1-5 April 2006 - El Chaltén

Lynne on Cerro FitzRoy


Matt says...

Approximately one month into our trip we find ourselves in the rapidly-expanding village / small town of El Chaltén. The main selling point of the place is that the trails to the Fitz Roy and Torre mountains begin in the town itself.

This is comparable to the English Lake District where the myriad of public footpaths tend to pass through the local towns and villages. El Chaltén and Lakeland also share another welcome attraction - a local pub. Needless to say, we took the first opportunity to taste the bar´s home brew which was a very satisfying cloudy and fruity beer they called pilsner - although it had more in common with Belgian blonde beers than its name suggests.

The beer was reasonably well deserved as we had walked the trail to Laguna de los Tres during the day, which included a very steep climb / scramble up to the highest lake on Mount Fitz Roy. The weather was absolutely wonderful - probably the best we´ve had since leaving Buenos Aires - and the pictures show just how majestic Fitz Roy looked in the autumn sunshine.

The walk took us a shade under seven hours and it was very welcome on our return to be able to recover on a comfortable bunk bed at Hostel Rio Grande rather than to put up a tent and crawl into a warm but restrictive sleeping bag. Maybe we´re getting soft in our old age.

See the pictures in the Argentina album at:
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/thefears06/my_photos