We had all morning to kill before leaving for Chalten, so we found a laundry place and used our minimalist spanish to ensure we could pick it up before our bus left. We spent the rest of the time walking around the nice little town of Calafate and re-packing our things so we didn't have so much to carry while we were hiking. The laundry and the bus ticket both worked out fine and by 9:15 that evening we were being picked up and driven to our hotel for the evening. Much to our surprise we were given vouchers for dinner at a small restaraunt in town and enjoyed some meats, cheeses, empanadas, and local wine. It was a great way to spend our only night in town.
The next morning we were met by our guide, Luis, and driven to the starting point for our 4 day hiking adventure. Once again it was just the two of us and a guide. We hiked for about two hours before reaching the Refugio where we would spend the night. This one was much more rustic then the ones in Torres Del Paine (aka I would have rather slept in a tent). We dropped our heavy stuff and faced a decision - hike further up the valley on a relatively flat trail to a nice viewpoint or hike a steeper trail to an old basecamp for people climbing the peaks around Fitz Roy. We chose the steep option and were in for a shock when we started climbing. We gained 1,000 meters (3,000 ft) in the course of two hours, turns out this "trail" made by climbers was straight up, no switchbacks, and lots of loose rocks. I'm not sure the distance of the trail but based on what we did on the Colorado Trail I would say we were gaining close to 1500+ ft per mile, which is obnoxiously steep. At the top we were rewarded with amazing views of Fitz Roy and also of the southern Patagonia ice field in the distance. It was a great way to spend the afternoon and after we caught our breath we were glad we went with the steep option. The hike back down went faster but was much more painful on the knees and feet so we spent the evening relaxing while Luis made us dinner.
We left the next morning and back-tracked for a couple of hours before joining up with another trail heading South into the National Park. We bouldered to an overlook of a glacier with Fitz Roy in the background (it looked much more impressive from this angle) and then continued on to another spot we could drop off heavy things before climbing yet another hill. This hill wasn't as long or as steep as the last one but still proved to be a bear compared to the hiking we did in Chile (it was also full of people). We were once again rewarded with outstanding vistas, and the view of Fitz Roy and its surrounding peaks from this angle might have been the best of the trip. There were two lagoons beneath the mountains with glaciers hanging all around. We enjoyed our lunch and watched all other tourists mill around before heading back down to grab the rest of our stuff and continue on to camp for the night. We stayed in tents and this time Luis did not have to make us dinner because the people who ran the camp also did all of the cooking. 
We awoke the next morning to one of the prettiest sunrises we have ever seen and the day turned out beautiful once again. We made quick work of the first portion of our hike and by noon we had already dropped our bags at the next camping spot and continued on with only day packs. We were headed to Glacier Grande and had to cross a river by "zip lining" across a couple of suspended climbing ropes. This led us to yet another steep climb - today it was short, but we also had to go back down to get to our destination so we ended up having to climb both directions. The viewpoint of the glacier was beautiful but it was very windy and as we ate our lunch we watched the peaks of the Torre range get covered in clouds as it started to rain in the distance. We took off so we would beat the rain and made it back to camp by 3. Julie and I played rummy while Luis cooked. We were the only people staying at this camp which is run by the various guiding companies and Luis told us that we were his company's last group for the season. Because somebody brought up all the supplies from dinner earlier in the day, and it was only a couple hour walk from town, we got to enjoy a bottle of wine with our dinner.
Or last day was supposed to be spent learning to ice climb on the glacier we had seen the previous day, but we learned that it was too dangerous because of how quickly the glacier was receding. All trekking companies stopped offering that excursion two years ago. We were a little disappointed in our travel agency - if that activity stopped being offered so long ago why did they include it on our itenerary? That made our last day of hiking very short, with just a two hour jaunt back into Chalten and it turned out for the better because it was raining heavily in the mountains when we got back to town! We caught an earlier bus back to Calafate and I had a relaxing evening while Julie worked on planning the last few weeks of the trip (have me mentioned we have an end date chosen!).
No comments:
Post a Comment