Finally Mt. Fitz Roy

Okay we finally found faster internet. So we were in El Bolsón, Argentina during the last post. The town was really laid back and beautiful. It is known for being a hippy town, and we found this to be correct. People hung out in the park all day and into the night braiding hair, selling hand-made crafts, and smoking weed. After El Bolsón we rode the bus for 28 hours and hung out in bus stations for 14 hours to get to El Calafate. The guy at the tourist information center in Santiago told us Southern Argentina would be really boring, and he even compared it to driving through Kansas. We found this to be quite true, but this landscape gave a whole new meaning to flat and barren. It was extremely falt with a dry looking Buffalo grass. We only seen a few houses between the towns, and the distance between towns was quite far. Everyone raises sheep here, so we saw hundreds and hundreds of sheep. It was so flat we could see the glow of the next town 30 miles away, and we could make out the individual lights 15 miles away (there were not big towns either.) The good thing about it being so flat is we actually go to see some wildlife from the bus. We seen over 200 Guanacos (a relation to the llama) and probably 20 Rheas (look like a smaller ostrich). The Guanacos reminded me of antelope in Kansas because they were always in small herds just grazing calmly through the pastures and in the ditches. Eventually we rounded a hill almost to El Calafate and we seen the wonderful Andes mountains and huge glacier lakes out of no where.

El Calafate is the major spot to enter the National Glacier Park to see glaciers of course. This is kind of pricey though and since we are already running behind schedule we decided to skip it and go straight to El Chaltén to see Mt Fitz Roy.

El Chaltén is the youngest town in Argentina, founded in 1985. It doesn´t have banks or ATMS, so it takes planning financially to go there. Here we got to enter the the northern part of the national park. We arrived in El Chaltén at 10pm, and everywhere that rented sleeping bags was closed and the hostels were expensive, so we decided to camp in the free camping with no sleeping bags. This worked out rather well since we just put on layers, until about 5am when the wind started to pick up. I started hoping for the sun after awhile, unfortunately the sun doesn´t rise until around 8am. At least Nick stayed warm, and shared his warmth with me. In the morning we had an idea of where we planned to hike for the day, of course it was pretty ambitious though. The few books I read told us the 1st day we should hike to the 1st campsite and then take a day pack for a 2km hike to Fitz Roy. Well Nick and I saw the 2km and thought, ¨Well we might as will hike up that, and then go on to the 2nd campsite 7km further.¨ We didn´t want to be wusses. Well come to find out there is a reason they recommended just doing that small of a hike, and there is a reason they recommend only taking a day pack and not all of our shit. That was the hardest 2 km we ever did!! Another mistake we made was not eating since breakfast. It was already around 2:30pm when we started the ascent, but we figured it would be easy and we could eat lunch when we were done. It is only 2km right!! It turned out to be a steep, rocky climb that zig zagged back and forth up a cliff, and only got steeper as we went up. One hour later my legs were shaking, my knee was yelling at me, and all Nick could talk about was a Chinese Buffet and peanut butter. We finally made it to the top, and the view was amazing, but in the back of our minds we were just wondering how we were going to get down. At around 6:00pm we finally made it to camp and ate the best pasta, crackers, and salomi we have ever had. The 2nd day of hiking was better, but at the end we were starting to stuggle again. We just had too much weight in our bags. Nick´s bag weighed around 45lbs, and mine was around 35lbs, and we hiked about 25 miles total.

From El Chaltén we went to Puerto Natales (where we are now). It is the major town were people start their hike for Torres del Paine. We are planning to do this 8-day trek starting tomorrow.
Indian carved out of a tree trunk still in the ground in El Bolsón. This is the backside of the tree.

And this is the front side of the trunk.

The view of the mountains from the park in El Bolsón.

Nick reading his book in the park while we are waiting for our bus.

The nothingness of Patagonia. Patagonia is what they call the southern most region of South America. Does it look like Kansas to you?

This is not my picture, but these are the Rheas we saw while on the bus. We have seen them all over this region. They are hard to take a picture of though because they blend into the land so well. I never see them until it is too late.

We didn´t take this picture either, but this is the Guanacos we saw everywhere!

We did take this picture though. Herd of Guanacos on the side of the road.

Drastic change of scenery. The high peak in the middle is Fitz Roy.

Fitz Roy and Laguna Capri

Glacier Piedras Blancas

Nick looking cute in front of Fitz Roy.

Nick crossing a very dangerous bridge...just kidding.

Me looking cute and tired.

Fitz Roy in the clouds from the top of the 2 km hike of hell. Fitz Roy is 3405 meters high (approx 10215 ft).

The glacier and lake at the bottom of Fitz Roy after the hike of hell. This lake is at about 7000ft.

The view of the valley we just hiked through from the top of the hike of hell.

This is the trail up the ridge of the hike of hell. This is about the spot where we ditched our bags in the bushes because we didn´t think it was possible to carry them further. It is hard to tell, but it is steeper than it looks. The trail is the little while zig zag line right in the middle.

Nick pooped after returning from the hike of hell.

This is where we hiked on the 2nd day. It is called Cerro Torre. It is 3102 meters high.

At the end of this hike we got to see another angle of Fitz Roy. You can see the interesting difference in color between Fitz Roy and Poincenot. Poincenot has a red tint, while Fitz Roy looks like granite.

Laguna Torre and the glacier that feeds it.

Rio Fitz Roy coming out of Laguna Torre. We could not believe that small lake fed this huge river.

The view of the bay from Puerto Natales, Chile.

A cool resturant on the bay in Puerto Natales.

Nick standing in the cold and wind of Patagonia.