Saturday 24th November.
Awoke to find power restored to the town after last nights blackout!
Another blue sky day in El Chalten. Plan today is an 8 hr hike to Laguna Torre.
Another classical Argentinian breakfast of coffee, fruit, scrambled eggs, sweet pastries and biscuits.
The hotel supplied a comprehensive packed lunch and we set out for the mountains at just before 8am. We anticipated it being busy as there are only 6 trails leading from town, but in fact the town and trails were really quiet. We wondered if everyone else had, in fact, set off at 6am. Or perhaps they had all stayed indoors because some apocalyptic weather disaster was expected...
in fact, a few people gradually started to appear and we were reassured!!
We chatted to an English couple who were just heading for the bus after three days hiking the trails. They said it had been hard going but worthwhile, warned us that it had been cold up there yesterday despite double coating so we added another layer into our bags.
We yomped across town, amazed at the amount of construction going on - it really is a boom town now the road from El Calafate has been paved. The quality of the build though was somewhat dubious, varying from converted container units, rough bricks and mortar / wriggly tin to beautifully crafted dry stone walls and turreted lookouts.
We located the start of the the trail and set off. The town soon disappeared from view behind the first ridge and we were walking though a forest of small leaved beech trees.
Way-finding was no problem as the path was well worn and the junctions clearly marked. We looked out over a rushing grey glacial river. The birdsong was beautiful. We spotted Patagonian Sierra finches, Austral thrushes, Rufous collared Sparrows and a Fire eyed Diucon. A Condor floated overhead.
The path was steep in places but generally we climbed steadily upwards, drawing gradually closer to the Cerro Torre mountain and surrounding peaks above us. Most of the time, they were shrouded in cloud but as we moved nearer and the wind increased, the clouds shifted giving brief glimpses of the snow capped jagged peaks behind.
It is always windy in Patagonia but today the winds seemed stronger than ever. Each step seemed to be a fight against the wind and we wore sunglasses, hats and buffs to help protect us form the wind and from flying bits of moraine grit and sand. Although the skies above remained blue and the sun shone there was a persistent light rain in the wind that helped to keep us cool and also created beautiful rainbows.
We stopped and several view points to view the river below and waterfalls above. The mountain ranges came in and out of view.
After about 9km we reached a bank of stones from the glacier moraine. We clambered up and despite expecting to see the Laguna Torres, we were still surprised at the sight of a huge glacial lake of milky pale grey water, but full of large blue icebergs being pushed onto the pebbly beach by the wind, which was causing quite significant waves to move over the water.
The wind was particularly intense here with gusts strong enough to knock us off our feet. We battled our way down to the lake shore to take some photos and then continued our hike along the beach and up into the ridge of moraine running along the north shore of the Laguna towards the Mirador Maestri.
On an ordinary sunny day, this walk would have been a slightly strenuous scenic stroll / scramble up hill over stony ground. In these high winds, it was a perilous battle!
We hiked along the top of the ridge and climbed up into a beech forest, sheltered from the wind, from where we had a perfect birds eye view out over the Glacier Grande.
The hike back to the lake was another story. With the wind at our backs we flew back down the ridge. The wind was so strong it felt as if our back packs would be lifted off our backs. The gusts were incredibly strong and quite disconcerting - sometimes it felt like being rugby tackled from behind. We often had to stop and sit or lie on the ground to stop ourselves being blown over!
Soon we reached the lower part of the ridge and dropped down, out of the wind and into the beech forest.
Then the day magically became more mellow. The sun shone, the birds sang, we strolled back through the woods to the village, heading for the Chocolateria for hot chocolate and beer as our reward! Another 25km walked!!
We were glad to get back to the hotel and out our feet up for an hour in our sunny bedroom. We stroked around the town, enjoying the evening sunshine. The skies above had cleared to give a better view of the impressive Fitz Roy range, surmounted by the most incredible cloud formation. At first glance it looked like a huge snow covered mountain with a cornice of snow and ice overhanging the top, but it was just cloud. We headed out to dinner at Estepa - expensive but good. Bill had steak and I had a vegetable banquet!
Our walk back to the hotel was cold and windy and atmospheric in the fading light and once again were in bed early in anticipation of another big day tomorrow.