| Jan 23, 2006 - Fitz Roy & El Chalten, Argentina
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 | On the drive to El Chalten
| | More views from the drive
| | Still more great scenery
| | And a bit more
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 | Our first glimpse of the Fitz Roy mountains
| | The mountains and the road
| | Mountains and lake
| | Again of Fitz Roy
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 | Couldn't get enough Fitz Roy
| | And this mountain was cool too!
| | Getting closer to El Chalten, still from the bus
| | More Fitz Roy from the bus
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 | More of the cool mountain
| | Fitz Roy again
| | John and our camp site in town
| | Tanner & Brian, getting breakfast ready
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 | Dan, early on day 1
| | Another view from the same place
| | Some glimpses of the Fitz Roy peaks
| | Dan & Brian, hiking on
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 | Another scene from day 1
| | More of the same valley
| | Our group, at the first lookout
| | Me with Fotz Roy in the back
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 | A good look at the Fitz Roy peaks
| | The hanging glacier off to the side of the peaks
| | The peaks and the glacier in one
| | Close up of Fitz Roy
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 | Lago Capri, lunch spot on day 1
| | What a perfect setting
| | Another perfect photo op
| | Same scene, minus me
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 | Lago Capri and Fitz Roy, what a combo
| | Dan drawing that same scene
| | Another shot of Dan's art
| | The exact scene that Dan was sketching
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 | Hikers on the trail to the peaks
| | Me, getting closer to camp
| | Different scenery in the National Park
| | Our group, less than a km from camp now
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 | The woods leading to our campsite
| | Camp Poincenot
| | First peak at sunrise, day 2
| | Long exposure shot of the peks at first light
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 | The peaks and the lake at its base
| | Sunrise, getting better
| | A few seconds later
| | Sunrise, still improving
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 | The ¨Fire of Fitz Roy¨ starting up
| | The peaks still glowing red
| | The money shot of all sunsrises
| | Sunrise Panorama 1
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 | Sunrise Panorama 2
| | Sunrise Panorama 3
| | Completed sunrise panorama
| | More peaks and lake
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 | The boys, gaping at the view
| | A somewhat posed shot, but they couldn't take their eyes off of it
| | And I couldn't stop taking photos
| | See, here's another
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 | Fitz Roy Panorama 1
| | Fitz Roy Panorama 2
| | Fitz Roy Panorama 3
| | Completed Panorama: The Fire of Fitz Roy
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 | Me in front of the peaks
| | Me again
| | A blurry shot, but I like it
| | Walking down to Laguna de los Tres
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 | The lower Lago Sucia
| | Lago Sucia again
| | The boys, at the waterall leading from Laguna de los Tres to Lago Sucia
| | Looking back up at the viewing spot ridge, and a cool silhouette
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 | Looking along Laguna de los Tres
| | The waterfall/slide leading down to the Lago Sucia
| | Looking down at Lago Sucia
| | Tanner at the top of the waterfall
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 | Walking back down to the camp
| | Similar shot
| | The hanging glacier we walked to later that day, with Lago Piedras
| | The glacier, again
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 | Looking back down the final stretch of river we had to walk up
| | The glacier and an iceberg
| | Dan and Brian, chilling
| | The iceberg
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 | The icerberg again
| | The glacier again
| | Carmin and John, climbing on the other side
| | Can you still see John and Carmin?
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 | A view from up high
| | Brian, doing the climb
| | Day 3 now, moving on and looking back at the peaks
| | More of the peaks, again
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 | A lake we passed on the walk that afternoon
| | Tanner, Dan, & Carmin, trekking on
| | More vistas, more views
| | A beautiful valley, towards the end
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 | | | Re-entering civilization
| | The last final look back at Fitz Roy
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| We had about a 4.5 hour ride to El Chalten, mostly along a bumpy and dusty dirt road. Along the way we passed lakes and mountains, but nothing that would compare to the stunning beauty of the Fitz Roy mountain range. From the first glimpse, still miles away, we were speechless. El Chalten is a very small and shabby town whose primary function is to serve as the starting point for excursions into Fitz Roy. Fitz Roy is a cinematic string of jagged peaks that seem to rise out of nowhere and resemble every evil looming mountain you've ever seen in a cartoon or graphically enhanced movie. Think Mordor, and you're on your way. Fitz Roy sits in the huge Glacier National Park that runs the border between Argentina and Chile for quite a long stretch, but Fitz Roy is certianly a section unto itself. There are hiking trails along the front side of the range, while ice climbing and glacier hiking are available on the backside for the more adventurous and experienced.
We arrived in town and went to the park office to plan our hike. Turns out it would be a much easier few days than we expected. We were anticipating long days of difficult trekking, but due to the proximity of the range to town and the relative flatness of the trail, we would only have a few hours of slightly strenuous walking each day. With this new fact in mind we went and bought a few extra liquid supplies to take with us for the evenings. After a delicious meal in town we set up camp at the free campground on the far edge of town right near the trailhead for our hike.
The next morning, again with the knowledge that our day would be an easy one, we allowed ourselves a slow and lazy time of getting up, and were greeted with warm weather and bright blue skies. We made our first polenta breakfast, which would soon become a staple of our camping diet, and eventually were on our way. A note about my health: my leg was still bothering me from that one day playing bsketball in Valdivia when I must have seriously tweaked something, but I felt comfortable doing the hike. Carmin, former track superstar and legend in his NCAA circles, taught me a magical stretch for the hamstrings that I attribute all of my healing to. I worked on this religuously every day and had responded well to the climb up Cerro Otto in Bariloche so I wasn't worried. Similarly, though I still sounded like a dying frog and had earned the nickname Godfather by this point, I didn't actually feel all that sick. There would even be some times, maybe a few hours in the middle of the day, where my voice would return to normal, but the mornings and nights were still the same sandpaper throat routine. Ok, enough of that. The start of our walk had some great viewpoints of Fitz Roy and a hanging glacier visible off to its right, which is the first glacier I can remember ever seeing in my life. A bit over an hour into it we came to Lago Capri, where we had our lunch of crackers with jam, cheese, raisins, and dulce de leche. Man, I should really go into a tirade about Dulce de Leche like i did for Salsa Golf, its many uses and the impact it had on our entire trip, but I'll spare you guys. Just know that Peanut Butter is near impossible to find anywhere in South America, but dulce de leche is a very willing and capable substitute. After lunch it was another hour or so until we reached Camp Poincenot, our home for the night, in a thicket of trees. We rant into Fletcher, a friend of Carmin's and the others from earllier in their travels, and Johno, a New Zealander he was doing his hike with. So we all sat down for a casual evening and great pasta dinner, and lightened our packs a bit of the extra supplies we had bought the day before. More talking, laughing, and some shot-putting of large rocks later, we all went to bed by about 10:30 to be prepared for the sunrise hike the next morning.
From Camp Poincenot there is about an hour's scramble of a trail up a steep incline to get to the final viewpoint of the Fitz Roy. You arrive right at the foot of the peaks, with only Laguna de los Tres, a small glacial lake, separating you and the massive towers. Some people make the journey up to this point and return to town in a single day, but the more desired and recommended option is to do what we did and spend the night at camp. This allows you to climb this final stretch without your packs, and more importantly arrive here to watch the sunrise from this vantage point. There is a phenomenon called "The Fire of Fitz Roy" that only happens on certain mornings. If you have the right conditions and a good sunrise, the light will hit the rocky peaks in such a way to make them glow red for about 60-90 seconds at most. We were hoping to see this, but knew the view would be spectacular enough regardless. So we woke up at 4:15, grabbed our warmest clothes, headlamps and water, and set off about 4:45. The first part of the climb in the dark was difficult and stumbly, but the stars were simply stunning and kept us motivated. First light soon started breaking through and helped make our climb easier. We got to the top still about 15 minutes before the sun crossed the horizon, and the winds on this ridge were intense. We all huddled next to some rocks, but as soon as the sun started to rise and the colors formed on the clouds, I don't think any of us noticed the cold anymore. It was, without a doubt, the most impressive sunrise I have ever seen in my life and one of the most surreal experiences in nature I can remember. We stood there mesmerized for the duration of the sunrise with mouths agape and eyes darting around at the variety of incredible sights at our disposal. And about half-way through, with the sun nearly clear of the horizon, the rock faces of Fitz Roy lit up in a pale indescribable shade of red. Words would do it no justice, and even these pics do not capture the true colors that appeared throughout the entire sunrise. Of course we had seen postcards and photos of sunrises with even more impressive and deeper colors, but nonetheless we had witnessed it for ourselves, and it was spectcular. With the sun fully established in the morning sky we set out to explore the area around this lookout for a bit. From the ridge we had climbed up you can actually walk down the other side and to the edge of Laguna de los Tres. Form there we walked along one side of it to a waterfall/slide leading down to bright blue Lago Sucia far below it. We snapped some photos, talked, and tried to comprehend what we had just experienced. The winds started to pick up even more now, so we began heading back down to camp. We had originally planned to do more with our day after the sunrise, but since it was raining by the time we got down at 8am, we decided to spend another full day at Camp Poincenot, and went back to bed.
We woke up at 1am with the rains letting up a bit. We decided to go on a popular day hike we had heard about to the hanging glacier off to the side of the Fitz Roy peaks. We ate some polenta and cookies with dulce, and were on our way. This glacier as well sits atop a lake, called Lago Piedras, which can be translated to Stones Lake. This is probably because the entire lake sits in a massive bowl of large rock walls on either side, the glacier to the front, and a boulder-filled river leading away from it. Though it may not be such a magnificent glacier when compared to other glaciers in the area, it was the first time I had ever viewed one up close, and to me was still pretty cool. Our hike here was fairly easy, and only a bit of boulder-hopping up the river at the end to get to the lake provided any difficutly. We sat at the base and relaxed for a while, and soon after we arrived were treated to a major ice avalanche down the face of the glacier. From there Tanner, Dan, Brian, and I decided to climb one of the rocky walls of the bowl to see what views would be availble from above, while John and Carmin scaled the other side. Finally, lacking any nutrition or energy from the day, we were all completely spent and headed back to camp. We ate quickly and we ate a lot, the centerpiece of the meal being a delicious rice and beans with chilli pepper and cucumber concoction, which later proved to be only the start of our magnificent camping meals to come. The rest of the night was very relaxed and ended early. I went to bed finally feeling fully satisfied with what our Patagonia experience had become, and excited for all that lay ahead.
The next morning we slept in a bit again, and after another polenta breakfast were off hiking again. We had originally planned to do an extra leg of the trails out to Lago Torro and another viewpoint, which is where we thought we'd spend night two. But since going out there and back would be cutting it very close to the bus we had to make that evening, we decided to skip it. For this reason we had yet another day of fairly easy hiking for only a few hours. We stopped along the way to lunch on the remains of our cookies, dulce, and jam, and then stuffed our faces with empanadas once we got back into town. We passed some time waiting for our bus back to El Calafate, and by 6pm were on our way. I will remember Fitz Roy as certainly the best ratio of incredible views to amount of work you have to put in for any trekking, and one of the most amazing hikes I have ever done. |
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