Tags
adventure, Argentina, disappointment, El Chaltén, hiking, Laguna de los Tres, Los Glaciares National Park, Mount Fitz Roy, mountains, Patagonia
I am obsessed with mountains. Many of my travels are fueled by a desire to trek or just lay my eyes on a specific mountain, and our first trip to Patagonia was no exception. My goal was simple – to get as close as I could to Mount Fitz Roy in Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina. I have no technical climbing skills, and it’s too late to start, but my fascination with the world’s most difficult ascents can be satisfied with circuit treks, base camp visits, and partial climbs. I am willing to hike for weeks on end, up and down, through heat and cold, to glimpse the heights that stir men’s souls.
Fitz Roy drew me because it is so extreme. Not the highest of mountains – the Himalayan peaks have double the elevation – Fitz Roy is still considered one of the world’s toughest climbs. The sheer verticality turns away most comers; in some years, more people summit Everest than even attempt Fitz Roy. Fitz Roy also attracted me because it is so fearsome-looking. Its stony gray face looms threateningly over a remote and barren landscape, raising goose bumps on my skin even from a distance – even from a photo! Often sheathed in cloud cover, the pillar pushes dramatically upward, a knife piercing the usually leaden skies above. The mere thought of clinging to its wind- and rain-lashed face brings shivers.
As we approach the small town of El Chaltén for the first time, our driver pulls over and suggests a photo of the spike and its neighbors from afar. In a hurry to get to our lodging and dinner after a long day of travel, I demur at first, saying that we are hiking to a better vantage point the next day. He pulls over anyway, looking at me pityingly, obviously more aware than I that this may be my one and only shot of the unobstructed peak.
We meet briefly with the guide we have hired for the next day and he lays out three hiking options. The longest (estimated at 8-10 hours round trip) is a trek to Laguna de los Tres, a high-altitude glacial lake with the most spectacular view of Fitz Roy. We will not be dissuaded from taking this route, even when he warns us that tomorrow’s weather will be atrocious. We fortify ourselves with the coziest dinner ever – thick local stew and dark home-brewed beer at La Cervecería, a warm cocoon of rustic wood benches and tables crammed together in one snug little room.
Our trek day dawns gray and foggy, as predicted, and we pile on warm and waterproof layers for the hike.
My spirits are already sinking, but we try to stay upbeat and optimistic as we walk, first through gently rising lenga forests, then past ice-cold streams and glacier tongues, and on up to the barren flanks that house two base camps for real climbers.
The closer we get to the lagoon, the denser the fog becomes and the more heavily the rain falls. We are now fully draped in rain ponchos, our hoods and hats and headbands underneath deadening the senses. Our pants are drenched; there is no sheltered place to stop and eat, and our legs and lungs are burning as we near the apex of our climb.
We stumble over slick rocks, seeing nothing but our own boots and the back of our guide. He suddenly halts and points ahead. We are on the shores of the lagoon, a murky pool of dull liquid, topped with a gloomy mist so thick it hovers mere inches from the surface. Behind the lagoon and the damnable vapor lies the best view of Fitz Roy in the world, but it is not for us to see today.
I am not a good sport about this. I have tears in my eyes and sulky words for my family and the guide, who is cranky himself at our insistence on completing the hike. We yank our lunches from our backpacks, eat soggy sandwiches in disagreeable silence, straining for a tiny gap in the murk that never appears, before turning helplessly downhill for the five-hour trek back to El Chaltén. It is the most disappointing day of my travel life, and even my strapping son collapses in exhaustion and frustration at the end of the day.
Like many disappointments, however, the day allows us to focus on smaller scenes of beauty, like the delicate calafate berry below, and serves as motivation to go back to this enigmatic mountain and charming frontier town at the bottom of the world someday.
Ricky Chin | inspirationrick said:
“I am obsessed with mountains”. I was hooked from the beginning, as I share a similar sentiment. Sorry for your disappointment upon reaching the lagoon, but what an amazing experience nonetheless. Patagonia looks magical, and I can’t wait to visit! I also love how you mention that mountains can stir men’s souls. It’s a stirring that I rarely find elsewhere. I never reached Everest Base Camp on my trip to Nepal, but it’s this stirring that has me motivated to return someday as well.
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lexklein said:
I just went back and checked out your Nepal post about getting sick – what a huge bummer! The Everest base camps are two of the most special destinations I’ve reached, and in those cases I was much luckier with the weather! Nepal was gorgeous and sunny for weeks, and Tibet was decent, too. My header photo was taken from north base camp there!
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awtytravels said:
Never, ever, miss a chance to grab a picture of something fleeting (or to experience anything fleeting for that matter). I lived most of my life in the shade of the Matterhorn and had plenty of time to see it, but every time I catch a glimpse of it from a plane (9 times out of 10 it sits on the right hand side on my quasi-commute) I can’t resist taking a picture of it. ‘Cause you never know!
But, hey, are those opening pictures yours? Because it seems you’ve actually got the Fitzroy framed nicely there!
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lexklein said:
Believe me, I agree! I did take those first two photos when the driver told me to on the day we drove in, even though I thought it was cloudy and not very clear and I was SURE I’d have a much better view later. Little did I know my first view would be my last on the whole trip!
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awtytravels said:
Ah, well, at least you’ve got them. I wouldn’t have been able to cope had I missed them, up to the point I’d have had to return for another visit!
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daveply said:
You’re much more hardcore than I am. I’ve been impressed by pictures of neighboring Torres del Paine for years, but I suspect it’s one of those bucket list items I’ll never kick.
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lexklein said:
Based on reading about some of your hikes, I am 100% positive you could easily do nearly all of the trekking to be had in Patagonia. Maybe not actually climbing all those crazy spires, but hiking around them for sure. I went back to Patagonia a year after the Fitz Roy disappointment and did the (Torres del) Paine Circuit, which was 8 days around, all in tents, and it was AMAZING! Totally doable. But if you meant hardcore in terms of how far you want to travel, then I can’t assure you!
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LaVagabonde said:
The photo of the mountain towering over the village is awe-inspiring. I am a mountain person, too. Love the physical endurance challenge of climbing one, but I lack the sense of balance required in scaling precipices. I could feel your profound disappointment and frustration and exhaustion. When you’ve come so far, it’s hard to let go of the expectations. I once did a gnarly hike up a mountain in Slovakia in dense fog. Such eerie, silent beauty. Hopefully you can make it back there one day and redo the hike in fairer weather.
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lexklein said:
I think my introduction to you was a post about a hike in Tatra National Park in Slovakia. Your words and your tone told me that you loved mountains, and I followed you on the spot. Now I’ve gone back and read about the foggy hike … wow, what a surreal experience! When I think about returning to that part of Argentina, I find I mainly want to just hang in El Chalten again for a few days; seeing Fitz Roy up close would be great, but I’ve kind of resigned myself to the idea that it’s greedy and unrealistic to want to see everything in the world on a perfect day. In fact, part of Fitz Roy’s allure is its inaccessibility and surly cloak of weather, so I should feel LUCKY to have seen it in its typical environment, right?!
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LaVagabonde said:
Thanks for reading that old post. I think you’ve got the right attitude re: Fitz Roy. 🙂
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Bama said:
This is why when James asked me the question “what kind of superpower do you wish to have?” I instantly said the ability to control weather! As someone who also loves to travel and to take lots of photos, clear blue skies is something I wish I could always have wherever I go. Well, there’s always next time, Lex. And when you do return one day I hope the weather will be much better.
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lexklein said:
Oh, Bama, I never thought of weather control as a superpower, but that is all I want now that you mention it! Can James grant it to us?! I could even use it now at home! As I said to LaVagabonde above, though, maybe I was meant to see Fitz Roy in its true element, which is variable and often terrible weather. That is part of its nature.
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SnowSomewhere said:
Love your writing! We didna day hike, too, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that 🙂 But I know what you mean about “real mountain climbers”. I enjoy hiking, more time to admire nature and take photos. Anyway, we only went to Laguna Capri but we we lucky and had great views that day. The downside was that there were millions of little flies everywhere, never seen so many flies anywhere. Hard to even breathe without inhaling them…!
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lexklein said:
Oh, those flies sound terrible! What time of year were you there? By “real” climbers I meant those crazy talented people who scale the towers themselves. I am a serious hiker and occasional rock scrambler but not a technical climber by any means! And I, too, am totally OK with that!
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SnowSomewhere said:
It was November-December (2014), spring…
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CompassAndCamera said:
Omg, how heartbreaking Lex!!! But your words are sheer beauty and the defeat you’ve captured in numerous photos is palpable. As a fellow mountain lover, I feel your pain, completely. I had a similar experience trying to climb Mount Kinabalu. I was feeling really sick and then there was a deluge in the wee hours when everyone left to try to summit. My worst mountain weekend ever. There’s a post on my blog if you care to read. Anyway, I love your honesty — gotta take the good with the bad and just keep traveling. 🙂
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lexklein said:
I will check out your post – because I love to read about your adventures and because I might feel better knowing I’m not the only one cursed by bad weather sometimes! Haha. Ultimately, as I pointed out to someone else, maybe I was meant to see Fitz Roy in its true element, which is almost always swirling clouds and gloom. At least I did get a glimpse of the peak the day before (and a photo, thank god!).
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LDG luciledegodoy said:
So sorry to hear that. Couldn’t you do it another day?
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lexklein said:
Good question! But no – we had booked so many different hikes and outings on that trip, and the next day we did the Perito Moreno glacier trek, which was far enough away that we couldn’t get back to EL Chalten for another shot at Fitz Roy.
Thank you for reading and commenting on so many different posts today! You must have gone though several pots of coffee while poking though my blog! I am grateful for your long visit, and I will return the favor some day soon with a nice long ramble through yours! I need to do this with many people – just sit and read one person’s blog for a long while instead of dashing through everyone’s posts that day or week. Thanks for the blog-reading inspiration!
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LDG luciledegodoy said:
You don’t need to thank me at all. It’s so difficult to make time to read all blog’s I like, so I found out that the best is to reserve time to visit a few and read as many posts as possible. I read yours with so much pleasure and no coffee was involved! No need to reciprocate.
Blogging is for fun and we should read and it comment only when we can.
Thank you for taking time to read and reply to all my comments. Much appreciated. Have a lovely weekend.
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Traveling Rockhopper said:
That’s a lovely place, well all Patagonia is amazing. But this part stayed in my mind as the most windy area…
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lexklein said:
Patagonia really was amazing all over, wasn’t it? I found it all quite windy, with this area being doubly so and cloudy/rainy as well. I think the extreme weather made it even more exciting to be at “the end of the world” in many ways.
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James said:
Alas, sometimes thick fog and rain puts a wrench in our best laid travel plans – your intense disappointment comes through and I can just imagine the guide and driver thinking, “see, I told you”. The unpredictability of the weather seems to be recurring feature of Patagonia. I don’t know, Lex, but I just googled that classic view of Fitz Roy from the lagoon and I’m not really convinced it’s the best one… I get a better idea of its immensity from your pictures here with El Chaltén in the foreground.
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lexklein said:
Well, you just turned around my whole attitude on what the best shot of Fitz Roy is! Seriously, I had seen the lagoon photos myself and I guess what intrigued me was that it is the CLOSEST view of the tower, but you are right that the scale and the majesty of the peak are best from the road leading into town. It was a memorable (if not delightful) hike because of that weather, and if I think about it positively, the difficulty and disappointment are part of what made it so special!
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carolinehelbig said:
Oh, this is so making me want to go to El Chalten and do this hike, despite the unpredictable weather. The town with that mountain backdrop is so stunningly dramatic! So glad you stopped for the photo (yes, I can just imagine what was going through your driver’s mind). Was this in April? I’ve been madly searching for info on best chance of good weather/less wind. I’ve also seen photos of the fall colours in April that look amazing. Great post.
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lexklein said:
Take me back with you! I LOVED that little town (we all did), and as you can see, I need a return trip to get my up-close view of Fitz Roy! We were there in December. Other than this wretched day of weather, we had pretty good luck with sunny days and mild temperatures in Argentina overall. December was terribly expensive and I wish we could have avoided it, but two of our kids were in college and that was the only time we could make a 2-week trip with them. I think much of Patagonia is windy a lot of the time, but I do think January is the worst for wind (that’s when we went to Chilean Patagonia and pretty much thought we’d be blown off some mountains!).
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carolinehelbig said:
I know what you mean about trying to work around everyone’s schedules. For this trip we are not even going to try with our son, so we have a bit of flexibility. I’ll have to psych myself up for the wind. Thanks for the info!
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