After our backpacking in Torres del Paine and the days in Puerto Natales, we headed out of Chile and into Argentina. We spent a day and a night in El Calafate, Argentina just to break up the traveling and found a lovely town.
We spent the afternoon at La Zorra Taproom drinking reasonably priced, delicious beers! I highly recommend El Calafate, it reminds me of a Colorado mountain town. I would love to spend some more time exploring nearby.
Leaving El Calafate, we took a bus to El Chalten, Argentina. What a cool town! It’s located in Los Glaciares National Park, home of the iconic Fitz Roy range that’s featured in the Patagonia clothing logo motif. Since Andrea was still recovering, I was hiking alone!
From what I could tell, there are two main hikes right out of town. One heads to Laguna Los Torres, and the other heads up to Laguna de Los Tres, which sits at the base of Fitz Roy, the “main attraction”.
With the weather forecast pointing to the second full day being the clearest, I headed for Laguna Los Torres on the first day. With the hike being right around 14 miles from our accommodations, I headed out fairly early and was met with… nobody on the trails! As always, nobody hikes in the mornings. Perfect!
The hike was pretty easy, but long, and the weather turned out to be pretty nice! The clouds bounced on and off the higher peaks, but I still managed to see them, which sounds like a win based on stories I’ve heard on Patagonia weather!
I spent a fair amount of time hiking around Laguna Torres, and the views just kept getting better and better, but with the wind screaming I decided it was time to head back down to hang out with Andrea and get some food (and fairly tipsy on great beer with an empty stomach…)!
The next day I got up early again and headed for Laguna de los Tres and the close-up views of Fitz Roy! This day was a 15+mi day from the opposite side of town. As with the day before, the trails were pretty empty on the way up. Thanks to everyone sleeping in, please continue doing this!
The climbing and views started early, with a beautiful view north up the valley. Then shortly thereafter as I popped over a ridge, Fitz Roy and companions were looming in the distance.
I made good time on this beautiful bluebird day. Before I knew it, I was upon the very steep final section, about 1300ft of elevation gain in a mile. I had heard this was a very difficult section, but it felt like hiking the final portion of a 14er at 3,000ft above sea level… oxygen so thick you could cut it with a knife! At the top, the views were incredible!
After a quick snack and enough time to soak in the views, I headed back down to town. I took a detour to Laguna Capri, but couldn’t really manage a good picture. I do wish I would have snapped more pics along the trail, but as usual I was in the zone. There was a beautiful stream or three along the way that I could have hung out by all day!
One interesting thing of note, when researching the hikes in El Chalten I didn’t come upon any information on camping in the immediate area around the from-town hikes, but there were a handful of free campsites up there! In the end it worked out well to stay in town considering Andrea’s sore knees, though.
After our too-short time in El Chalten, we headed back to El Calafate early the next day to fly out to Buenos Aires for our return trip home.
-Kyle