After our adventurous second entry into Argentina, we headed for Él Chalten, which is a great little town with one very big attraction, Monte Fitz Roy and its neighbouring peaks of granite.
As Jared mentioned, Argentina is pretty expensive so we basically just wild camped in the area, cooked our own food and did the (free) hiking. We found a place with free hot showers and we thought we had died and gone to heaven. The best experiences are usually not the most expensive anyways, and these hikes proved that yet again.
The first morning we woke up to our first frost. Jared spoiled me and got up and started the vehicle so I could emerge from the sleeping bag!
The hike we did that day was called 'Lago de Los Tres,' named after the three beautiful lakes at the base of the soaring granite peaks.
Here we were treated to our first view of the towers, but we would get much closer......
The hike was 10.5 km one way. The first 9.5 km were pretty easy and flat, it was just the last km where we had to gain 400 m of elevation. Not too bad if you take breaks, and there's lots of nice things to look at along the way. It took us 7 hrs round-trip walking, plus we spent 2 hrs gawking at the top!
Glaciar Pedras Blancas
Closer,
Gaining some elevation, enjoying the fall colours on the way up
We made it!
There are so many pictures on here of the same darn peaks, I just couldn't choose, I love them all too much
This shot of the peaks out of the clouds and the water clear enough
for a reflection is actually super rare with the crazy unpredictable weather here. People come here to hike and sometimes don't even see the towers.
Laguna Sucia, one of the three lakes. Such beautiful colours!
The Patagonia label was actually modelled after these peaks- can you tell?
Check out that beard....it's getting epic. Birds may be living in it. And my hair, too.
Fall colours on the beech trees
We wild camped out by the mirador (lookout point) that night, and Jared snapped this one of the towers at sunrise. Just magic.
The next morning we headed for another day hike, this one called Loma del Pliegue Tumabado. It was more of a gradual climb, with no really steep stuff (we were told). Here I am trying to pose with some Herefords that don't care about pictures.
Nice view back down the valley
Fall colours-this part of the hike was an explosion of greens, yellows, oranges and reds. It was stunning.
Here we are out in the open, and the wind was occasionally crazy, then almost gone. It was so strange- you just had to wait 5 minutes. If only it were that easy in Southern Alberta!
So there actually was a steep part, and here we are on it. The weather was actually picking up, but since we had all the right clothes (Jared always makes sure we are prepared!) and we had already done 90% of the hike, we decided to do the last little tough bit. We wanted to train for the W, a 5 day 100 km hike in Torres del Paine NP that we are going to do, so we decided to toughen up. The wind was howling like crazy, and when we got to the top it must have been over 100 mph! You couldn't even stand to take a picture, you had to brace yourself. Panoramas were a real challenge!
But once we were up there, and had the whole mountain to ourselves, it was pretty darn cool.
Arms outstretched, wind blowing like crazy, cool things to see, quite the experience
We were the blue arrow
Jared on top of the mountain
After about 20 min up there the clouds were really rolling in, so the views were almost completely gone. We decided to head down before it got really nasty. Here are all the zig zags we took up.
The 'nipple on top of the breast' as Jared put it. The steep part we decided to just power through to get to the top.
Back down through some beautiful beech forest. Felt very much like the Hobbit for some reason.
Herefords for days down here!
View of the town site from the hike
And now for the really glamorous stuff, sometimes we hand wash our clothes in the free showers and then hang them up in our vehicle🙃
When laundry in Argentina is $25 Cdn per load, we gotta improvise!
Until Next Time!
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