Fitzroy Walk

So, the next day we went on a longer hike, but this time without the crampons, to go see the other main peak in the Fitzroy range, Cerro Fitzroy. To avoid an “out and back” hike we had a taxi take us up to a point on another river drainage and took a trail from there that would lead us up to the base camp for Fitzroy. It was a nice trail following along a pretty river under Ñire trees. The ñire, also known as the Antarctic Beech is a tree that can come in a variety of forms. Above you see it as a forest with a dense canopy and a very open understory. Quite pleasant to walk through; it also comes in forms more like shrubs, hedges, and even like the smaller high elevation lodgepoles.

Our hike was really feeling like lots of the Sierra hikes we have taken, plenty of granite and smaller stunted trees. One difference you start to note here is the lack of areas that are glacially polished. You also don’t see domes, mostly just knife-edge ridges and moraines.

We are here in what is early summer, so there were lots of wildflowers as well. I have already forgotten the name of these lily type flowers, but we have been seeing them on all of the trails, even down in Tierra del Fuego. Oh, as a complete aside, Cerro Fitzroy was named for the captain of the Beagle (ship that brought Darwin to the area). The indigenous name, is Chaltén. This is also the name of the village we are staying in while here, El Chaltén.

I also got to see my first real clear alpine stream. It deserves to have trout in it…but I don’t think it does. There is a large waterfall blocking migration from the larger river this is a tributary of, and I think that this freezes over pretty good for the winter. It’s still very pretty though… even without the fish!

After a good steep pitch, well outside of any trail standards. We arrived at Lago de los Tres. This is as close as you can get to Fitzroy without strapping on those crampons. The lake was just starting to melt, thanks to that great weather I was talking about earlier.

Nearby, you could look down on another lake that has that beautiful glacial blue color. For some reason it is called Lago Sucia, which means dirty lake… plus the adjective isn’t matching the noun it is describing…which is a no-no in Spanish, but I never did find a good answer to that one!

Overall, it was a brilliant day! Good hiking, just a little too far after all of the hiking the day before. Our legs were pretty tired on the last hour or so of the way down. I figured that we ended up walking around 14 miles that day, most of it pretty easy, and we had light pack on, but still! It also worked out to be pretty cheap other than the taxi ride. Economics is starting to really mess with our ideas for the trip… but that’s a topic for another blog. Still, very hard to beat some of the great things we are seeing down here. Enjoy!