El Chalten, Patagonia. Epic views, world class hiking, quaint mountain town — but bring lots of cash

We flew from Ushuaia to El Calafate, a good-sized town on the south side of beautiful Lake Argentino. This is the main airport for those arriving in Southern Patagonia. We planned to stay in El Calafate on the second half of our stay in Patagonia but first, off to El Chalten.

We rode the 3 hour drive in an uncrowded, 15 passenger van heading East to make our way around the lake. The bus stopped halfway through for a break, and we found out this was one of the stopping points for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That’s pretty cool!

As we made our way along the Northern side of Lake Viedma, the Southern Andes slowly came into view, and soon we were hit by the awe-inspiring sight of Fitz Roy, Cerro Torre, and other peaks in the area. The peaks were backed by some dark, ominous clouds, which made the view even more awesome. 

We pulled into our nice, smaller-sized hotel on one end of the one main street in the town. We were greeted at the front desk by a nice, younger guy who was eager to tell us about the town and all the great hiking. He set us up in a nice, upstairs corner room, with a stellar view of Cerro Torre peak. 

Before I write about all the hiking, I wanted to tell you a little more about this very cool little town. There is one main street, about ½ mile long crossed by a few smaller sidestreets. With so many younger hikers frequenting this town, it has many pizza and Italian restaurants, and more than a dozen bars!! We stopped by a newer bar in the center of town, Bourbon, and were greeted by a really cool bartender and a very nice waitress. They both spoke good English, but we continued to try to use our poor Spanish. Lots of fun. 

As I mentioned in my other posts for Argentina, the food and the alcohol are cheap. Our new favorite bar in this tourist town had specials: 2-for-1 beer for $3, and 2-for-1 Aperol Spritzes and Mojitos for $5. They were tasty, and I found out the bartender knew his rums, so he mixed me up a few really nice drinks. Unfortunately, it is hard to get mint (or anything else) this far from the main town of El Calafate, so they grew mint plants down by the river. The problem was, someone recently stole (dug up) the mint plants, so no Mojitos without mint! 😊

The food at most of the restaurants was really good. We especially liked this little Italian place with great pasta, heaps of vegetables, and really tasty fish dishes. They also played some very good music, so Jos and the waitress spent some time chatting about different music and artists. We went back a few more times!! Oh, the wine was cheap too…..$8 for a nice bottle.

Two more things about El Chalten... 

First, there is only one set of ATMs in the whole town. Unfortunately, foreign cards did not work at these atms. Due to some banking unrest in Argentina, many banks were not allowing foreigners to withdraw money. A little bit of a problem, and we missed out on some great bargains. Many places were offering up to 50% off(!) if you paid with cash. As I mentioned in the blog post for Buenos Aires, there was limits on how many pesos you could withdraw. Fortunately, we took a lot out when we were in Ushuaia. Just enough to get us through our 8 days in El Chalten. 

Second, the dogs roam the town like people. We found out that everyone who has a dog just lets them run around all day while the humans are away working. It is a sight to see. As our bartender told us, the dogs belong to all the people. They are all well fed and cared for, which makes me happy. Not too many cats around, they are smarter and stay in…..it is cold in this town.

Ok, enough about food and drinks, it is time for some hiking stories!

As many of you know, I (Jim) have been backpacking and hiking much of my life, and it was one of my top bucketlist dreams to hike in Patagonia. The wonderful thing about El Chalten is that almost all of the trailheads leave right from town: 6 amazing hikes for all types of levels.

We started with one of the harder hikes to the foot of Fitz Roy. This was the only hike we decided to do in reverse and so we headed out in the morning in a very crowded, uncomfortable passenger van. After a bumpy, slow ride, we hit the trail. Instead of straight up, the train meandered through some trees and alongside a stream. About 30 minutes in, we started to get glimpses of Fitz Roy and the surrounding mountains and peaks. An awe-inspiring view, and we would have many more throughout the day and for the next week.

We continued hiking for 2 hours, which lead us to a fork in the trail (one way back to town and the other up to Fitz Roy). At this point, the trail started to get a bit crowded, which is the reason we came in the reverse way….far fewer people. Jos decided to hang back as the trail started to get narrow and very steep and slippery, with way too many people needing to pass each other - most of whom had no business being on such a trail. Jos made a good decision to wait, as I spent the better part of an hour starting and stopping as I waited for people to either move aside or get moving. That same hour should have taken me 20-30 minutes. Anyway, I’m not complaining, because while I was waiting there were incredible views on all sides. Behind me, you could see two huge valleys and, in front, were the mountains and peaks. 

Several people were also injured along the trail, but all were being attended to by people in their party, so I did not have to stop to help. I finally made it up to a glacial lake on a plateau, at the foot of Fitz Roy…..there are no words to say how stunning the view was from this vantage point. Green, emerald lake with snow/glacier-covered Fitz Roy, the blue sky in the background, with some ominous dark clouds hanging about. After a nice view, water, and snack break, I headed back down, dodging people as I made my way back to the trail fork. It was nice to be back hiking with Jos and on less crowded trails. 

As we were heading back to town, there were still a lot of people making their way up the trail. We also had amazing views of valleys, lakes, mountains, rivers, and wildlife. A wonderful day of hiking. 

We capped the day by having a nice cider at a cute, little trailer fixed up as a café/food truck. BTW….this was the only hard cider we could find in the whole country.. not kidding! Cider is hard to come by in Argentina.

As many of you know, one of my other hobbies is weather. I love looking at and studying weather and weather patterns, and this region has some crazy weather! One day, it was light breezes, sunny, and warm. The next was stormy, windy, and sometimes snow, even during the summer. The main weather at this time of the year (December) is wind. Crazy, knock-you-over wind. Sometimes we had to lean so far into the wind while walking down the street, that if the wind stopped, we would have fallen over. No kidding, this was some wicked wind!!!!

OK, for those of you who are not hikers, or weather nuts like me, I will keep the details down on the other hikes. We went out most days, except for one very stormy day in the middle of the week. There were a few easy hikes, but also two more difficult ones. One day we headed out, even though it was a bit stormy. We encountered off&on again rain, and the views weren’t great, but the hiking was not too bad. Jos stopped to take in some incredible views of Cerro Torre and the surrounding glacier, while I did the crazy hike up to the base. Not too many people out on the trail this day!!

My last day hiking, I did solo because everyone said it was 8 – 11 miles and all straight up. Now, I have heard this warning before and it’s usually an exaggeration, but not this time. I kid you not, the entire 9 miles that I hiked were all straight up. It was a butt-kicker hike, and to add to it, I stepped in a bog that fully engulfed one of my legs up to the knee!!! 😊 It happens to everyone. When I got to the top, I was so glad I ventured this far on this extremely difficult trail, because I was looking at one of the best views on our trip. As I turned my head, I could see three peaks, glaciers, mountains, valleys, and streams. Of course, I had to hold on or the wind would have blown me off some cliffs!!! Another great day of hiking. As I was out doing my mountain goat thing, Jos was finding some new trails that had beautiful views over the town. We met up afterward and enjoyed a late afternoon lunch and cocktails.  

Even though we had extended our stay a few days, it was still hard to leave this majestic mountain area. I hope to be back here someday, but we were heading back to celebrate Christmas in El Calafate. What awaited us warmer weather, glaciers, and better access to pesos. 😊