October 25-26,2013

Waking up early after a full blown asado is a hard thing to do. The amount of wine and beef involved is truly staggering, so Holly and I had to try with all of our might to slump out of bed around 6:00 AM in order to pack and steal a quick breakfast (pocket rolls) before our bus left El Calafate for El Chaltén. It was an easy ride, only a couple of hours, and concluded with some awesome views of the two most prominent features of the area, famed Monte Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre. Climbers and hardcore trekkers will recognize these names as some of the premier crags in Patagonia. Famed for its rugged landscape and relative lack of commercialized tourism, El Chaltén is one heck of a destination if you’re interested in being outside.

Anywho, so we arrived to town around 11, checked into our hostel, and were on the trail to Laguna Torre by noon. As the name implies, the trail takes your three hours away from town to a glacial lake at the base of Cerro Torre. We settled down on a rocky beach for lunch and to take in the views.

We finally got back to the hostel around 6:30 PM, had some celebratory beers with dinner, and promptly slept like the rocks that surrounded us. The following day was similar; we woke up early and were on the trail to Monte Fitz Roy. Around the time we had warmed up and started feeling our bodies settle into the hike we managed to hop off the main trail onto an exceedingly similar and lightly worn secondary trail. I couldn’t help but comment on how nice the trail was. Usually, trails in places like that are very well marked and worn in and make you feel like you are one of the other million people who hike the same route. Finding a trail that appears unworn is a couple of things, notably 1) very exciting because you feel like you are laying new tracks 2) kind of unnerving because it can get lost or confused pretty easily. Well we followed this trail in this state of excited anxiety until it ran out completely and we couldn’t pick it back up. Turns out that was a good thing because it was indeed not the official trail. We had picked up an old trail from a previous year that had regressed into a glorified game trail which would have ultimately lead to nowhere had it continued. After scrambling around for about an hour, we managed to get back on the trail, hike another 4 hours to the base of the look out, complete the last hour or major altitude gain, and settle down for a chilly lunch. We found it hard to chew because the view was simply jaw-dropping.