Argentina: Exploring El Chalten & Parque Nacional Los Glaciares

El Chalten is the base town for hiking and climbing within the ranges and is a place we have both long dreamed of visiting and held in our imaginations continually as we’ve cycled south. For both of us, this is our first time in southern Patagonia. For me, the word ‘Patagonia’ has always conjured images of sheer granite peaks, vast glaciers, fiords and forests. Of course it’s so much more than that, but to finally reach the place that might be considered ‘classic’ Patagonia has been exciting, and it has exceeded our expectations. It’s one thing to see these famous mountains in film and photograph, but to experience them glowing in the twilight or lost in swirling cloud and to feel the freezing wind howl down from their distant ridges is another thing entirely.

This post departs from my usual narrative style, and instead I’ll mostly let the photos do the talking, but first, here’s a brief summary of how we spent our 18 days based in El Chalten:

We arrived two days into a rare four or five day fine spell, which was the first such stable weather of the summer. The weather is notoriously wild here – the wind in particular – with fine spells generally being counted in hours rather than days. But autumn does have a reputation for better weather, and we’d timed our ride to arrive at this time.

To make the best use of the weather we hired packs right away and set off to walk a circuit that included Laguna Torre,  Campamento Poincenot, and Laguna de los Tres. Cerro Torre is the hardest mountain here to see, because it’s closer to the ice cap and is often swallowed by cloud, while Fitz Roy remains visible. So we decided to tick this one off first, initially heading in to Campamento Agostini. From camp in the beech forest it’s just a 10 minute walk to the lake shore opposite Cerro Torre. We spent one night at the camp, and the next day made the easy hike around to Campamento Poincenot, which made a good base for the predawn walk up to Laguna de los Tres, where there is a panoramic view of the Fitz Roy range. We ended up doing this hike two mornings in a row because on the first there was no good light and it was too windy to shoot.

We walked out on day four, after photographing that morning and scrambling as high as we could without proper gear up Cerro Madsen, a bump alongside the Fitz Roy range. Then the weather stormed for five days while we waited patiently for a clearance. Our next goal was to do the four day Huemul Circuit, which crosses two passes and provides incredible views of the Viedma Glacier. The crux of this objective was the requirement for a reasonably calm day for crossing Paso de Viento (Pass of the Wind!). There was only one obviously calm, clear day due in the next four days, so we walked in (along with around 35 other people) to the first camp on a cold day of light drizzle and snow, so to be crossing the pass on the best day. That worked out perfectly and we had a fantastic four days of transalpine tramping and mind blowing scenery.

After resting a couple of days we filled the remainder of our time there with an early morning shoot at Cascada Escondida (Hidden Falls) and then made a final overnight trip to camp near the treeline below Loma del Pliegue Tumbado. By this time the autumn colours were in full display, with the beech forest turning spectacular hues of red and orange in great swathes across the valleys.

Without setting foot on the actual peaks, there are so many tempting places to explore in the foothills and surroundings we easily could have stayed another fortnight, but Ushuaia does call.

A view of El Chalten and the ranges lost in cloud, from bluffs above the Rio de Las Vueltas.

Cerro Torre and the night sky reflected in Laguna Torre. It was incredible to be here alone, photographing on a relatively warm, windless night. I spent about two hours after sunset and then went back again an hour before dawn.

Dawn was equally calm, and I again enjoyed the solitude for a while until the first twilight crept onto the peaks.

Cerro Torre (3102m), Torre Egger (2850m) and Aguja Standhardt (2730m).