Hiking in El Chalten

The next morning we left El Calafate and made the two and a half hour drive to El Chalten. Here we were going to be spending the next two days and go on four hikes.



We had booked ourselves a nice little house. With a growing family sometimes a small hotel room just doesn't cut it and if in the same price range we can get a little extra room to spread out I am all for it.

We were there and ready to start hiking by noon. We picked up some wraps to take with us. The first hike started from right behind our hotel so that was perfect.

HIKE ONE - Mirador del Torre - it is described as a relatively easy 4 mile hike. At the end you get to see panoramic views of Cerro Torre, the Adela range, and the Fitzroy River canyon. 

The town behind us. 

We spotted a Rufous-collared sparrow, known locally as chingolo.

and a Chilean flicker, a type of woodpecker.. and that is all. When we got to the viewpoint there was no view. The clouds and mist had rolled in.. it even rained for a bit and just nothing. There was supposed to be a viewpoint for a waterfall somewhere along the way but it was barely a trickle and so far in the distance it could hardly be seen. 

We waited a bit. Had our lunch once the rain died down hoping things would clear up a bit. 

 the mountain range we should have seen.. only Cerro Solo visible. 

but oh well. We put on our smile, took a picture and made our way back to town.

It was cold and we were tired so we got some dinner and headed to the hotel. 

There was a lovely band that was performing. The lead singer was French. She came down to El Chalten for a trip and fell in love with the place and couldn't imagine going back to a corporate job. She met a man who used to play the guitar. She asked him to play again and so they started a local folk band. Isn't that just something?

We started day two with a hotel breakfast and then went off on our first hike of the day. We had to take a short drive to get to all the hikes of the day.

HIKE TWO - Chorrillo del Salto. You could do the 2 hour hike it or you could park in the nearby lot and walk the 20 minutes to see it. We opted for the quick 20 mins. 

HIKE THREE - Laguna Capri Hike and Mirador Fitzroy.  There was a fee to do this hike. This was a total 5 mile round trip with two viewpoints. The first took us to Laguna Capri and then after a little backtracking and taking a different fork in the road it took us to Mirador Fitzroy.

It was a long hike and we unfortunately encountered pelting rain and freezing winds on our way there making most of the hike extremely uncomfortable. And then once again a misty foggy view of the Laguna Capri. 

We sat down to take a break and eat some snacks when the most amazing thing happened. No, the view did not clear up.

This crested caracara landed just a few feet away from us. He was not shy at all and let everyone take pictures of him.

With slightly less long faces we made the way back down to the fork and took the second path... the path to the Mirador Fitzroy.

While still a little foggy the higher elevation of this hike gave us a much nicer view. It was crazy windy.. the kind man who took this picture for us held my phone in a death grip. 

Once done we were tired and famished.. we drove back into town. Our next hike was on the other side and we had planned on having a sit down meal to recuperate. 

We started with pizza and topped it off with some ice cream.

 

The weather was warming up and clouds dissipating.. fingers crossed it stayed that way for our final hike of the day. 

HIKE FOUR - Mirador de Los Cóndores and Mirador de Las Águilas. There was a fee to do this hike. It was included in the other paid hike we did. It was a three hour round trip to do both. We started with Los Condores. Supposedly you can see a lot of condors here. We did not. Along the route they had many informational posts about condors. 

It was perfect. The sun was finally shining. The clouds clearing enough for us to be able to see the stunning mountain.

But the sun shining also means the day was getting warmer.. we shed our layers and enjoyed the beautiful vista. 

The kids and I were tried and didn't feel like continuing on to the second view point. So as we made our way down and M continued onward. 

It was wonderful to be able to end the day on a high note. After a refresh we headed out to dinner.

Butch - Bar de Carnes named interestingly after Butch Cassidy. 

That evening before returning to our hotel we stopped at the only gas station in town to top off the tank. We had to make a two hour drive the next morning to the airport. To our surprise the gas station was out of gas?! Would there be more in the morning? No. The attendant informed us the next delivery of gas would be tomorrow evening? Can you imagine? The atendant ducked his head into the driver sides window and assured us we had enough to make it to the airport. Thank God we had never let the gas drop below half a tank.. we had been warned via numerous online posts that gas stations were hard to come by. 

Now as we leave Patagonia and head to the northern parts of Argentina I must say.. If you had to choose only one side of Patagonia.. Chile vs Argentina.. considering we are not big hikers and only did the more mild trails we would choose Chile. The amount of beauty we saw in Torres del Paine surpassed the beauty of El Chalten. Chile offered more low effort high reward beauty. Those are our favorite kinds of hikes, lol. 

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