El Chalten, Argentina

After a long 16 hours in the car driving over bumpy gravel roads and braving the cold wind to check under the hood Marcelo and I finaly made it to El Chalten. We found a hostel right away, then a few celebratory beers. The next day we made it out by mid morning to take advantage of the day. It was cloudy to start but it looked like it might clear up and it did. El Chalten is a small town that sits near the base of Mount Fitz Roy, one of the most prestigous mountains to climb in all of South America .

It was a beautiful 4 hour hike up to terrific views of Fitz Roy and the surounding peaks. As we hiked the peak kept clearing and finally while we were at the top the clouds blew away and we had a teriffic view of the great Fitz Roy.










































The next day Marcelo went on a glacer walk and I did a small hike to one of the small mountains overlooking the town. It was a cloudy day so a long hike would not have made a difference to have a good look at Fitz Roy or Cerro Torre.




In town I walked around takíng a look at all of the funky houses. Chalten is Argentina's youngest town, and has an interesting spirit as a result. It was only established in 1985 after Argentina raced to populate the area along a contested part of the border with Chile. It has since evolved rapidly to become the self-proclaimed treking capital of Argentina if not South America.














Fissured Hematite