Fitz Roy

"The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind”
~Bob Dylan

Saturday, January 17th to Sunday, January 18th 2009

Even after many months of traveling you may still wander upon a place that will take your breath away. The viewpoint near laguna de las tres under the mastiff of the incredible Fitz Roy mountain was one of those places. But it didn't started that well... It started with a 13 hours bus ride from Perito Moreno to the small village of El Chalten across the bleak windy stretches of Argentinian Patagonia. The ride on a bumpy dirt road was not an easy one and the view outside the window was nothing like the lakes and glaciers of the Chilean side. Instead, for every direction there were endless grassy plains stricken by the relentless Patagonian wind that drove you to seek shelter as soon as the bus stopped for one of its planned breaks. The sky were clear for most of the ride but as we got almost to our destination the weather has changed to a violent storm that stayed with us as we disembarked in El Chalten. We knew that there might be a problem with finding an hostel in the village, but we planned to open our tents if we encounter them. However, the combination of wind, rain and low temperatures sent us mans outside to look for a roof over our heads while the girls stayed in the small restaurant that doubled as a bus station. It took almost 2 hours and after midnight we finally found a room with an outrageous price. Waking up to the same bad weather the day after, we at least found a good hotel and went to the park office to look at the forecast. It was Thursday and the weather forecast promised a clear day only on Saturday meaning that we will have to shorten our planned trek.

We stayed in the village for 2 more days and at last shouldered our backpacks and started walking for the Poincenot campsite our home for the night. The trail was not hard, climbing a little at first and than continuing on a plateau for the rest of the way. We got good view of the cloud covered mountain in the distance as well as some wildlife activity of woodpeckers and hares. It took less than 4 hours to get to campsite where we set our tents and went to the higher viewpoint of laguna de las tres. We took the wrong trail in the beginning wasting almost an hour of daytime before we started the steep climb for the terrace the laguna is situated on. It took another 45 minutes of climbing but I finally found myself in one of the best places in South America. Directly in front of me the rock spires of Fitz Roy disappeared into the clouds, to my right the deep blue laguna de las tres mirrored that view and the glaciers below it. To my left and below, Ice floats dotted laguna Suica and behind me I could see laguna Capri, the mother and daughter lagoons and the hills of the Patagonian plains. I stayed almost 2 hours up there waiting for the sky to clear until the cold and the wind drove me back down to my tent. After warm dinner I stepped outside and the sky were without a cloud offering a great (although a little dark) view of the mountain. We thought about getting up early to see the sunrise hit the mastiff but the wind and rain painted the sky in deep grey reducing visibility to almost nothing sending us back to sleeping bags. Luckily the sun was shining when we woke up few hours later and we had a pleasant walk back to hostel. The mountain was still shrouded in clouds and the wind kept blowing the entire time but this is what you should expect in Patagonia... The view is well worth it though...