El Chalten - the trekking capital of Argentina

Patagonian forests, lakes, glaciers and famous mountain ranges that are known throughout the South American continent. We are in El Chalten for a week over Christmas, in the so-called trekking capital of Argentina. El Chalten was founded in 1985 and is one of the smallest cities in Argentina. But here the hotel prices are the highest and the place is crowded. For the first time in a long time, we see many tourists in one place.

Here in South America there is no stressful pre-Christmas time and no decorated houses, shop windows or anything like that. And since we are far away from everything and haven't known what day it is for a long time, we didn't feel any Christmas atmosphere this year. Overpriced Christmas menus are offered everywhere, so we reserve a table in a beautiful wooden house. It turned out later that the menu is vegan and more expensive than all the dinners we had before, but who has a vegan dinner on Christmas Eve!?;-)

We spent the days hiking around El Chalten. After Christmas, we set off on a three-day hike to the Cerro Torre and Fitz Roy massifs. So it happened that on December 27th, we set off in pouring rain towards Cerro Torre. Eventually, the rain stopped in the evening and we were able to pitch the tents in the dry. In the night, the Patagonian wind told us spooky stories in the treetops and let us experience that our patched tent can stay stable in the wind. On the morning of the second day, we visited Laguna Torre. Unfortunately, Cerro Torre only appeared veiled in clouds, but the entire lagoon was filled with ice that must have blown in during the night. The ice glittered like diamonds in different shades of blue. Beautiful to look at. We then set off towards the Fitz Roy massif. We trekked through Patagonian bushes, past lagoons, and then a new valley opened up in front of us with a view of the Fitz Roy massif. Fitz Roy means "smoking mountain" in the language of the indigenous people. Well, Fitz Roy also showed itself as shrouded in clouds. We pitched our tents at the campsite and after a break, we decided to hike up to Laguna de los Tres. In just under 1.5 km, we climbed 680 meters through scree. At the top, the wind whipped around our ears like a landing helicopter and the large backpack acted like a sail. We had to sit down and wait several times until the gust of wind passed, otherwise, we would have flown straight home (and we don't want that yet). Although we only saw Fitz Roy in the clouds, its neighbors with their jagged peaks were visible above the clouds, which also amazed us. In the evening, we had menu 1: pasta with sauce and we fell exhausted into bed.
On the third day, the cloud situation was not much better, so we leisurely walked back to El Chalten, where we were happy to have a shower.

We had a whole day in El Chalten and on this day the sun was shining from the sky and there was not a cloud in sight. So we decided to hike up to the Mirador of Fitz Roy and finally we could see this gentleman in person and were thrilled with the view. So at least for one day, we had the luck to admire the mountain, which is considered unconquerable by climbers, and to take beautiful photos, making the trip to El Chalten more than worth it.