El Chaltén, Argentina

[Written by Elizabeth Leonardis for our old blog, So Civilized]

Alex & I headed directly to El Chaltén where we planned to spend the majority of our time in South America. El Chaltén is a small town, pop. 600 in the winter, in the middle of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. The town was born out of a territory dispute with Chile, when in 1985 the Argentinian government decided they needed a presence in El Chaltén to keep the Chileans out, so they built 12 homes for government workers. El Chaltén has always been a hot spot for climbers and the town has been slowly growing over the years into a well established tourist destination. It now attracts thousands of visitors in the summer season, although fortunate for us the place empties out in the winter and goes back to being a sleepy Patagonia town.

El Chaltén is a town in the heart of Patagonia, a climbers paradise, with relatively easy access to some of the most beautiful mountains. From Antarctica, we had arranged a guide in order to climb one of the big mountains in the area, A. Guillamet. There are also excellent trails that start straight from town for trail running and wonderful day hikes. Our first few days there were stunning weather and we took advantage of the blue skies to do some of the local hikes and snap off some beautiful photos. Turns out the Fall colors were near peak when we first arrived so the hills were covered in oranges and reds of all shades.

For some of you who have been to this area of Patagonia before, you know that these mountains are often completely obscured from view by the clouds. Some people never get to see Fitz Roy, the tallest mountain in the range. We were fortunate enough to see the mountains over half of the days we were there, it also helped that we stayed for just over 2 weeks.

El Chaltén was everything we hoped it to be. Stunning scenery, trails every which way, and plenty of rock climbing to keep Alex happy. Plus, we found a wonderful, inexpensive hostel run by a man named Marcelo and his son William. We felt like we were couchsurfing with them as they welcomed us into their home (Marcelo lives there year round) shared meals and answered all our numerous questions. One night the guys had a small dinner party at the house and made a traditional stew called locro. Most of you will be shocked to hear that Alex & I both ate the stew which was filled with numerous kinds of meat. We both picked around the meat opting for the corn and pumpkin that was also in the stew, but there was no way around the small little pieces and the base of the stew had a thick animal fat consistency. I am happy to report neither of us had any ill consequences from our meat adventure.

There are sport routes covering the walls around town. You don’t have to walk far to find something that suites your ability. Our favorite wall turned out to be the closest to our hostel only minutes away with plenty of easy 5.5-5.8 routes for us to practice our sport climbing. Plus there were plenty of bouldering spots all around town. They even have a local climbing guide that can be found at most of the outdoors shops in town. Our climbing guide Manuel helped bolt most of the routes that have been put up recently.

We were also fortunate to receive a visit from one of our friends. Kevin, the waste technician from Palmer Station, is making his way through South and Central America in hopes of eventually making it back to his hometown of Stromsburg, Nebraska. Kevin spent a few days in El Chaltén before continuing his trip north. It was great seeing someone from Palmer outside our familiar surrounding of Antarctica.