Torre/Fitzroy Trek - day 2
Trip Start
Mar 01, 2006
1
297
551
Trip End
Dec 01, 2007
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Los Glaciares National Park,
Argentina
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
I got up at 7.30 to check out cerro Torre. I walked out of the woods under which the campground was settled, the sunlight was not there yet but it was day light, and only one big cloud was there, guess where: on CerroTorre. While I was up, I thought I could just stay there and wait for sunrise. I walked to the top of the nearest moraine mound. Moments later, the top of cerro Torre emerged fromthe clouds and the first autumn ray of sun hit it.
Moments like this one are the sole and only reason why I sweat my ass hiking up mountains.
I ran to the next big moraine mound, from which I could see also the lake and the glacier.
The sunlight went down slowly on cerro Tore and its dedicated cloud, and then on the nearby mountains, and then down on the glacier.
The top of cerro Torre emerged from time to time, and once I saw the mountain completely, from bottom to top, for 20 or 30 seconds, revealing its famed ice mushroom...I had thought that this cap of ice, last obstacle for the climbers, would be something maybe 20 or 30 meters big... It was in fact a bloody 100 or 200 meters ice arrowhead, on top of the mountain. Now I remember why I don't climb.
After breakfast we packed and left the campground. ut beore heading towards cero Fitzroy, we walked up to the lake again, on the moraine, it was well worth the effort and we took a group photo, which I find really cool.
On the way back we met a park ranger, who asked to see ou trash, to check that we were not leaving anything behind. We had taken all our trash with us of course, but we learned that rinsing the dishes in the river was not acceptable.
The walk was going a bit upwards, in the forest, until we reached lagos Hija and Madre. Shortly after passing these two lakes, we attained camping Poincenot, set up the camp and had lunch.
The pogram of the afternoon was simple: walk up 400m to get to Lago de los Tres, as close as we could get of the foot of cerro Fitzroy. It was short, but steep and hard, until we reached the blue green waters, dominated by the glacier, and with a close-up view on cerro Fitzroy. Water was flowing out of the lake in a waterfall, and down the cliff we could see lago Sucia, fed by another huge glacier.
I walked past the waterfall and up another small part of the mountain. I realized later (whe the others told me) that I was not allowed to go there, it was reserved for climbers, on heir way to the glacier, before climbing cerro Fitzroy or Poincenot (the smaller one to the left). But it was beautiful.
There were clouds all the time up there around the peaks, and we finally got to see them in a clear sky... at night!
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