Following the Dream

Christian February 24th, 2008

We woke up early to have the shuttle forget us. Again, we did not sleep in for no reason. They had a taxi come a get us to take us to the bus station. We arrived in El Chatlen around 12:30 pm on February 14 (Valentines Day). The town is very small, just founded in 1985. The population is about 800 in the winter and 1500 in the summer. It has beautiful views of the mountains, including the famous Fitz Roy. Fitz Roy is a peak that has near vertical columns made of granite. This attracts climbers from all over the world due to the difficulty. We promptly dropped our bags and headed out on a trek to Laguna de Los Tres. The weather was beautiful, the sun was shining. From our experience we have learned that you need to take full advantage of it when you can.

The trek started out with a long long uphill climb for about an hour and a half. Some of the views once we started getting higher we amazing. From our first viewpoint, we stared down onto the valley filled with the glacier blue streams, it was amazing. We continued on for a bit longer to a lookout point. It was from here that we got our first full view of Fitz Roy. It was amazing, so majestic. The granite peaks tore into the sky. It looked like we were close and gave us motivation to walk faster. We continued on. We passed through forrests, valleys, and crossed streams and marshes. The scenary was amazing, the mixes of blues, greens, and browns added a unique contrast to the landscape.

We had been hiking for hours when we came to the sign. It said something along the lines of “The last 500 meters are very difficult and steep. You must have mountaineering experience and mountaineering boots. Please help us prevent accidents”. We were like … we got this no problem. As the trail started off with a gentle incline, ,we were saying to ourselves “this is cake, that sign was meant for the people that get winded climbing a stair case”. However it did not stay so gentle like this for long. . . When they say the last 500 meters, I think they mean 500 meters straight up.

The trail got very tough. We were both already beat from the 6 hour glacier hike the day before. The trail began to go almost straight up. We climbed and we climbed some more. Our muscles were burning and screaming STOP!!! I tried to fight the tiredness stay in the right mindset, trying to keep Casey going. Casey almost had a breakdown when she looked up to me with tears almost coming out “I don’t even have any cookies.. or any pepsi”. I had to hold in the laughs to stay out of trouble. We were both delerious at that point. I kept giggling at random things, such as falling off the huge cliff that was behind us. The rocks were loose and slippery, so it felt like a definte possibility at that point. Not to mention both of us are scared of heights. Towards the top people could tell we were both exhausted. They kept saying that it is so worth it and that it is not that much farther. This “Not that much farther” seemed like a lie.

As when we would look up, there were people way ahead of us. When I say way ahead, I mean way up the steep mountain face we were climbing. It took us over an hour to do the last part of the trail. However after crossing over the final ridge, it made all the pain in our legs go away. The view was stunning, amazing, incredible. As you cross the ridge, a sparkling blue glacier lagoon sits at the base of Fitz Roy. The view was simply amazing. Again, this is something that has to be seen to appreciate. Words, pictures, even video won’t do it justice. It was simply awesome. We took tons of pictures, and stayed there for an hour just trying to burn the image into our memory. Incredible. This definetly made our Valentines day. It was great to be sitting there together at the foot of such an awesome sight.

Then we realized we had to walk ALL the way back to El Chatlen. The hike back was not as bad since it was mostly down hill. We stopped for water from the stream. It was weird to be able to just drink from a stream. The water was crystal clear and tasted great. We both ate it (tripped and fell) one or two times on the way back down the hills, our legs were like jelly on the way back. Not as bad as this one girl though. She was with her boyfriend. It seems like everytime we were behind them, she would trip and fall. We made it back to town after the 25 km hike, tired, worn and sore. We decided to end our Valentines day the right way. We splurged on dinner. We each had a 12 ounce filet, a mountain of mash potatoes and a huge salad accompanied by some tasty drinks. After dinner we called it a night and passed out. It truly was a great day.

• Argentina
• Comments(3)