Driving into El Chalten, I felt like Dorothy arriving in Emerald City. The skyline of El Chalten is magical. There are rocky, snow covered mountains, and lower, rounded, red rock hills, and then there is Mount Fitz Roy - exaggerated, definitive, and abrupt - in the middle of it all.
Mount Fitz Roy shoots straight upwards, towering over all of the other mountains. It stands tall and proudly boasts its beauty. It is the main attraction, the show stopper. It is like nothing you have ever seen before. When you lay your eyes upon Mount Fitz Roy for the first time, you don't ever want to look away.
The next morning, we were up very early to rearrange our big packs, rent tents, and repack our smaller packs to hike to Fitz Roy. After trekking the Torres, we knew exactly what we needed. We split up into two groups, Sinead and I in charge of food, Michael, Nadav, and Amir in charge of renting equipment.
Since the trek was only overnight, we decided - to save money, time and weight - that we didn't need to rent stoves or cook any meals. However, unlike Puerto Natales where we grocery shopped for the Torres, the grocery stores in the town were almost empty, lacked any decent food for hiking, and were very expensive. We ended up spending as much money on food for three meals as we did for our entire five days in the Torres.
Our menu was as follows:
Lunch: Ham and cheese sandwich
Dinner #1: Ham and cheese sandwich
Dinner #2: Ham and cheese sandwich
Breakfast: Sandwich roll with dulce de leche and frosted flakes sprinkled on top
Snacks: Two vanilla flavored muffins
With our gourmet menu and newly rented tents, we finished packing our bags and headed straight to the mountain.
One of the best parts of Fitz Roy is that it is so close to town. We literally walked out the door of our hostel, walked along the main road for a few minutes, turned onto a side street and walked up the trail.
The trails of Mount Fitz Roy are supersaturated with nature. There are forrests and lakes and rivers and lagoons and glaciers and many different types of mountains.
Our first destination was Laguna de Torre. As we walked through the forrest, it was like walking through a tree graveyard. Though many of the trees are alive and healthy, there are massive limbs and branches and trees uprooted from the ground. There are trees that are literally broken in half and others that are split into two straight up the trunk. The visual scenery of these forrests is a vivid testament to the extreme weather conditions - primarily insanely heavy winds and snow - that Patagonia faces every winter.
When we arrived at the Laguna, we finally got a taste of some of the wind we had heard so much about. We had been warned that both the Torres and Fitz Roy have extremely unpredictable weather and that the main injury when hiking these trails is a broken wrist from trying to catch yourself when the wind knocks your over. We had heard a first hand account from a friend who had hiked the Torres - a 6 foot tall man wearing his backpack - who was picked up, blown into his girlfriend, and then carried five feet in the air before the wind dropped them both.
So far, though, we had been lucky with the weather - both at the Torres and Fitz Roy. As we walked up to the Lagoon, the wind began to pick up. There were sand storms and little pebbles that were picked up and sent crashing into our bare arms and legs. We had to put on our sunglasses to protect our eyes and to see.
We stood at the top for a while, looking at the beautiful lagoon and snow capped mountains. Our feet were firmly planted in the ground, and we leaned into the wind so that we weren't blown over by its force.
We trekked back down a bit to an area with less wind, ate our lunch, propped ourselves up on a rock took a quick power nap, and were back on our way.
Our next stop was at Lago Madre y Hija where we stopped for a swim. We were hot from trekking, but still couldn't manage to stay in the extremely cold water very long. When we got out of the water we realized that the small black snakes we had seen swimming were actually leeches and helped each other scrape them off our skin.
We stayed here a bit longer and ate our first dinner sandwich. The monotony of the food doesn't bother you at all when you're surrounded by some of the most amazing scenery in the world.
We went back on our way and came face to face with the stunning Mount Fitz Roy for the first time. Though the top of Fitz Roy is rarely seen due to cloudy skies, we were extremely lucky to see the entire mountain towering above us.
After seeing the Torres, I didn't expect Fitz Roy to impress me as much as it did. I had seen Fitz Roy in many pictures before and it never had the same draw. But seeing Fitz Roy in person literally blew my mind. It is the most stunning mountain I have ever seen, even more so than "my mountain."
We bypassed the first camp we saw and instead camped that night at the very bottom of the steep trek to the viewing point where we would watch the sunrise the next morning. The five of us were the only campers there, and it felt special to have a piece of the forrest to call our own.
After setting up our tents, eating dinner #2, and refilling our water bottles at the nearby river, we crawled into our tents... exhausted from a day of trekking in the hot sun.
Our 4:15 alarm came much too soon, and if it wasn't for Sinead making sure we all woke up, I would have rolled over and gone right back to sleep.
We piled on layers of clothing... My trekking tank top, a thermal spandex layer, a fleece, a jacket, two hats, a neckwarmer, and gloves. After the Torres, I knew full well that I'd be peeling these layers off as soon as we started climbing the steep uphill, but leaving the tent without them seemed more than impossible.
By the time I reached the top, I was wearing only a tank top and my thermal leggings, and I had to quickly put back on all of my layers. Within minutesI was freezing cold again as my body temperature dropped.
The trek to the view point was very steep on very loose, rocky terrain. We began the trek in pitch black, with our head torches lighting the way, but as we walked higher and higher the sun began to peak out and illuminate the horizon. An hour later we finally reached the top. We were rewarded by the most spectacular sunrise I have ever seen in my entire life.
"Aren't you happy you woke up now?" Sinead asked Michael, who was tough to coax out of his sleeping bag at 4 am.
"I'm happy I was born," he told her.
As you scanned the horizon the colors painted the sky. First in pastels - blues and pinks and yellows. Closer to the sun the colors became more vibrant, oranges and reds and fuscha. And directly where the sun rose, the sky shined gold - lighting the lakes below on fire. In my mind, I kept hearing the quote from The Outsiders "stay gold, Ponyboy," and thought about how I have never identified more with the meaning.
As the first light of day reached Mount Fitz Roy, its peaks were illuminated and its tips were turned a fiery orange for a few quick moments - just as the ones on the Torres had been not even a week before.
When the sun rose, we explored the area a bit more and discovered a second lagoon and waterfall which had been hidden between two mountains. When we couldn't stand the cold anymore, we headed back down to have breakfast, take down our tents, make our way back into town.
By the time we got back, we were all very sore. Our feet and ankles had taken a serious beating from the rocky climb and in just 24 hours, the Fitz Roy trek managed to destroy us and cause more pain than the five days on the Torres.
After two weeks in Patagonia and the most beautiful scenery of my life, we packed our bags again and headed back north on a 28 hour bus to Bariloche.
Photos:
(*All photos credited to Michael Lande, due to a broken camera on the day of the trek)
1 - Where we had dinner our first night
2 - Fitz Roy
3 - Swimming with the leeches
4 - Fresh water fill up from the river
5 - Sky on fire. Sunrise at Mt. Fitz Roy
6 - Fitz Roy illuminated by the first light of day
7 - Mountain and lagoon at the viewing point
8 - Stunning Mt. Fitz Roy
9 - El Chalten valley
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