El Chaltén

Subtitled: Brad & Erin's Excellent Adventure

Brad had a few days free before his conference, so he decided to come along on my visit to El Chaltén, Argentina's (self-proclaimed?) trekking capital.  He had a bit of ticket drama at the airport, but otherwise our flight from Buenos Aires to El Calafate and bus from El Calafate airport to El Chaltén went quite smoothly.  (Well, the transitions went smoothly.  The actual flight was pretty turbulent.)

The context in which you arrive in El Chaltén adds to how amazing it is.  First, you land at the El Calafate airport, which is basically in the middle of nowhere.  Then, you ride the bus through a whole lot more nowhere (plains/steppes, lakes, mountains in the distance, and one small hotel where all the buses stop for a toilet break).  At last, out of nowhere, you reach the end of the (paved) road and arrive in El Chaltén, a super cute village nestled in the mountains that is full of similarly cute hotels, restaurants, and breweries.  It's the perfect size for a village: big enough to explore, but small enough that it can be fully explored on foot in a few hours -- which is how we spent our first afternoon/evening.  Plus its small size does not detract from quality: there is excellent food, wine, and beer to be had at many of the local establishments.  (Aside: It does seem to be perpetually under construction; even some longstanding restaurants were undergoing renovations during our visit.)

As the front desk attendant at the hotel explained, there are two classic El Chaltén hikes: Laguna de los Tres (to see Cerro Fitz Roy) and Laguna Torre (to see Cerro Torre).  She further explained that there are two options for the longer and more popular of the two, Laguna de los Tres: (1) hiking directly from town, the most common route; or (2) paying 100 pesos per person (~$7 USD at the Buenos Aires blue market rate or ~$12 USD at the official rate) for a transfer to the head of a trail that passes the Pietras Blancas glacier on the way to the lake, from which you descend back into town.  The second option, she explained, both creates a loop trail (more interesting than a there-and-back) and is a somewhat easier trail to the top.

We were intrigued by the glacier, but not particularly enamored about paying for a transfer.  By cross referencing a cartoonish tourist trail map explicitly labeled not to scale (see above/right) with google maps (without much detail), we found what we believed to be the trailhead and calculated that it was only about three miles away.  A transfer seemed ridiculous and unnecessary; we weren't some rich, lazy tourists ripe to be (literally) taken for a ride.  We had come here to walk, and walk we would.  Accordingly, around 7:30 the next morning, we set off northbound along the dirt road.

Ten miles and three and a half hours later, we reached the trailhead.  Still, we were in good spirits; it was a beautiful (if windy) day, we'd enjoyed parts of the walk even if it was a bit tedious in total, and although we might have a slight energy deficit, we were at least taking the easier trail.  Plus, most people are just beginning at the trailhead, whereas for us, the trailhead itself was cause for jubilation and celebration (celebration selfie on left).

Our celebration was premature.  We had found the trailhead, yes, but we still had to find the trail.  At the outset, we had two options.  After briefly exploring both, we opted for the one that bent to the left, basing our decision primarily on the cartoon map and labels with arrows spray painted onto rocks.  But how to follow that trail was not particularly clear; at times, the landscape opened up into a wide, sandy river basin that we could follow, but at other times, following it led us into thorny brush and thick trees or to the wrong side of a creek with no obvious way to cross.  We navigated our way through in fits and starts by using google maps' topographical layer to determine which direction we needed to go (south along the Rio Blanco) and my (old-fashioned) compass to make sure we were going in that direction.

A few miles in, the terrain grew rockier, often requiring scrambling instead of walking.  (We did occasionally run into pieces of trail, giving us false hope that we'd found the proper way until the trail faded into a pile of rocks.)  We also started seeing cairns, suggesting that we had found a trail, or at least that other humans had passed this way at some point.  Accoordingly, we adjusted our navigation method, alternating between following cairns and scrambling around looking for them.  Needless to say, our path was anything but direct.  Our ability to move in a straight line was further inhibited by a few fences barring our way; although we could have easily passed over or under them, we figured that fences would have an open section for a trail.  In search of a trail, we followed the fences until we found sections that had been removed (though it wasn't clear whether they had been removed by the fences' owner or by other trespassers on his/her property).

Eventually, we reached the spectacular Pietras Blancas glacier.  Not only is it incredibly beautiful in its own right, it also was marked on our cartoon trail map, so -- for pretty much the first time that day -- we knew exactly where we were.  At this point, though, the "trail" was a bunch of really huge rocks and I'd almost reached my limit.  I was beginning to fear that I would break myself before we found a proper trail.  I'll be the first to admit that my balance is not great, but my reflexes are usually pretty good, having been honed through decades of (almost) falling.  Seventeen miles in, however, my reflexes weren't working quite so well.  I therefore didn't go all the way into the glacier the way Brad did (a decision I now regret).  But he took an awesome photosphere of the place.

Perhaps sensing that I couldn't take much more, the trail became markedly easier after the glacier.  It still was blocked in places by fallen rocks, but we followed it with relative ease all the way to the intersection with the trail from town.  At that intersection were the first people and the first trail sign we'd seen all day.  (I was very happy about the sign.)  Only then did we stop to eat lunch (though we'd snacked along the way).

A dinky little ham and cheese sandwich never tasted so good.

After our backcountry experience, the climb to the top was somewhat anticlimatic.  The trail was immaculately groomed; although there was a little gravel near the top, it felt like a highway compared to earlier.  But it was still very rewarding to reach the lake and see Fitz Roy, an incredibly blue lagoon, and our second glacier of the day.  Rewarding but short: the ridiculously strong winds and our desire to return by a reasonable time prompted us to head back to town with alacrity.  The descent seemed interminable; we managed to be three miles away for what felt like five miles.

We returned to town victorious a mere twelve hours after we'd departed, our bodies and spirits a bit bruised and battered, but not broken.  Based on two separate tracking devices (both Brad's, my phone battery died during the first few hours), our best guess is that our total distance was at least 26 miles.  After reviving our energy through the application of pizza and delicious homebrewed beer (see right), we also learned the following pieces of information: (1) Brad had a more detailed trail map in his backpack the whole time, but had forgotten about it; (2) the "easy" trail we were supposed to take was on the opposite side of the river (allowing a view of the glacier, but probably precluding a visit); (3) our hike had begun outside the boundaries of the national park (doubtless in private property, explaining the fences), so we were supposed to register; (4) there was no trail at the beginning of our hike -- even the unofficial trail only began a few miles in where we started seeing cairns; and (5) before doing even the final "easy" portion between the glacier and the trail from town, we were supposed to ask for directions.

Even knowing all that, I wouldn't trade our crazy adventure for any number of easy treks (although I would've coughed up the 100 pesos had I known how far away the trailhead was).  Of all the people that visit Laguna de los Tres every year, almost none (if any) of them went the way we did.  We definitely took the road less traveled and I hear that makes all the difference.

(Hike #1 postscript: For any of you who might be questioning my judgment, I'd like to point out that this is not a plan I would have executed had I been traveling solo.  For those of you who accuse me of perpetually turning short walks into arduous ordeals, I'd like to point out that responsibility for the transformation of this excursion does not rest solely on my shoulders. Two brains were required to come up with this particular brilliant plan.)

Due to the unexpected length of our first hike, we scrapped our prior plans for an early start the next day and spent a while in the morning searching for scrambled eggs.  After accomplishing that first lofty goal, we headed for the other El Chaltén classic trail, Laguna Torre, to do as a 10 or 11-mile "cool down" hike.  Unfortunately, it was too cloudy to see Cerro Torre; fortunately, the lake itself is still really cool (literally -- check out those blocks of ice!).  Despite serving me admirably for the uphill portion, my legs, knees, and ankles began to stiffen up during the downhill portion.  By the end of the hike, I was walking like an old woman, hobbling stiffly down the stairs on our return into town.  Although waffles at La Wafleria went a long way toward a cure, I was quite ready to sit for a few hours on the bus back to El Calafate.

In sum, amazing place, amazing experience.  Many thanks to Brad for keeping me company.

(Amusing postscript: The huemul, a kind of deer, is an endangered species; sightings are quite rare and are supposed to be reported to the rangers.  We didn't see any, just some horses, a lamb, and one ugly bull.  Still, they supposedly live in the area around the road we walked on to the trailhead.  We know this because there were tons of signs along that road explaining that huemules may be present.  Different signs depicted the huemules in different ways... including as shown in the following photograph.)