El Chalten and El Calafate
An hour’s flight from Ushuaia on Monday morning brought us to El Calafate airport, where we had arranged for a hire car for the 2 ½ hour drive to El Chalten. Only founded in 1985, this has grown into the trekking capital of Argentina. The journey in was spectacular, much of it on the famous North-South Argentinian road, RN40. We saw lots of guanacos, blue glacial lakes and the emerging mountains of the Fitzroy Massif.
We stopped at a roadhouse called La Leona about half way. It’s got an interesting history as it’s at the site of a raft crossing of the adjacent river which operated from the late 19th century. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were here in 1905.
We arrived in El Chalten at around 4.30pm - lovely views up the valley from the hotel and a friendly guide on hand in the bar to suggest hiking options for our 3 days here.
The weather was lovely when we arrived, really warm, but the forecast for Tuesday was for cloud and drizzle, with an improving picture for Wednesday and full sun on Thursday. We planned our hiking itinerary to take account of this. On Tuesday we drove 37km north to Lago Desierto - only 37km but it took about an hour and a half as it was all on dirt tracks and plenty of stones and potholes made for very slow going. From here we were able to hike up to Glacier Huemel and then walk the shores of the lake. Not much visibility but still an impressive sight, with the glacier emerging from the low cloud and a wonderful blue to the lake below the glacier.
Tuesday’s hike started late to make the best of the weather but we left the hotel at about 11am to walk up to the Laguna Torre, a 19km out and back route on well-marked trails. The lake below the glacier was rather grey but it was fun to see some icebergs floating on its surface and the scenery en route was wonderful.
On our final day in El Chalten, we took on the demanding Laguna de Los Tres route. 23km in total with a long but fairly straightforward hike in and out but a brutal climb up to and down from the lake in the middle. Anyway, we made it and the views from beginning to end were amazing. The weather helped! As you can see, it was still cold when we set off at 8am, but with the rising sun and exercise we soon warmed up and the layers started to come off.
There was an Andean fox up by the lake - obviously hunting for scraps from hikers’ lunches and completely unafraid.
More great views on the way back, but we were very glad to see the little town of El Chalten come into view about 5pm. Our hotel is the large building with red rooves and black walls, far right.
On Friday, we drove back to El Calafate, a pretty town on the shores of Lago Argentino. We saw quite a few rheas but rather less guanacos on the way back. A two night stay at this hotel.
We’d gone to El Chalten for the hiking. We came to El Calafate to allow us to visit the Perito Moreno glacier. We were incredibly lucky to have such an amazing blue-sky day and could see the whole extent of the glacier. It’s enormous. 250 square kilometres (bigger than the size of Buenos Aires), and the snout of the glacier sits roughly 70m above the water, with more than 100m below the waterline.
We had booked on a group tour and the bus picked us up at 9am for the journey about 70km west of El Calafate, where we boarded a boat to take us across a spur of Lago Argentino to disembark close to the glacier. After a short walk, we were fitted with crampons to allow us to go onto the glacier. The texture and colours of the glacier up close were extraordinary.
At the end of our ice trek we were served with whisky and chocolates, the whisky diluted with plenty of glacial ice.
After a picnic lunch we boarded the boat again for a short cruise along the snout of the glacier, through floes of icebergs recently ‘calved’ from it’s front.
Returning to the dock, we re-boarded the bus and headed for the viewpoints looking down on the whole of the glacier. It’s difficult to describe the awe-inspiring sight - also the sounds, constant grumbling, then a roar like thunder as another bit of the glacier front breaks off and falls into the lake. Unfortunately, there’s not much notice and I only managed to capture one icefall, slightly late in the last of these images. However, hopefully you can appreciate how majestic it is!
From here tomorrow (Sunday) to Peninsula Valdes for some wildlife watching.