Eric and I spent the last week in a city called El Chalten. It is the gateway to the famous Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre spires as well as general access to Los Glaciers NP including access to the southern patagonian ice fields. The city itself is a stark contrast to the Torres - the city is only about 600 ppl and you can see the tips of about most of the peaks from the city...a lot of what we did could be reached by day hikes.
We met some awesome people on the bus ride there and scoured for camping right as the weather started to turn. I had caught a glimpse of Patagonia weather in the Torres, but this was full on. It didn't stop raining for 24 hr and the winds threatened to blow our tents over. On top of that it was pretty cold so we took the day to supply ourselves and headed out the next afternoon. We struck immediately for the furthest point from town. Disgruntled that the campsite was on public property and we had to pay to both camp and day hike we discussed hiking to the pass and on to the next site down the following day. In the morning we learned that day hiking was free for campers. A fortunate turn of events considering we got lost on our hike where we accidentally followed a rescue mission to the mouth of the Marconi glacier instead of to the pass. In half defeat we discussed giving it a second go in the morning when our soon to be German friend Raik stormed in and formed an international alliance to hike to the pass in the morning.
I'm still not sure if this was one of the dumber things I've ever done. The first but was just really steep, but that gave was to melting ice, a glacial river crossing and the finally a 30 minute walk up and around a glacier (without crampons - above a crevasse). Eric and I wouldn't have attempted alone, but the snow was in fact perfect and Raik had a bit more experience with such things and said it was safe. We lived to type the tale and the views were stupendous. The clouds around Fitz Roy opened up a half hour after we got there.
We moved sites the next day and the the following morning hiked up to Laguna de Los Tres which us where this pic is from. Once again perfect timing. We hiked out the same day and booked our tickets to Bolson for the following morning up the infamous ruta 40. Packing our frost covered tents and 24 hrs of bus riding later we are checked into a hostel and ready to sample any of the 10s of microbreweries we've seen here already. Oh and ruta 40 is a pain although not too bad - although the layover town of Perito Moreno (no relation to the glacier) is a rundown town not worth visiting.
The view from Laguna Los Tres. I tried to fit everything that was going on in 1 pic. You can see both lakes, Fitz Roy in the background and the glacier streaming down on both sides of some no-name hill:
Added pics:
Cerro Torre from Paso Cuadrato. The othe great peak of the region. The mountaineer we met on the pass said he was here for a month a few years back and it didn't come out of the cloud once...more finicky even than Fitz Roy.
Fitz Roy from above Laguna de Los Tres...similar to the other picture but better focus.
Picture of 2 mountaineers following our footpath across the glacier up to Paso Cuadrato.
We met some awesome people on the bus ride there and scoured for camping right as the weather started to turn. I had caught a glimpse of Patagonia weather in the Torres, but this was full on. It didn't stop raining for 24 hr and the winds threatened to blow our tents over. On top of that it was pretty cold so we took the day to supply ourselves and headed out the next afternoon. We struck immediately for the furthest point from town. Disgruntled that the campsite was on public property and we had to pay to both camp and day hike we discussed hiking to the pass and on to the next site down the following day. In the morning we learned that day hiking was free for campers. A fortunate turn of events considering we got lost on our hike where we accidentally followed a rescue mission to the mouth of the Marconi glacier instead of to the pass. In half defeat we discussed giving it a second go in the morning when our soon to be German friend Raik stormed in and formed an international alliance to hike to the pass in the morning.
I'm still not sure if this was one of the dumber things I've ever done. The first but was just really steep, but that gave was to melting ice, a glacial river crossing and the finally a 30 minute walk up and around a glacier (without crampons - above a crevasse). Eric and I wouldn't have attempted alone, but the snow was in fact perfect and Raik had a bit more experience with such things and said it was safe. We lived to type the tale and the views were stupendous. The clouds around Fitz Roy opened up a half hour after we got there.
We moved sites the next day and the the following morning hiked up to Laguna de Los Tres which us where this pic is from. Once again perfect timing. We hiked out the same day and booked our tickets to Bolson for the following morning up the infamous ruta 40. Packing our frost covered tents and 24 hrs of bus riding later we are checked into a hostel and ready to sample any of the 10s of microbreweries we've seen here already. Oh and ruta 40 is a pain although not too bad - although the layover town of Perito Moreno (no relation to the glacier) is a rundown town not worth visiting.
The view from Laguna Los Tres. I tried to fit everything that was going on in 1 pic. You can see both lakes, Fitz Roy in the background and the glacier streaming down on both sides of some no-name hill:
Added pics:
Cerro Torre from Paso Cuadrato. The othe great peak of the region. The mountaineer we met on the pass said he was here for a month a few years back and it didn't come out of the cloud once...more finicky even than Fitz Roy.
Fitz Roy from above Laguna de Los Tres...similar to the other picture but better focus.
Picture of 2 mountaineers following our footpath across the glacier up to Paso Cuadrato.
Thanks for keeping us posted on your where's and what's, Darren! So happy to hear you're having fun and very much looking forward to seeing more of your pictures...
ReplyDelete