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After spending hours working on our website we finally left El Calafate and headed north towards El Chaltén and Mount Fitz Roy, our next destination. We arrived the following morning but had to stop en route for great views and photos. We were looking forward to coming back here.
The last time we were here we didn't do any hiking because of bad weather and we only got a view of Mount Fitz Roy when we left! This time around we had perfect weather for hiking even though it was freezing overnight and we ran out of gas in our heater bottle on our last day there!
We spent the first day finding out about walks and where we could park etc. and went for a short walk along the main street. We didn't recognise anything of the town. It had obviously expanded and changed in the 14 years since we'd been here. It's a relatively new town, founded in 1985, and increasing numbers of tourists and trekkers have been coming here ever since to find out what all the fuss is about.
Beautiful sunset on our first night in El Chaltén - 360° Panorama
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We went up to Laguna Capri and Piedras Blancas for our first day hike. It was 20km and 350m of ascent up to Laguna Capri so it wasn't too difficult. We were hiking through windswept forests and past small lakes but we had perfect weather and got a great reflection of Mount Fitz Roy in Laguna Capri. No wind up here is a rarity!
We went up to the Mount Fitz Roy lookout and then to Piedras Blancas to get to a viewpoint for a hanging glacier flowing into a turquoise lake. It was a fantastic walk and we had great weather. We even saw some Magellan woodpeckers on the way back.
The next morning it was my birthday and we woke up to ice on the inside of our windows! We put the heater on and stayed in bed until it was warm enough to get up! We had another perfect day for walking and did a 20km hike up to Laguna Torre and Torre Glacier.
We set off at 9-45am and the first part was freezing cold but it was also up a steep hill which meant we kept having to stop to take all our warmer hiking gear off. It took us over an hour to do the first 2km! Our first stop was at Mirador Laguna Torre, a crest with the first clear view up the valley to the extraordinary 3128m rock spire of Cerro Torre. Below it there is a sprawling mass of intersecting glaciers.
Continuing along a winding path across an alluvial plain we finally reached Laguna Torre for photos of icebergs from Torre Glacier. The lake was frozen over with a light ice cover. We hiked further to Maestri Viewpoint for a superb view of the glacier and the glacial wall.
Laguna Torre - 360° Panorama
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What a fantastic birthday present! We set off on the hike back at 2-30pm and didn't think we would get back in time to go out for a birthday meal before the restaurant closed but we made good time and got back at 5-30pm. This meant we had enough time for a shower at a nearby hostel (20 pesos) and then went to a vegetarian restaurant where we shared a Dhal and a Chop Suey. I got a delicious banana chocolate crêpe all to myself!! Yummy!
Helen's birthday: Hike to Laguna Torre. Dinner.
We took a day off to work on the website and parked at a viewpoint just outside of town for the night. Kirsten got up for the sunrise even though it was freezing cold but then our gas bottle for the heater ran out! At least we have a second bottle for the kitchen but it will be a pain to keep swapping them over.
On our way back into town we stopped at the gas plant but they don't fill bottle, they just have already filled bottles for swapping. Our bottles are different so we can't swap them. We'll see if we can find propane further north. (Little did we know what a problem it would be to get propane - but more on that later!)
For our final walk of 21km we repeated the walk up to Laguna Capri that we did on the first day and then continued on a steep zig zag trail, 400m of ascent and 1km, up to Lago de los Tres. That part took us one hour but we were rewarded with a view of a beautiful glacial lake.
Lago de los Tres - 360° Panorama
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It was another superb walk and took us just over 8 hours.
After one more sunrise we took our leave from El Chaltén. We really enjoyed the hikes and are so glad we came back here. We headed north again but not all of Route 40 is tarmac. It took us almost 3 hours to do the 61km (38 miles) of gravel road that they haven't done yet. It was so exhausting that we found a spot off the road at Lago Cardiel for the night.
Sunset at Lago Cardiel - 360° Panorama
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