El Chalten – a few days in hiking paradise
After the 5 day trek in Chilean Patagonia, we hit the road with our friends Gui and Steve, towards El Chalten. Still in Patagonia, but on the Argentinian side. An awesome unexpected road trip ! Indeed, we were supposed to take the bus, but it just happened that Gui and Steve had the same itinerary we did for the next few days. So they invited to drive us up to El Chalten, since they had rented a car. Much nicer than taking the bus !
After driving 3 hours from El Calafate, we arrive in the little town of El Chalten, located north from the Viedma lake. And starting point to many hiking trails !
We will stay 4 days in El Chalten, and do only day hikes. Indeed, a lot of trails start in the town, so no need for any transportation to start a hike. Also all the trails are free! That changes us from Chile! The most famous mountain nearby is the Fitz Roy, its outline also inspired the Patagonia clothing brand logo.
Mirador Los Condores and Las Aguilas + Chorillo del Salto (9.3 miles)
For our first day in El Chalten, we initially wanted to do absolutely nothing and just rest. I mean we just come off a 40+ mile trek… And it is exactly what we did all morning, especially because the weather wasn’t nice at all with rain and snow falling. But around noon, the sky cleared out beautifully, and the sun was shining. We thought we couldn’t just stay in, we had to take advantage of the nice weather. No one knows how long it will last in Patagonia.
So we go out for a few small hikes, for a little over 9 miles total.
The first two are right next to each other and bring us to two miradors, the Condor’s mirador and the Eagle’s mirador. From the Condor mirador we have a nice view on the town, and notice how it is stuck between the mountains.
We also see a few condors flying above us. Beautiful!
And of course THE VIEW, on the Fitz Roy, that was up until now hidden in the clouds. Absolutely stunning!
Matt tries to find each pic and compares it to the outline of the Patagonia logo on Maider’s rain coat.
We continue towards the eagle’s mirador. The hike is very nice and the weather beautiful, we love it !
This mirador offers a beautiful panoramic view on a never ending prairie with the lake Viedma appearing on the side. Incredible !
This vast prairie is beautiful.
We spend some time admiring the view and turning around to watch the Fitz Roy, and of course take tons of pictures. We don’t know if we will see it this clearly again during our stay.
Indeed, the guide at the visitor center told us that you can spend weeks without seeing any of the mountains because of the clouds and fog.
We walk back down to town to go and see a little waterfall, the Chorillo del Salto. The hike is once again very beautiful, and gives a nice view on different mountains than the ones we have seen so far. Magnificent !
The waterfall itself isn’t very impressive but still very pretty.
Laguna Torre (12.5 miles)
After the small walk yesterday, we now start the serious stuff and hike up to a well known pic, the Cerro Torre. It is a 12.5 mile hike, where the trail is mostly pretty flat.
We leave towards 9 am and the sky isn’t completely blue like yesterday, but there aren’t too many clouds either. We have good hope that the day will be good, but we know that doesn’t mean anything, and the weather can change very quickly.
We walk for about 20 minutes when Matt realizes his knees hurt too badly and he can’t continue any further. He prefers heading back to the hostel and get some rest to be able to hike the next couple of days for the bigger and nicer hikes. So Maider continues alone towards the Laguna Torre. The first 2 miles are more or less done under the sunshine and without any wind. The hike is pretty cute.
Unfortunately, once you get in the valley that leads to the Cerro Torre, the sky is grey and cloudy. And the closer you get to it the worse the weather gets.
It even starts snowing, and it won’t get any better along the way until the Laguna Torre. Maider still takes pictures because the landscape remains beautiful, and after only 2 hours and 15 minutes, she gets to the Laguna.
Unfortunately the sky is grey and foggy, and even if it is possible to see the Laguna and the glacier that falls into it, the pics around can’t be seen.
Despite waiting 30 minutes for the sky to clear up, nothing happens and it seems the weather isn’t ready to change. There are a few icebergs that float in the Laguna. But it is impossible to see the Cerro Torre, that is completely in the clouds. This mountain is well know to often being in the clouds. With the glacier nearby, it creates a micro climate and there are very often clouds stuck on that mountain. It is really rare to have a complete blue sky above it.
So Maider goes back the same way she came from to hike back to the village. And less than 15 minutes after heading back, the sun starts coming out. Unbelievable.
So the huge advantage of hiking back on the same trail is that if the view wasn’t great on the way in, there is a slight chance that it will be good on the way back. And this is exactly what happened today. The mountains start appearing behind the clouds. And it is spectacular.
Maider is thrilled to be able to enjoy the view, but would have preferred if Matt was with her to enjoy it as well. She stops often to take pictures of the landscape, between mountain, prairies, rivers and forest. Fabulous!
The river is light green, it is beautiful. There is even a waterfall stuck there between the mountains and going into the river.
Coming back towards El Chalten, there is a nice little view of the town.
And some others mountains that were impossible to see because of the weather this morning.
Once again, there were different seasons in the same day, with cold and snow as well as clear blue skies with a sunshine. We have to take off and put back on the gloves and hat several times a day.
Tonight we meet up with Gui and Steve for happy hour beers and an amazing dinner in a local steakhouse. We have a very tasty rib eye and spend another great evening. This is what traveling is all about. Seeing amazing landscapes and spending an awesome time meeting incredible people and sharing tasty local food. It doesn’t get any better than that !
Laguna Los Tres and Fitz Roy (13.6 miles)
For our third day we hike up to the famous Fitz Roy. The weather is on our side and Matt hopes his knees won’t bother him too much.
The hike starts with a first beautiful view on the Vueltas river. Amazing! The sky is clear and we can see the mountains in the background.
A large part of the hike is done through the woods, where we will have the chance to see, but also hear, the Magellanic woodpecker, one of the park’s symbol. The noise they make when knocking on the wood is pretty impressive.
The hike takes us along a lake, the Laguna Capri.
A very nice lake with a nice view on the Fitz Roy.
The more we hike, the closer we get to this huge mountain, and we see it better and better. We are so lucky with the weather today!
On the way we see a beautiful Southern Crested Caracara.
The hike gets a lot more difficult as we start the last 1.2 miles. We had heard that this part was particularly difficult because of the rocks, the snow, the ice and the high elevation gain. And indeed, it is the most difficult part of the hike. In terms of elevation gain we have to climb 2,000 ft in only 1.2 miles. And the last half a mile is the hardest because of all the snow and ice. Thankfully we have our trekking poles to help us.
There is a lot of snow and ice but once we get to the top the view is amazing.
The lake is of course still frozen and covered in snow, but the scenery stays fabulous.
We stop here for lunch, trying to use a big rock to stay protected from the wind, that blows hard and cold. We take the time to admire the view and head back down. We will take longer to go downhill because we cross a lot of people hiking their way up. And again we fell lucky that we got there before all these people since we had the place almost to ourselves. The landscape on the way back is stunning. We can see a few lakes in the valley.
The way back is pretty fast. We turn back many times to admire the Fitz Roy. And take too many pictures! The sun is hidden for our last few miles, but it doesn’t matter, the landscape is still fantastic !
We get back to the hostel exhausted but so happy with this hike. It was absolutely beautiful and once again we couldn’t have dreamed for a better weather. This seems to be a very welcomed common theme for our days in Patagonia !
Loma del Pliegue Tumbado (14.3 miles)
For our last full day in El Chalten we go for a 14.3 miles hike. This one is known to have a great panoramic view on the Fitz Roy AND the Cerro Torre. Indeed, the weather is absolutely beautiful today and we are able to finally see the Cerro Torre for the first time since we arrived in El Chalten. The guide at the visitor center had told us that today would be the most beautiful day and he was completely right! Too bad we forgot to ask him what weather forecast app he was using.
We start the hike a little bit slower than usual since we both have very sore knees. We have hiked over 100 miles in just 10 days… so it starts to take a toll on our bodies.
But the hike is really nice.
We walk past a few people in the beginning of the trail but then find ourselves all alone. Indeed, this hike is a lot less popular than the one going to the Fitz Roy that we did yesterday. It is a little more difficult than the other hikes around, and for this one you really need to go all the way at the end of the trail to reach the mirador. The other hikes usually have a mirador after 2 or 3 miles.
We hike past several prairies that already offer a nice view on the Fitz Roy.
After 5 miles we enter a forest with plenty of snow and ice on the ground. It starts to get a little complicated and we know we will have snow the whole way now since we still need to climb 1,300ft.
The hike stays beautiful. When we get out of the forest the ground is all white.
We can see that we are almost there. And as we get to the mirador, that is at 4,500 ft altitude, we are blown away. We have in front of us the best view we have ever seen.
We can clearly see all the pics, lakes, glaciers and mountains. Fabulous !
And once again we are so lucky, the visibility is excellent. AND we are all alone to admire the view.
As we are quietly taking in the view, Matt looks at his watch to see how many kilometers we have hiked and how high we are and notices that we aren’t quite all the way at the end of the trail. And also we didn’t climb as high as we expected. Also we read that the last part was very very steep, and we didn’t really have anything that steep so far. We look around but can’t seem to find another trail continuing. All we see is a mountain top nearby, covered in snow, and the way up there is really steep, but it seems impossible. We walk towards the mountain and actually see steps going up. And they are going straight up the mountain almost all the way to the top. Maider thinks it is impossible to hike up, but Matt convinces her its a good idea. Especially since we are supposed to have an amazing 360 view on the surroundings from up there. So off we go. Behind us a Dutch couple is following. The climb is an absolute NIGHTMARE. We are literally climbing a wall of snow. Each of our steps go deep into the snow and after 5 minutes our feet are completely wet. We slip at times and it is getting dangerous because the mountain is so steep. After a while the foot steps we were following stop (the people probably back tracked here) but we decide to continue because the top seems so close. The Dutch couple ends up over taking us and we take advantage of their footsteps to continue climbing. And as we aren’t even 40 ft away from the top, the Dutch couple stops. They can’t go any further. The slope is even steeper and now it is covered in ice. It is impossible to continue without crampons. After trying and discussing our options we all decide it is best to go back down. It is frustrating to have to back track so close to the top, but trying to continue would be insane. It seems that this mirador is only accessible in summer. And if people were saying that is was super difficult and steep when it is only rocks, you can imagine how it is on snow and ice.
The way down will be a lot faster and mostly done sliding on our bottom. At least we did some more exercise and got more time to admire the surroundings.
Once at the bottom we go back to the mirador to grab lunch and continue admiring the view. By this time there is absolutely no cloud to be seen.
We fall in love with this view. And continue taking as many pictures as possible !
We hike back down a lot faster than we hiked up. By now most of the ice has melted, which makes the trail a lot easier to manage. We turn around for one last look at the Fitz Roy and the Cerro Torre, that were our companions for these 4 days in El Chalten. And we get back to the hostel absolutely exhausted.
For this last evening in El Chalten, we go for yet more happy hour beers with Gui and Steve. We then join a family from Switzerland for dinner, that Gui and Steve met in their hostel. They are having a birthday dinner party for their daughter who is turning 13. This family of 6 is traveling around the world for a year. We all have dinner together in an Italian restaurant, with another French family of 4, also traveling around the world for a year. We spent an awesome evening, talking about our travels and realize that both families pretty much have the same itinerary we do, so we hope to cross paths again somewhere in Oceania or Southeast Asia.
After diner we continue celebrating with Gui and Steve and go out for a couple Saideiras (a Brazilian term for saying one last drink). After another amazing evening and a pretty short night of sleep, we hit the road with our road trip partners towards El Calafate, from where we have a flight leaving to Bariloche the next day.