The next morning we get up early and catch a bus to El Chalten, the hiking capital of Argentina. The star attraction is Mt. Fitz Roy and as we drive in, I see its jagged peaks through the high clouds. This is the most dramatic mountain I think I have ever seen and I’m enthralled. We have only come for the day, but there are 3 shorter hikes that we can do that will give us spectacular views. We start our first trail, Mirador de los Condores, with all our layers on. Within minutes I am down to my tank top - it’s all uphill and it’s straggly warm here. As we climb, I look back every few minutes for a different view of Mt. Fitz Roy. This is the mountain that inspired the Patagonia clothing line. It’s stunning. We can’t see the whole thing, but I had been warned that most people don’t see any of it at all due to the clouds that surround it. At 3405 m high, its jagged peaks punch through the clouds and reach for the heavens. It’s like there are huge chunks missing - it reminds me of when my students draw a mountain and they draw three or four triangles straight up and down. Fitz Roy is like that - but the triangles are thin with huge spaces between them. I can see a glacier on the face of one part of the mountain, but it’s the spiky peaks that steal the show. We get up to the viewpoint and I take my usual 1000 photos from every angle. There are lots of people, but it’s so windy that no one sticks around long. I actually thought I might be blown off the mountain at one point; I had to sit down.
Our next trail starts halfway down the first, and leads to a view of the lake in the distance. It’s nice, but I miss Fitz Roy. On our way back we get yet another view, with fields of flowers and low lying hills leading up to the mountain. After lunch, we don’t have time to do the last trail but we learn that we can take a taxi to a nearby waterfall. Again, it’s nice, but everything here pales in comparison to Mt. Fitz Roy. It’s my new favourite mountain. El Chalten is a hiker’s paradise, I would have loved to do some of the bigger trails but we didn’t have time on this trip. I have a feeling I’ll be back one day.
On the way home, we have a bit of a scare. We had laughed at a sign on the bus that said Mr. Passenger: You must travel with your passport on your hand. Thanks. We made jokes about balancing our passports on our hands while we tried to stay awake on the bus. We have friends whose passports were stolen off of them in Argentina so we always leave them locked in the safe. However, it was not so funny when we stopped at a police checkpoint and they came on and asked for our passports. I told the officer that they were in a safe in our hotel and he was horrified! Your passports are in the hotel? I generally don’t hike with my passport, but perhaps I will from now on! We have photos of them on our phone and that seemed to suffice, but I’m not going to lie, I had images of us sleeping in Argentinian jail.
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