Supertrekking!

On Wednesday we took a bus up to El Chalten, four hours to the north, to go "Supertrekking". El Chalten is at the base of the most dramatic mountains in Argentina, Cerro Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre, which are both huge granite spires piercing the sky.

Cerro Fitz Roy

Off the bus (which traveled three and a half of the four hours on dirt roads), we met our guide Andreas, and the three other trekkers going with us, Rich from New York, and a couple from Mexico City, Lenny and Marta, who are living in Houston. After dropping off some extra gear, we drove to the trail head and started our six hour hike along the river valley. The views of Fitz Roy and the surrounding granite spires were spectacular and the weather was perfect with bright sunshine and a nice cool breeze. The scenery was seriously some of the most beautiful I´ve seen on this earth. Up with the Napali Coast on Kauai, the Swiss Alps, and possibly Yosemite Valley it was definitely one of the most awe inspiring, pristine natural settings I´ve experienced. Half way into the hike, the giant rock tower of Cerro Torre appeared to our right stabbing into the sky and dominating the geological skyline.

We camped overnight in a beech tree forest and I convinced Doug and Rich to stay up to watch the stares. Again we saw the Southern Cross, the Milky Way and, strangely, an upside down Orion. We each caught site of shooting stars and saw satellites zipping across the sky.

The next day we hiked two hours to the mouth of the Torre Glacier. On the way, we climbed a steep hillside with the aid of some fixed ropes and crossed over a rushing stream via a rope ¨bridge¨to which we had to tie our harnesses and pull ourselves across. We stopped to fill our water bottles and Doug asked the guide how the water was. He answer was, "Perfect," which said it all. Back down at the bottom of the valley, we donned crampons and hiked on the glacier for an hour until coming to the first row of seracs (ice cliffs caused by the constant cracking and shifting of the glacier). There we stopped for lunch and took turns roping up and using ice axes and crampons to ice climb up the cliff. After lunch, we continued our zig zag path through the glacier around crevasses, rivers through the snow and half frozen pools of crystal clear blue water. The views of Cerro Torre and the adjacent rocky mountain peaks, surrounded by a surreal ice landscape were incredible. The whole time, our party of six were the only people on the giant field of ice!

We hiked back to our camp, grabbed our gear and trekked another three hours back to town. We spent the night in the tiny mountain village of El Chalten, then did a day trip up to an alpine lake in the shadow of Fitz Roy before catching our bus back to El Calafate. Now we are witnessing the true Patagonia we came for and are loving it!

Dan and Rich Supertrekking on Glacier Torre!