Nine Perfect Days in Patagonia...Day 4
This was our final, full day in El Chalten. To be clear, you could stay here a lot longer. Many people do longer camping routes throughout the park and I bet they are amazing.
We don't camp because we love nature and hiking but not enough to forego showers and beds for any real length of time.
So, on Day 4 we decided to do the Laguna de Los Tres hike, which is THE hike to do in El Chalten. This is the hike that takes you to the base of Mount Fitz Roy, with imposing glaciers and turquoise blue lagoons. We had nearly perfect weather the entire time we were in Patagonia, so I kind of dumb lucked my way into all of our hikes working out. In retrospect, I would make sure you did this hike the first good weather day you have just because nothing is guaranteed.
Because we had a car, we decided to drive about 17 km north of El Chalten to start our route. This will cut a couple hours (at least) off your total hiking time. A quick note about driving in El Chalten. It was easy, and I am SO glad we had a car but a lot of people don't. There were hitchhikers everywhere in Patagonia, and in particular Argentinian Patagonia. I'm not sure if this is because there is a less robust infrastructure or what. In any case, it seems to be very common there, but I was raised on tales of hitch hiking gone wrong so we didn't participate.
In order to start the Laguna de Los Tres hike (with a car), you need to park over by the trailhead at El Pilar. Once you park, you will walk along a little (well marked) path to get to the beginning of the actual hike. This is private property until you pass through the boundary into the actual park itself. There was a small ranger station set up near the entrance, with a couple park employees who would ask you if you were prepared for the hike and give you some advice.
To be perfectly honest with you, I know the trail was marked as moderate and took us about 8 hours to complete but I don't remember it being all that difficult. There were a couple climbs towards the end but really nothing worrisome. This may or may not be due to the fact that there were 60+ year old French tourists whipping through the damn thing. I'm not tired, you're tired.
You start walking through a fairly dense forest with clearly marked trails. When we went this was the coldest and windiest part of the entire hike, which is a little odd considering it is more sheltered and at a lower elevation than the top. Probably because we actually did something with our lives that day and got started before noon.
The entire time you're hiking, you will catch little teaser glimpses of the mountain peaks that truly just keep getting better. There are several, well marked look out points as well but nearly every place is picture perfect.
This trail could also be done as part of an even LONGER route that started back in El Chalten. Because we drove to El Pilar, we cut quite a bit off our hiking time. This wasn't an option for the hardened senior hikers who probably woke up at the crack of dawn, downed a couple raw eggs and steamrolled their way onwards.
Before you start your last climb to the peak, you will pass the Rio Blanco base camp. One cool thing about Patagonia is you can drink just about any running water in the parks. There is a quick moving stream right through Rio Blanco, and many other hikers were refilling here, but I would suggest waiting for a higher elevation. There are so many campers here and I am pretty positive many of them do not follow general sanitation guidelines.
The last bit before you reach the peak is a straight climb over some loose shale and gravel. The picture below was taken on the way down because on the way up Jorge was probably not 100% happy with me and I was just in self preservation mode, but it gives you an idea of what it's like as you reach the top.
Above is viewing towards the peaks and below is facing in the opposite direction. At the highest point of this trail, you will have incredible views of the Fitz Roy massif as well as the del los Tres glacier and its lagoon. You can spend some time (as we did) walking around the lagoon, stopping for lunch and recharging before your return trip.
One thing I loved about this hike was the landscape seemed to drastically change every couple of kilometers. As beautiful as the mountains and lakes were, it was also nice to feel surrounded by the dense forests that lay in pockets along the route.
It's hard to see, but this looks like a (probably injured) buzzard eagle. It was just chilling in the forest right outside Rio Blanco.
We took our time, retracing our steps back to our car and made our way back to our B&B in El Chalten. I was able to wheedle an actual meal out of Jorge and we ate at the pizzeria that served as the ground floor of our B&B.
Before pizza:
After pizza:
The rest of the night (what was left of it) was spent relaxing and if I had to guess there was beer, alfajores and chocolate involved.
Need to catch up on Day 3? Go to Day 5.
We don't camp because we love nature and hiking but not enough to forego showers and beds for any real length of time.
So, on Day 4 we decided to do the Laguna de Los Tres hike, which is THE hike to do in El Chalten. This is the hike that takes you to the base of Mount Fitz Roy, with imposing glaciers and turquoise blue lagoons. We had nearly perfect weather the entire time we were in Patagonia, so I kind of dumb lucked my way into all of our hikes working out. In retrospect, I would make sure you did this hike the first good weather day you have just because nothing is guaranteed.
Because we had a car, we decided to drive about 17 km north of El Chalten to start our route. This will cut a couple hours (at least) off your total hiking time. A quick note about driving in El Chalten. It was easy, and I am SO glad we had a car but a lot of people don't. There were hitchhikers everywhere in Patagonia, and in particular Argentinian Patagonia. I'm not sure if this is because there is a less robust infrastructure or what. In any case, it seems to be very common there, but I was raised on tales of hitch hiking gone wrong so we didn't participate.
In order to start the Laguna de Los Tres hike (with a car), you need to park over by the trailhead at El Pilar. Once you park, you will walk along a little (well marked) path to get to the beginning of the actual hike. This is private property until you pass through the boundary into the actual park itself. There was a small ranger station set up near the entrance, with a couple park employees who would ask you if you were prepared for the hike and give you some advice.
You start walking through a fairly dense forest with clearly marked trails. When we went this was the coldest and windiest part of the entire hike, which is a little odd considering it is more sheltered and at a lower elevation than the top. Probably because we actually did something with our lives that day and got started before noon.
The entire time you're hiking, you will catch little teaser glimpses of the mountain peaks that truly just keep getting better. There are several, well marked look out points as well but nearly every place is picture perfect.
Before you start your last climb to the peak, you will pass the Rio Blanco base camp. One cool thing about Patagonia is you can drink just about any running water in the parks. There is a quick moving stream right through Rio Blanco, and many other hikers were refilling here, but I would suggest waiting for a higher elevation. There are so many campers here and I am pretty positive many of them do not follow general sanitation guidelines.
The last bit before you reach the peak is a straight climb over some loose shale and gravel. The picture below was taken on the way down because on the way up Jorge was probably not 100% happy with me and I was just in self preservation mode, but it gives you an idea of what it's like as you reach the top.
Above is viewing towards the peaks and below is facing in the opposite direction. At the highest point of this trail, you will have incredible views of the Fitz Roy massif as well as the del los Tres glacier and its lagoon. You can spend some time (as we did) walking around the lagoon, stopping for lunch and recharging before your return trip.
One thing I loved about this hike was the landscape seemed to drastically change every couple of kilometers. As beautiful as the mountains and lakes were, it was also nice to feel surrounded by the dense forests that lay in pockets along the route.
We took our time, retracing our steps back to our car and made our way back to our B&B in El Chalten. I was able to wheedle an actual meal out of Jorge and we ate at the pizzeria that served as the ground floor of our B&B.
Before pizza:
After pizza:
The rest of the night (what was left of it) was spent relaxing and if I had to guess there was beer, alfajores and chocolate involved.
Need to catch up on Day 3? Go to Day 5.
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