El Chalten

El Chalten is nestled in a valley, overlooked by the towering Mount Fitz Roy and a plethora of glaciers all within a days walk of the town. It was a crisp sunny day when I arrived and the approach into town presented a stunning view with Fitz Roy glowing in the morning sun above the town. With the weather set to change, I hired some more camping gear and hiked up to Fitz Roy that afternoon to spend 2 nights on a round trip of the area.

Autumn is further progressed here than elsewhere I've been and all the trees are resplendent in deep hues of red and amber. Truly spectacular when you add in some big spiky mountains and glaciers into the background.

At the official campsite, at the bottom of the short steep hike up to the base of Fitz Roy, a few day trippers on their way back recommended a camp spot up at the top. Taking their advice I spurned the campsite in the woods and pressed up and onwards to the mountain in the early evening. It was good advice and I had a magical camp in front of the lagoon, looking up at the spectacular mountain and glacier in the evening light. The stars even came out, but the weather was changing and in the morning I awoke to a mountain shrouded in damp cloud.

Looking up the valley

Fitz Roy base in the fading light

The not quite so spectacular morning view from camp

In the hope the cloud might lift later on I went for a wander and scrambled down to the bigger lagoon below, which has a massive glacier literally falling into it, with numerous chunks of ice regularly tumbling down the cliff face. Thought I'd get a great view up the other side so went on what turned into quite a long scramble up a steep scree and rock slope. The clouds unfortunately didn't play ball however and as I got higher the view was obscured and I got rained on. The rock here is great for climbing on however. Even in the damp it was reassuringly sticky, although a little flaky in places. Found another fantastic camp spot near the lower lagoon which I would love to come back to one day. Did give it some serious contemplation but in the end practicalities and bus timetables won out. Next time!

The view from the other side

Camped the next night in front of Laguna Torres with the originally named Glaciar Grande (it's a really big glacier) spilling into it at the far end. Was fairly cloudy though so didn't get to appreciate the full majesty of the view. [Most of the names here are particularly imaginative: Los Glaciares national park for example. It's aptly named however; there are an astounding number of glaciers here, and all so close to sea level]

More woody woodpeckers

Camp in front of Glacier Grande

It rained all morning but was only a few hours of easy hiking back to El Chalten. Met a couple of guys I'd chatted to in Torres del Paine in the afternoon who'd just done a bit of climbing in the area (there's excellent climbing and bouldering round here too). With the weather looking good again I teamed up with one of them, Chris, to hire some gear and do some sport climbing the next day.

Had the usual slow start while we both tried to remember the important bits of climbing (like how to secure yourself at the top!) and warmed up on a couple of easy 5a's. The other climbs on the crag (which was just on the edge of town) were significantly harder but without a good topo I scoped one out which looked doable, following a nice crack up the wall and with what looked like lots of solid holds...

2 bolts up, I began to realise it may be a little trickier than I had envisaged. Half an hour later, 4 bolts up and with a throbbing right arm I had a good appreciation that this was a tough climb! 6 bolts up I think I found the crux of the problem and after a good deal of searching I had to admit defeat. It was a nice climb with some cool moves and at my climbing peak it may have been possible. Now however... not a chance!

Defeated

Next challenge was to retrieve the gear. Chris had a good go top roping but didn't manage to change the gear over on the bolt to rescue our quickdraw; so I got another go to finish what I'd started. Cold and a bit tired it was challenging to get back up there but managed to get our gear back and then crossed to the other side of the valley for a final climb in the early evening. Nicer climbs over there with some long pitches and more mid level grades but in the fading light only had time for one climb. 

The weather for the day was good and mostly clear, although what clouds there were seemed to be more often than not in front of the sun. It was quite windy too and with the cool air temp it was hard to stay warm for climbing. Should try and get here earlier in the season next time! The bouldering here is meant to be world class and there are some nice multi pitch climbs too. And there is always Fitz Roy itself...

Back at the climbing shop we discovered the route I'd attempted was a 6c+ so I was pretty pleased with how far I'd got!

After umming and ahhing all day about whether to go back and camp at the base of Fitz Roy again, I took the sensible option and got on the long 20 hour bus to El Boson in the north that night. The forecast is looking good for the week so fingers crossed will get some paragliding in.

El Chalten itself is a small town with a frontier feel to it; only built in the 80's and without many new developments about. It's really the end of season now. Only 2 or 3 restaurants still open and a lot of the shops already closed. Still a few tourists around though and the bus I'm on now to Bariloche is full. 

El Calafate

Had met quite a few people hitch hiking and Couchsurfing and as it sounded pretty straight forward I determined to hitch my way up to my next stop: El Calafate.

And it was quite easy. My first two rides to Río Grande were virtually instant but had to wait around a bit longer for the much longer stretch up back through Chile and then to Río Gallegos. A kindly lorry driver eventually picked me up though and I got into Río Gallegos around 8pm.

nice spot for "dedo"

Río Gallegos' distinguishing feature was burning tyres. Couldn't work out what all the smoke was from at a distance but my walk out of town in the morning took me past a few stacks of burning rubber to warm the hands of groups of workmen.

Was back on the road in the morning and another lorry took me all the way to El Calafate.

Hitching is definitely a good way to practice Spanish. The driver of my second lorry was particularly chatty and although I understood less than half of what he said we managed to converse one way or another for a lot of the 5 hour trip! This made the journey a lot more interesting as the south east of Patagonia is flat, featureless, massive and boring. The only interesting things around are the numerous wild guanacos (big lamas).

After 4 hours of nothing however you come over a hill and the mountains of southern Patagonia are there in front of you, their snowy peaks rising straight up out of the flatlands.

Finally...something to look at

El Calafate is a town that has grown up purely to service the numerous tourists coming to visit the Perito Merino glacier. It is however, a worthy and majestic touristic attraction, with board walks allowing you to get within a few hundred metres of its towering 60 odd meter ice wall spilling into Lago Argentino.

I missed the morning (and expensive bus) by a few minutes so took to hitching again. Traffic was light but me and a German girl Katerina (with the same idea), eventually got lucky and made it the 80km there and back again in the evening.

It's a mighty and very active glacier, with ice falls rumbling away like thunder all day and saw a few impressive collapses into the lake at the ice face.

There's little else going on in El Calafate however (although did go out for a few tasty cocktails at a "día del barman" party in the evening) so went straight on to El Chalten: the self proclaimed trekking capital of Argentina.