Hiking Patagonia from El Chalten
Mt. Fitzroy starts to clear, just 1.5 hours walk, one way, from El Chalten in Parque Nacional Los Glacieres.
El Chalten Activities
El Chalten ( pop. 140 and growing rapidly), a tiny and imperfectly formed village four hours by bus from El Calafate gives easy access to possibly Argentina's best hiking, ice treks and climbing in the Andean peaks of Los Glaciares National Park in Patagonia.
Hiking
Mt. Fitzroy is the undisputed king of this castle, with Cerro Torre next in line.
The walks are magnificent, well marked and range from about one hour to seven hours (one-way), with most around three or four hours one-way. The average gradient rise during that time is about 300metres.
Other areas with first-class mountain hikes in Argentina are Ushuaia, Bariloche and Mendoza.
A typically easy hiking trail in the El Chalten area. And no altitude problem!
The Rio de las Vueltas flood plain in the centre and backed by the Cordon de los Condores mountain range. Of course, if you prefer a tough trekking challenge there are plenty of hikes that will ring your bell!
Best Hiking Season
The very best hiking months in Patagonia are March and November with fewer bugs, neither too hot nor too cold, no snow on trails but snow up high.
Summer is OK and runs from December to February but the narrow trails get congested, facilities are more costly, big bugs appear and plenty of them, and hiking becomes warm work. Winter is from May-August with snow in the valley and deep drifts higher up.
A hiking trail in the next valley to El Chalten.
Argentina's newest town/village, El Chalten.
Chalten Village
Hurriedly slapped together in 1985 to claim the land before Chile could get their hands on it, Argentina's El Chalten is an uncontrolled mess of randomly sized, styled and placed buildings in varied materials and colours, replete with half-dug trenches, dangling cables and carpets of dandelions. El Chaos would be a better name for the place. This is tragic because the location is totally magical and deserves a coherent, well-constructed base, not a half-assed mishmash of partly-assembled junk.
Is there a governor out there? If so, he should be strapped to Fitzroy's heights until his head clears.
On the positive side, there are some excellent people, hostels and eateries in El Chalten and the trekking is stupendous.
Mt Fitzroy - from a different angle - and two of the Lago de Los Tres. Photo by Chris Schoenbohm.
This is a longer route to Mt Fitzroy than the photo at top, curving around to approach from the west. Ours was about 8 miles round trip while the Lago de Los Tres is about 15 miles (25kms) with a 700m vertical. That neatly demostrates the versatility of El Chalten's hikes - same base, same destination, same rock and awe - but one pair of easygoing hikers versus one group of trail-hardened trekkers.
Cerro Torre on the right and Glacier Grande on the left, a three hour hike, one way from El Chalten.
Hiking is the clearly favourite activity in the Andes foothills around El Chalten. The walks are as easy or difficult as you choose to make them. We're not hardened hikers but really enjoyed the cool - but not cold - reasonably flat trails up to the Andes range, taking from a couple of hours return to eight hours, depending on how much time was 'wasted' just looking at the incredible panoramas. We stayed away from actual snow walking but got very close.
Fly fishing is another popular activity in Patagonia.
And then there's cycling...Photo by Jason Hollinger
....or horseback riding, pony trekking, whatever, four legs good...
...or even bird watching apparently, though we didn't see many twitterers.
But whatever activity you choose, this central part of Patagonia is a must-enjoy, it's simply spectacular, equalling or surpassing Peru's Inca Trail.
