Today we are heading north to El Chaten, the entry way to Mount Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre, the two highest and most well known peaks in this mountaineers and climbers paradise. It was a 3 hour drive, crossing the Santa Cruz River which runs from Lago Argentina to the Atlantic Ocean. The landscape was much the same as what we’ve seen here in this section of Patagonia — low scrub with the occasional estancia. We came across a small group of guanaco, including a couple mothers and babies, right next to a group of rhea, the ostrich like bird. The fathers take care of and raise the chicks in that breed, and we saw one with about 10 little ones following along. As we drove alongside the Viedma Lake, also quite a large body of water ending in a glacier, the mountain range we were heading towards came into view.
Halfway along we stopped at Parador La Leona, a roadhouse and country lodge on the shore of the La Leona river. It was here in 1877 that Francisco P. Moreno (after whom the glacier is named) was attacked and badly injured by a female puma (Leona in Patagonian slang). In 1894 the government ordered the construction of a raft to cross the river to allow settlers and their animal and merchandise travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a service that remained in place until a bridge was built in 1974. The lodge was built to offer settlers shelter as they waited to cross the river. The most fascinating story is of the 3 “gringos” who stayed at the lodge for several days in 1905, before heading off to places unknown. After the three left, the police arrived and identified the visitors as ones who had robbed the Bank of London in Rio Gallegos — Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid and his wife Helen Page.
We arrived at the Posado de Barranca around 12:30, gathered our day packs and our box lunch, and after a quick briefing from Fernando, our guide for our time here in this northern area of Los Glaciars Park, we set off. Today’s hike was an easy 5 miles up to a lookout where Cerro Torre is most likely to be visible. It was nice to not have to watch our footing too close — the path was pretty easy, comparatively speaking — and at the top we were treated to a wide view of the entire Torre valley, the Grand glacier and most of the peaks visible between the clouds. The highest at 11,168 feet is Mount Fitz Roy, named (actually re-named by Moreno) after the captain of the Beagle, in recognition of the cartographic work that he carried out during his survey of the coasts of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. In 1834, Fitz Roy and Darwin sailed up the Santa Cruz river in hope of reaching the Andes.
Each of the peaks we observed were named after various explorers or others who had attempted to scale or map the area or the mountain. Fitz Roy was first summited in 1952, and Cerro Torre has had many attempts and few successes. And some drama, as one Italian who had tried twice finally made it to the top of this spire-like peak, and had placed bolts in the path on the way up, which were cut off by a subsequent team who free-climbed it. Apparently fist sights broke out in town over that brouhaha. There’s also a peak named after Antoine Saint-Exupery who became famous as a member of the Aeropostale for his flights across the Andes, and served as a director of the Argentine Aeropostale from 1929-1931. Along the path were bushes of calafate berries — in the blueberry family, but with lots of seeds.
We arrived back at the hotel in the late afternoon, and after some stretching and relaxing we walked to the Main Street for another group dinner. El Chaten is a very new town, built in the 1980s as an attempt by Argentine to put in place some settlements and hopefully gain land in the ongoing debate with Chile about the border. It has one Main Street and 1,000 full time inhabitants and is almost completely focussed on the outdoor adventure/expeditions/hiking groups that use the town as the jumping off point for exploring the mountains and glaciers. Back to the hotel before 10pm, and a beautiful sky over the mountains.
