I arrived in Chalten, Argentina, after a short three hour flight from Buenos Aires to Calafate. followed by a two hour bus ride to the mountains. Maybe I shouldn’t say ‘short’ since there was also the three hours waiting for the bus transfer but that was nothing after our flight to Las Vegas, overnight in the hotel, seven hour flight to Panama City, EIGHT hour layover in the airport before flying another seven hours to Buenos Aires! Well, might at well count the hour plus taxi ride from the airport to the hotel either…so give or take three days from home to hostel.
Chalten is a small collection of hostels and houses surrounded by large mountains which rise steeply from the grassy valley floor. A large river of glacial water flows through the valley and gives the town the feel a wild wet boomtown. Chalten was created in the 80’s by the Argentinian government in the land rush to develop the mountain trekking and climbing industry for future tourism and its mix of hotel styles from Swiss chalet to American west lodge shows the varying origin of its early investors.The town only has about 5,000 permanent residents but is swarming with summer workers guiding treks, backpackers from every part of the world and the much more hardcore crowd of climbers there to attempt summiting the massive Mt. Fitz Roy and Cerro Torres massifs. I was surprised to learn that the border with Chile in this area was only established in the last few decades and in some cases is still fluid along the great Patagonian Ice Field and southern fjords.
The two main hikes from the town to the towers of Fitz-Roy and Cerro Torres can both be done in long day trips but we chose to do a three day circuit with two nights camping near the lagunes at the bases of both towers. There was a surprising amount of forested area filled with white birch trees called “Lenga” in spanish which are nearly the only tree that can grow in the climate. The height of the forest was 25-30 feet at most but do to the extreme weather conditions of Patagonia they can take hundreds of years to reach this height. The wind blows constantly there and ranges from mild 20 mile an hours breezes to 60-80 mile an hours for prolonged periods. Some days the wind was so strong that it was challenging to walk and we had one friend who had to spend one whole day laying down on the ground due to the wind speed. The fact that the forest floor was littered with large branches and snapped tree trunks was not lost on us as we hustled along the trail. Nights in the tents under those trees was slightly apprehensive as you heard the wind start high up in the mountains before coming down half a minute later and roaring through the campsite before violently shaking the tent.
Both nights we were able to see the summits of the main massive, during the day as well as the twilight hours, which are not until 11pm this time of year. Sunrise coming at 4am each day. At the base of Fitz-Roy we were lucky enough to see the twinkling lights of climbers headlamps on the face of the mountain as climbers continued into the night or set up tents on small ledges to sleep halfway. Our guide told us that it can take 2-3 days to reach the mountain. Each person carrying their own food, clothing and gear which can reachup to 140 pounds. I got a very small taste of the difficulty when we had to cross over a glacial river by suspended rope without the assistance of a pulley. I cannot imagine doing the full trek across the glacier with that weight.
Chalten was a first start for our trip and it fulfilled our expectations to the fullest. The hikes were mild with warms days despite the wind and we were well prepared for the nights with our first bottles of Argentinian Malbec wine. After our warm up of three days we were excited to move on to the big 7 day trek in Chile that awaited us next.
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