campsite and clean up in the lake. We were identified as Canadian by an Australian couple named Simon and Solveiga who were travelling for a year in SA; our Mountain Equipment Co-op gear gave us away! Ironically my stylish red fleece and blue toque were the exact items that Solveiga had as well (her family lives in Toronto and she gets MEC gear from there!).

We wanted to continue the next day up higher level traverse to Laguna Negra but our stove stopped working and our feet were pretty sore so we decided to hike back out the valley (Arroyo Casa de Piedra), a nice 13km downhill hike through bamboo and flowers, although the sun burnt us to a crisp despite hats and SPF 60! Back in Bariloche we found a mexican restaurant (Dias de Zapata) that served us big portions of fajittas and El Bolson beer (great stuff!). See our pic at that restaurant with our new friend Stanwee (our friend Renata has a big flower named Stanley so we decided we needed a flower too!). Prices in Bariloche are great, our meal came out to about $20 Canadian and to get all of our clothes washed only took $3! All the hostels in town were full but we managed to get a room at the Venieza Hotel for about $25 a night, great little basic place close to everything and ironically cheaper than most double rooms at hostels! Off to El Bolson for another hike in a day or so, we hope to find some El Bolson Picante (pepper) beer!
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