Amazing peaks on an easy walk
Trip Start
Sep 28, 2007
1
50
91
Trip End
Jun 25, 2008
El Chalten,
Argentina
Sunday, February 3, 2008
To get there we had to go all the way south along Patagonia's bleak plains to Rio Gallegos and up again several hundred kilometres by the Andes. So much for a trim carbon footprint.
The landscape along the way varied little - just windswept flat land somewhat similar to the Central Otago depicted in Graham Sydney's landscapes, only paler.
Close to El Chaltén we stopped at this amazing cafe with a mouth-watering array of cakes and sweets and a pet guanaco (we think) that is the wild version of a llama
Guanaco in the cafe
. I had to look twice when I saw it wander into the main room by the food cabinet and plonk itself down in the middle of everything, oblivious to the long line of cake-seeking tourists. I patted it, and its strong, straight neck felt amazing with the softest fibre.It was interesting to learn that El Chaltén is a hotly contested area between Chile and Argentina and in 1985 Argentina decided to set up a town to increase the country's claim on the area. Now it's a tourism god-send, being literally at the doorstep of two famous mountains and everyone is building property here.
It remains a cute little place with some really nice establishments. We were impressed with a micro-brewery with fantastic beer served with bowls of salted popcorn and excellent food. We tried the locro there, which is a typical Argentinian hearty stew, and some empanadas.
But the main reason to visit El Chaltén is to walk in the national park, Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, which we did.
Day 1 - El Chaltén to Campamento Poincenot
It was a perfect day for hiking and an easy hike. We went up and round a knoll with views back over a braided, pale-blue river valley that looked just like New Zealand.
Then, heading straight for Monte Fitz Roy, we had the most amazing views of it. It's a huge hunk of largely vertical sided rock that reaches 3,405 metres
El Chalten
.Once we had set up camp at the campsite, we headed up the river valley to Laguna Sucia, that sits below the glacier beneath Cerro Poincenot. While it's a beautiful view, like many of the lookout points in the park, it diminished the scale of the peaks so you don't get a true feel of how much they are towering over you.
Day 2 - Campamento Poincenot to Campamento
We got up at 5.30 the next morning to hike up to the Laguna de los Tres before sunrise. The track takes you ridiculously close to Fitz Roy and its companion peaks but it didn't turn red as the sun's rays first hit it, as promised. Still impressive though.
Afterwords we headed to the lookout of Piedras Blancas Glaciar before heading on the track that links the Fitz Roy part of the park with the Lago Torres part. It goes past the so-called mother and child lakes which are deeply green and blue respectively and separated by what looks like a narrow rock fall.
We sat and had lunch overlooking green mother lake and watched the grey clouds roll in to cover Fitz Roy and had our first experience of Patagonian wind, freezing and blow-you-over strong
Mt Fitz Roy
. The bad weather stayed on our tail for the rest of the walk to Campamento Agostini, with the rain setting in an hour after we'd set up camp. The campsite was eerily quiet that night with everyone hunkered down in their tents.
Day 3 - Campamento Agostini to El Chalten
Miraculously, the weather had cleared by morning so we had wonderful views of Cerro Torre above Torre lake and the huge, flat glacier on the way up and back from Mirador Maestri.
Clearly visible was the ice mushroom on the peak of Torre that only forms when water freezes directly onto rock.
After lunch we headed back out to El Chalten, setting up camp in the free campsite where the trail to Fitz Roy starts.
