After a lot of deliberation, checking the weather for snow forecasts and trying to determine where to be for the right weather, we took a transfer from El Calafate to El Chalten Wednesday morning.
El Chalten is the self proclaimed trekking capital of Argentina. It’s also Argentina’s newest city and has only 1000 permanent population but seems to be growing from what they say, and from the fact that there are buildings going up everywhere…
There is A LOT to do there, massive hikes, glacier and ice trekking etc etc… And of course, the busiest and best time to do it all is Summer! A lot of the hikes here are closed because of snow and bad conditions. Our decision to go to El Chalten was based on that fact that there was no snow in the towns. So we had a good chance of a few of the hiking trails being open, we just hoped it would be clear weather so we would actually be able to see the mountains!!
When we got to El Chalten it felt like a bit of a ghost town! There was no one in the streets and a lot of the restaurants and shops were closed and had paper over the windows like they’d shut down! Turns out July is the DEAD month of the year where not much is on. We went to visit the park information centre and met a nice ranger who told us what places would be open and good to go to with the time we had. So we planned out our hikes and therefore the next 3 days!
Day 1 – That afternoon, we took the trail to Mt Poincenot. A few signs along the way say “Don’t continue if the trail is icy…” which is was… but the ranger recommended the trail, so we continued on!! 🙂
Along the way we saw a Wood Pecker bird and his mate banging their heads away on a couple of the trees! We had spectacular views out over the valley that leads into El Chalten and forms a bit of a wind tunnel to the city!
As we hiked the trek got higher and higher and we ended up trekking through snow a few inches thick. It was absolutely beautiful! One of the best walks I’ve ever done. One stop on the way was Frozen Lake Capri! It’s backdrop was Mt Poincenot and Mt Fitz Roy. The walk to Poincenot is 9km and we think we got about 8km in. We were really close to the main campground here but we had to stop and turn around as we were going to run out of daylight. The view up there was absolutely amazing. We had clear site of Mt Fitz Roy and Glacier Blanco and snow all around us. It was a spectacular day and well worth the hike.
We got so used to walking on the ice that Matt put a little too much trust in one step that he made and before he knew it he was looking up at the Sky, his feet were as high as his head and he was on his back on the ice with a loud THUD!! LUCKILY, he’s not like me and he falls really well! He just has a scratch on his elbow and a bit of soreness to show for it but considering the fall he survived well. He landed on his camera and the lens protector broke (did it’s job) and that’s it! Phew!!!
That night we went to what seemed to be the ONLY restaurant in town open… luckily it was an awesome one! That’s were we got the massive Argentinian steak and enjoyed a beer and some friendly hospitality from the family that run the restaurant. I didn’t get the name of the place, but it is definitely worth a visit if you ever go to this town!
Timeframe: Tues 23 – Wed 24 July 2013
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