After a short warm up walk on our first day in El Chalten, we were ready for the big one: the assault on the towering peak of Mount Fitzroy (named after the captain of the HMS Beagle). The trek started off relatively modestly though woodland and along flattish scrubland areas, for about 12km, with one or two lookout points on the way. The final stretch was a steep 400m ascent up a rocky slope and moraine scree to reach our goal, the view of Mt Fitzroy and the blue waters of the Laguna des Los Tres at its foot. A truly impressive sight, with several glaciers tracing down from the peaks to feed into the lagoons below, and the massive peak of Fitzroy in the background. We decided against actually scaling the peak itself, and settled for a photographic assault instead.
After our picnic lunch I descended the short slope to the Laguna to test out the water for myself. Nice and cool at around 2deg, and very refreshing for my hot feet. One braver guy even had a swim in it. Refilled our water bottles with pure glacier water for our return journey.
The walk back down the slope was if anything harder then going up, but we had hired walking poles for the day and that helped enormously. The route back retraced our outbound path, but it was still interesting seeing the landscape from a different angle. We finally arrived back at our hotel in El Chalten after a strenuous, but very satisfying, nine hour, 28km round trip.
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