El Chalten

The Fitz Roy

Kristen climbing just outside town

The town of El Chaltén

Partial view from Loma del Pliegue Tumbado

El Chaltén is a less well-known area in Southern Patagonia.  Most people familiar with the area know about Torres del Paine, maybe El Calafate.  But not Chaltén.  Maybe it’s because it’s a 3-4 hour bus ride from El Calafate.  Maybe it’s because there is no cell service, no luxury lodging, and only one mildly functional ATM.  Whatever the reason, El Chaltén was the best place we visited in Patagonia.  The best hikes, the most beautiful views, and the most comfortable culture.

There is no mistaking the purpose of the town.  As soon as you arrive, you know why you’re there – to see and experience the surrounding natural beauty.  Every business in town is geared toward hiking, camping, rock/ice climbing, and glacier expeditions.  When you get off the bus, a guy at the station hands you a trail map.

As a primer, El Chaltén is in the Northern zone of the Parque Nacional de los Glaciares.  There are 2 major peaks to see in the surrounding area – Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitz Roy.  Both are spiky pieces of granite, sort of like Los Torres in Torres del Paine (which we never properly saw), but even more picturesque.  And the best part – all the best views are accessible via day hiking.

We were in El Chaltén for 6 days:

- Day 1: hike to mirador (viewpoint) Cerro Torre.  Cerro Torre is notoriously difficult to see.  There are large glaciers surrounding both its front and back sides, which create a constant cloud cover around the peak.  This, along with the technical challenge, apparently makes summiting the peak very difficult for mountaineers.  We heard stories about people hiking in to base camp, waiting 2 weeks for a clear day, and leaving without a single summit opportunity.  But we didn’t find that out until after we did a ~1 hour hike up to the viewpoint, and of course it was covered in clouds on an otherwise nice day.  But no matter, the hike was pleasant with glacier and waterfall views, and we were able to get a nice ~10k workout despite Kristen’s still-sore knees.  It was possible to continue the hike out to Laguna Torres, but with zero elevation gain and unimproved views, that portion of the hike seemed a bit silly to do.

- Day 2: hike to mirador Cerro Fitz Roy.  Today we got lucky.  It was cold, so we started our hike around 10am.  We knew this was a slight risk, since the clouds seemed to build around Cerro Fitz Roy as the previous day went on, but it would have been too uncomfortable to leave any earlier.  So we anxiously made our 1.5 hour ascent, looking at the sky minute to minute.  When we arrived at the mirador, the Fitz Roy was in full view!  We were the only ones at the viewpoint for the first few minutes, since we’d bombed past a number of other people on the way up, so we got some unbelievable pictures.  Within 5 minutes of our arrival, a cloud had come over the ridge and the view of the Fitz Roy was gone.  Lucky us!

- Day 3: the forecast called for one more day of sun, and then two of rain, followed by even colder temperatures.  So we decided to take a rock climbing lesson on this last reliably nice day.  Neither of us had ever been climbing outside (only indoors).  We were both a bit scared, but two things swayed us: 1) El Chaltén is supposedly some of the best climbing in South America (the massive shale and granite rock faces visible all over town just seem to beg you to scale them), and 2) the town is jam-packed with highly experienced, reasonably priced guides.  So for about $150, we had a private 5-hour lesson with full equipment rental.  We started on the easy pitches (5.6s and such), always with a top rope set by our guide (by far the safest way to climb – probably about as dangerous as hiking).  And we found outdoor climbing to be a blast!  A friend of ours once told us that outdoor climbing was more tactical than indoor climbing, which relies more on brute strength.  We found that advice to be true.  There were infinite possibilities on the routes we were ascending, and we were able to try lots of different body positions to see what worked best.  By the end of the day, we were successfully going up 5.10 routes (though sometimes we had to try multiple times to make it to the top), though always with a top rope.  For our last climb, the instructor asked if I wanted to lead climb the original 5.6 route (which would be easy after the day of improvement).  I was a bit scared, but I accepted.  Lead climbing means you set your “protection”as you go – attaching your rope to bolts on the way up.  The bolts are about a meter apart up the wall, which means that when you climb above each bolt, you can potentially fall up to ~5 feet (down past the next bolt).  Still not super dangerous, but a heck of a lot scarier than top roping.  Luckily, the route was easy, but I was glued to the wall each time I went above a bolt.  It was a taste of the real deal, I guess.  At the end of the day, we had a great time and would love to go outdoor climbing again, but probably only if someone else lead climbs from now on. But don’t tell our moms.

- Day 4/5: rain both days.  Kristen mostly studied Spanish, and I mostly read the entirety of American Pastoral.  Both afternoons it cleared up for a few hours, though, so we got out for some short hikes just to get outside – up to mirador de los águilas and mirador de los condores (nice views that paled in comparison to the other hikes), and back up to mirador Cerro Torre (again covered in clouds).

- Day 6: anxious to get in a good hike on our last day, we decided to go up to Loma del Pliegue Tumbado.  For some unknown reason, this hike is heavily downplayed in the guidebooks and local literature.  I don’t get it.  This is the best hike we did in Patagonia, by far.  I guess it was long and had something like 3300 feet of climbing, but it ended up on the summit of a hill right next to the Fitz Roy massif.  There were ridiculous 360 degree views of Fitz Roy, Cerro Torre (again in the clouds), Laguna Torre, Cerro Solo, multiple glaciers and other peaks, the Patagonian steppe, and gorgeous Lago Viadema.  The view up there rivaled Lake O’Hara, which is to say it’s one of the two most gorgeous mountain views we’ve ever had.

Looking back, if we only had a few days in Patagonia, we’d go to El Chaltén.  No contest.