Los Glaciares Day 1

Day 1 El Chalten to Laguna Torre

We are up early to travel to Fitzroy area for a few days backpacking. The sun is already up before 6:00 and its a bluebird day, not a cloud in the sky. The bus leaves El Calfate at 8:00AM, its about 2 hours by excellent paved highway to El Chalten. Very open dry grasslands, a few Guanocos, a few Sheep, Cattle and Horses but not a lot. Most buildings/farms appear abandoned, one or maybe 2 occupied. Land can graze maybe 1 or 2 animals per square mile. No doubt a tough living so land maybe managed as massive ranches? After about 2 hours Monte Fitzroy and Cerro Torre can be seen from the bus window. Spectacular granite peaks, Monte Fitzroy peak  at 3400+m is some 3000m above the valley. The bus stops at the National Park visitor centre and they passengers are herded into a room, english speaks on the right, espanola on the left. A young park ranger tells us the rules, and we head back to the bus to travel the remaining short distance to the bus terminal. We notice that the spanish speaks were given a map at their presentation.... Would have been handy....

Cerro Torre

Off the bus in El Chalten, shoulder the packs and a short walk to the trail head at the edge of town. Our planned route is up the Rio Fitzroy valley to Camp Agostini just below Laguna Torre. The path is well worn, with many other hikers (trekkers?) both day tripping and with full gear, even a few climbers. Its a pleasant walk through generally open country with some forested sections, interestingly the trees are all deciduous(beech?) no evergreen forests here... Cerro Torre dominates the view up valley for most of the walk, an amazing granite pinnacle rising from a massive icefield. It takes about 3 hours to slog the 9 kms to the camping area, we are happy the trail is relatively flat.... Only 250m elevation gain.

We setup camp among the other tents, we counted over 30 later in the evening, a very popular spot. Our tent is a Stephenson Warmlite 2C specially purchased for this trip after we heard about the fierce Patagonia winds. This tent can supposedly withstand 100mph winds, I hope not to test that ceiling.

We then head for Laguna Torre a short walk above the campsite, it is not as blue as it appears in the map, rather a grey/green from the glacial silt. We walk away up the trail to Mirador Majesti until we find some suitable rocks to hang on and enjoy the grandeur of this place.

Laguna Torre

Back to camp and time to check out the plumbing.... Primitive could describe it but that might glorify the facility too much, looks like a normal construction project toilet unit, however on opening the door, one notices immediately that there is no toilet, in its place is a hole in the spongy floor, carefully cut in the shape of a toilet seat, just to make us feel at home I suppose. The sign on the wall with a smiling pig encourages our accuracy with a cheery "Lets be clean Put it on" .... The floor and wall are silent testaments to the apparent difficulty many have in putting it on. A delightful 1 pot slop of tuna and couscous follows. We go for a short walk and encounter a lady waitimng fro her male companions, she is wearing flipflops, caaring a 1 gallon Thermos container, nothing else, she is 6 miles from the road.... her male companions return, they are no better equipped....these folks are tough. We retrace our steps to camp and retire for the tent. The night is clear and calm the tent remains untested....