El Chaltén and Paso del Viento

Written by Acacia-obviously, because of the formatting struggle.


We made our bus connection easily, even though we were loaded down by all of the groceries (we had planned for 9 days of meals, but John got bread and cheese for literally months). We had been planning on free camping, but after arriving found out that doesn´t exist anymore. Luckily we found the cheapest hostel we have stayed in yet, $8 a night. El Chaltén is incredibly scenic, with views of Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitz Roy, which are the mountains on all the Patagonia posters you have ever seen, We met some guys at our hostel who had just completed the Paso del Viento trek and told us all about it. To summarize: few trails, glaciers, river crossings, 2 mountain passes, and most importantly, few people.

The next day after our usual pancake breakfast we set off on a hike to Lago Torre, even though we had a hunch the weather wasn´t going to be stellar. About an hour into our hike we got to a look out, where we couldn´t see much because of the clouds, fog, rain, and wind we were walking into. Unfortunately, John realized that he had forgotten his raincoat (with important things in the pocket of it, like tent stakes) at the bus stop in Calafate, now 250km away. We toughed out the rain, and made it to Lago Torre in half the time the map suggested, saw the lake with an ice berg in it and a bit of the glacier across the lake, but not much else because of the weather, and then scrambled back to lunch out of the wind and rain. We hung around town for the rest of the day, and made an appearance at the local brewery, obviously. The beer wasn´t anything exciting, but the restaurant did serve popcorn at every table. I was stoked.

The next day we had planned to leave for the Paso del Viento trek, but John was fighting a cold, and the weather still wasn´t supposed to be fantastic, so we decided to hang around town again. We walked a couple km to a waterfall, and enjoyed listening to the water and laying in the sun. I had been craving a lounge sesh in the sun with a solid coffee, so after returning to town we checked every restaurant for some sunny (but hopefully not windy) seating. The place we settled on was sunny, but the coffee was terrible. We read (John too, really!!) and wrote and played some cards. Then we decided we should probably find a baked good, so went to another store and got something like a brownie with nuts and dried fruit on top and something like a slice of pecan pie. While there, we ended up watching a Bolivia v Argentina soccer match, which turned our little coffee shop into a sports bar. The game was close the whole time, but the people who gathered to watch weren´t the typical crazed fans, they were just there to hangout so there were only a few occasions where it became necessary to yell at the tv. After the match we ran up a hill to watch the sunset behind Cerro Fitz Roy.

The next day after stashing some stuff at our hostel we set off on day one of our Paso del Viento trek. We set off on a pretty fast pace, cruising up and up and up. Turns out we gained about 500m on a slow and steady uphill. It was sunny and the perfect hiking temperature, and there wasn´t anyone else on the trail! Finally. On the upper parts of the hill the Nothofagus forests were changing color. After the slow climb we had a quick descent into the Rio Túnel valley and made our way to the Lago Toro campsite. The weather turned pretty quickly after we arrived so after struggling to find a campsite without any dead branches above us (definitely avoiding the near death experience from this summer) we set up pretty quickly and sat around drinking hot beverages and reading. I was woken up in the middle of the night by the nearly full moon rise. It was still windy out and the clouds were low, so from my perspective they were moving super fast across the sky, and were completely illuminated by the moon. Pretty incredible. 

The fall colors and Rio Túnel looking towards Lago Toro 

 The next day the weather was back to being sunny and beautiful we walked around Lago Toro where we met up with 4 guys who were attempting the first river crossing. I went to check out potential crossings upstream, because where they were crossing looked okay, but there was a rock wall on the other side that they were going to have to climb over and above, which I wasn´t really into. I found an alright spot upstream and prepared for the crossing (pants off, Birkenstocks on) This time my mom saving the day by sending me to South America with her old sandals. Seriously. I´m so stoked they are what I decided to bring so versatile. Anyway, it was really cold and painful and difficult and terrible. John wasn't as lucky, he went shoeless because the current was pretty strong and he was worried about his sandals washing away. We made it, and spent a bit of time groaning as the blood slowly started flowing again.

Ready for a river crossing

In the top right you can see the glacier that the river was flowing out of

 After a bit more climbing we reached the glacier. Whoa. There was a huge cave in the face of it, all made out of ice, obviously, but seriously, the craziest thing.

We climbed up some rock next to the glacier and scouted out our crossing. We decided that the safest route would be sticking to the crumbly rock next to the glacier, which was actually a thin layer of crumbly rock on top of ice. We reached a point where sidehilling wasn´t gonna cut it, the bank was too unstable, so we switched to the ice, and then had to find a way off of it. After some slow going (but staying safe, Moms!) we spotted a place where the rocks were more secure, and gained as much elevation as we could and reached a perfect lunch spot with amazing views just above a lake, where the guys from the morning finally caught up. Turns out we were all going to have a cozy night together in the refugio at the end of the day, so after introductions we went our separate ways.

After lunch we had our biggest climb to Paso del Viento (just at 1415m). During the climb our lunch views just got more amazing

The bottom right is the glacier we had skirted around that morning.

Paso del Viento was amazing. Contrary to its name, it wasn´t windy at all.  We were looking down on the Southern Patagonia Ice Field and Glacier Viedma, while sipping some hot chocolate. Below is a panorama that I can´t make into a panorama.

We crossed to the other side of the pass and walked for about 2 more hours to the refugio, where we dropped our packs and scrambled to watch the sunset with some more hot beverages. We made paella that night, which was surprisingly tasty (with the addition of sundried tomatoes and dried mushrooms). Our roommates for the night made some apple dessert, which inspired us to attempt something like an apple cobbler at our next campsite. 

The next day was windy, but clear. I was wearing all my rain gear to keep warm, though. There was ice on the edges of the lakes and the air was crisp and cold. It felt more like early winter than early autumn. We had an easy 15km or so before the second pass of the trip, Paso Huemul.

Looking towards the pass in the top right. 

John at Paso Huemol

Acacia at Paso Huemol, braced against the wind.

 After crossing over the pass we had an incredibly steep descent that was brutal on the knees, but also some amazing views of Lago Viedma, complete with icebergs from Glacier Viedma.

We rushed to our last campsite once it got flat, hoping to catch a bit of the sun that was left, since it had set below the mountain we were up against for most of the day. We were camped near a bay on Lago Viedma, in a stand of trees that were tall enough to protect from the wind and not blow over on us!, but short enough to let us catch some golden autumn light. With our daylight left we had some more hot beverages and lounged around reading (again, John too! How crazy!?) and then made some pesto rice with sundried tomatoes. Yum. Also on this trek, I realized that we have been eating twice as much as we normally do for dinner when we are trekking with Daniel and Sierra, since regardless of if we are 4 or 2 we always fill our dinner pot when we cook (so come visit, guys! We have enough food!). No complaints on the food here, though. We decided to skip dessert and make the apple concoction for breakfast. 

After breakfast, which was somewhere between apple sauce with granolla and apple cobbler (super tasty). We started our last day, which was completely trail-less through a pampas like landscape. This was the part of the trek that we had been warned was a bit tricky, because there were few control points for finding our way, and the guys who advised us ended up with very wet feet trying to cross swampy areas.  We managed to avoid any soakers by staying high and on slopes and easily found the ridge where we needed to turn and walk down a river bank to Lago Viedma. Piece of cake. We were steadily climbing most of the day, without a view of the lake.Once we rounded the hill, though, we were rewarded with a view of the lake, all the way to the horizon.

Glacier Viedma from near our campsite

John´s proof that he was reading 

Looking back after a bit of a climb. Paso Huelmol is the pass right before it shoots up (center right). Glacier Viedma in the distance, and the bay we camped near the night before  

Our view of Lago Viedma after climbing out of the river bed

Lago Viedma, as far as the eye can see!
At this point we could see the bay, where our trek would end and we would hitchhike back to town, but also our final river crossing. It was the outlet of Rio Túnel, the same river we had crossed as it poured out of the glacier. We weren´t excited.

John growling (perhaps?) at the river crossing

This one wasn't nearly as bad though, the water had warmed up and we found a spot where a bridge used to be that still had a cable across it. So easy we didn´t even need to take pictures! We finished the trek and after a bit of juggling practice with rocks from the side of the road we caught a ride back into town with a guy who had just finished a bike race nearby . 

Back in town we bought some celebratory craft beer. John was disappointed when he tried something new, and I stuck with what I have found to be the best beer in Argentina, Antares' Imperial Stout.

We had a day to kill to wait for our bus, we were considering hitchhiking, but Ruta 40 doesn´t have much traffic this time of the  year, so instead we spent our last day on another day hike to Lago de Los Tres, which seemed to be the busiest trail in the park. For a reason though, it was beautiful. 

The next morning we discovered John's phone, with all of our pictures and music was stolen. We were pretty down, but there was nothing to do about it, so we caught our bus and spent the day traveling to Los Antiguos, Argentina.