Torre/Fitzroy Trek - day 1
Trip Start
Mar 01, 2006
1
296
551
Trip End
Dec 01, 2007
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Los Glaciares National Park,
Argentina
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
We left he stuff we did not need at the guesthouse, and headed off a little bit before 10. The weather was great , there were very few clouds, and we decided to start the hike by the Torre track: Cerro Torre is very difficult to see, as it is most of the time, and even more so than the other peaks, under a permanent thick cloud. So that lovely day was promising, and we thought we should try to see it.
The wind was very strong and quite cold. We walked out of town and we could admire Cerro Solo and its high up hanging gacier, and cerro Fitzroy dominating the landscape. It was already beautiful.
We walked through short shrubs, and then forest, and after an hour we got into the valley leading to cerro Torre, to discover.. that cerro Torre was indeed wrapped in its permanent cloud! From El Chaten we could not have seen the clouds, but there they were, hanging around the peaks and above the glaciers. What we got to see was the valley of Rio Fitzroy, cerro Solo on the right, and as we progressed in the valley, Glaciar Grande coming into sight.
We walked in the valley for another hour, under the sun and in the wind, it was beautiful, the Rio had the milky green colour from the glacier minerals, and the ground was rocks and sand, leftovers by older and much bigger glaciers.
We reached the camping, set up the tents, had lunch, and then walked another ten minutes, climbing over big moraine mounds. And there we were above the lake, the wind was terrible, we could lean forward without falling, it was a little bit like freefalling. The wind was forming waves on lago Torre, pushing the ice blocks from Glaciar Grande towards our side.
Another hour walking along the lake, on top of a huge moraine, still in a strong wing, carrying over a bit of rain from the clouds nailed above the glacier. As we walked, we got a full view of the majestuous Glaciar Grande, dominated, or rather cohabitating, with cerro Solo.
All along the day, I was happy I had bought hiking shoes, I don't know how I did, in the past 10 months, so many hikes with just the low shoes I had without twisting my ankle. I was happy to have bought my warm ski jacket too, otherwise I would have frozen.
Another thought: usually the hikes I do remind me of other hikes I did previously during the trip. I might come from the surroundind view, the situation, colors, my mood, I don't know. Walking on the edge of the moraine reminded me vividly of walking around the edge of Mt Bromo, a volcano in Indonesia.
Back at the campground at around 4 or 5, we did not have much to do, except for Robert who had carried his book. Dipping the feet in the glacial river was great, and then we set up our picnic area, with logs and stones. We started to prepare the lunch for the next day, that we would keep in a plastic box: we were experimenting, with Lionel, our material and organisation, for longer treks to come, when it is more convenient to cook in the evening for the next day's lunch.
That done, we hung out a bit more and started to prepare dinner (actually the same thing that we had cooked for the next day lunch: rice, half an onion, half a carot... a tin of tuna and a drop of parmesan cheese).
At the same time we started a serious aperitif: we had bread, two saucissons, blue cheese, and a bottle of wine (that we had to carry for the next two days cause we could not leave any trash). It was Robert's birthday, and we had to celebrate!
After dinner, once we were ready to go to bed, we came out with our birthday present for Robert: alfajores (chocolate cookies with dulce de leche) with a candle (very hard to find in El Chalten), a card showing the peaks of CerroTorre and Cerro Fitzroy under NO cloud, and a barbie doll travel kit (pink with a heart)
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Comments
spanish project help
hello i see tht you hav been to argentina and los glaciares park. i am doing a huge spanish project on traveling to another country. our 1st assignment was to find the best thing to do in argentina.so can u please tell me if it was a one day trip to trek on the glaciars and much does it cost per person...thx