We spent about an hour at Laguna de los Tres, admiring Monte Fitz Roy… …before starting the journey back down – every bit as difficult as the hike up, just in a different way. The last 1/4 mile of the trail is a scramble over loose rock and gravel left by the last glacial advance … Continue reading →

Although Monte Fitz Roy is visible from nearly everywhere around El Chaltén due to its height, it’s quite a challenge to actually get to the base of the mountain. There are two main routes: a nearly straight line northwest to Fitz Roy from El Chaltén; or, the route we took which heads southwest to Fitz … Continue reading →

We awoke to a glorious morning. It had rained while we slept and whatever weather system had been lingering to create Wednesday’s cloudiness had passed in the night. Here in El Chaltén, we’re staying at another four-room B&B; this one is called Confin Patagonia. Like everything else in El Chaltén, it has a magnificent view … Continue reading →

Twice, when I was younger, I went on week-long backpacking treks in the Appalachian Mountains. A seven mile day (measured as the crow flies) was considered a good day of hiking. Yesterday, we hiked a half-marathon, 13.1 miles! Around here, the hike we did is known as the Laguna Torre, Mirador Maestri. The trailhead is … Continue reading →

On Tuesday, we made the three-hour bus ride north from Calafate to El Chaltén, a climber’s and backpacker’s haven completely surrounded by the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. The entire town was built by the Argentine government in 1980 to buttress Argentina’s claim to the area in a border dispute with neighboring Chile, so unlike other … Continue reading →

It was a two hour ride from the Spegazzini Glacier to the Perito Moreno Glacier’s North Face, retracing our path back through the Brazo Norte and passing Punta Bandera. We had seen Perito Moreno from the balconies on its opposing shore, as well as from the Brazo Rico where we viewed the South Face by … Continue reading →

The Spegazzini Glacier is the same size as the city of Buenos Aires, and yet it is not the largest glacier in the park, Upsala has that honor. Here’s the approach to the Spegazzini Glacier: And here’s a close-up of the face which we were able to get very close to,… …in spite of all … Continue reading →

The first glacier we visited was the largest glacier in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, the Upsala Glacier. That’s it in the distance, to the right: As we approached, the captain saw two icebergs that had calved from the face of Upsala, so he took us in for a closer look. Now you can see why … Continue reading →

Lago Argentino is the largest freshwater lake in Argentina. It’s a little more than 3/4 the size of our Lake Okeechobee in Florida and is fed by glacial meltwater from the glaciers in Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, the third largest icecap in the world (after Antarctica and Greenland). Although there are about 150 glaciers in … Continue reading →

One thing that surprised me about hiking on ice is that even with crampons digging in, a hiker leaves no trail. Every time I turned around when taking up the rear of the group, I found it impossible to determine where we had come from. There was simply no trace of our trail. So, it … Continue reading →

Yesterday, Sunday, we went on a 13-hour adventure called “Big Ice.” After being picked up by shuttle and transported to a larger bus, we drove west about 60 miles to Perito Moreno Glacier, the third largest glacier in Los Glaciares National Park. Here’s the view of Perito Moreno Glacier in three photos from the “balcony” … Continue reading →

For the trek out onto the glacier, our party consisted of 21 hikers and 3 guides, which were split into two groups; we were the oldest hikers by about 25 years, but we had no trouble keeping up. Here we are heading off onto the ice. We were normally at either the end or the … Continue reading →

It was only a 20 minute ride across the Brazo Rico to the start of our hike up the lateral moraine of the Perito Moreno glacier. We had a good view from the boat of the area of last year’s rupture of the ice bridge that I described in my prior post. Once on shore, … Continue reading →

We’re now in southern Patagonia, below Latitude 50° South, in El Calafate, a city of 22,000 people at the edge of Argentina’s Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. We’re getting near the bottom of the world (although that honor belongs to the city of Ushuaia, which we will be visiting in a couple weeks). There’s not much … Continue reading →

We’re leaving Bariloche today for the latitudes below 50° South and we won’t have a car again until the last week of the trip. From here on, we’ll be relying on planes, buses and shuttle vans to get from place to place. But here in northern Patagonia, we’ve managed to drive over 600 miles, not … Continue reading →

It was a short ride from Isla Victoria back to Puerto Puñuelo. Along the way, it started to rain, resulting in one of the most vibrant rainbows we had ever seen; a double rainbow, in fact. And it was a complete semi-circle. Dale listed the colors from a mnemonic she learned as a child: red, … Continue reading →

The Parque Nacional Bosque de Arrayanes was created to preserve the great stands of Arrayanes trees on the Quetrihué Peninsula. The Arrayanes is in the Eucalyptus family and is a very slow growing tree. The one that Dale is leaning against could be as much as 600 years old! The Arrayanes propagate by seed and … Continue reading →

This afternoon, we journeyed around Lago Nahuel Huapi on the “Cau Cau.” The boat was scheduled to leave Puerto Pañuelo at 2:00 p.m., with a return at 7:00 p.m. When we arrived at Port Pañuelo at 1:30, there was only one boat in port and we thought, “what have we gotten ourselves into?” But, soon … Continue reading →

It’s been nice having our own transportation here in Bariloche. It’s enabled us to see much more of the area than if we had relied on buses, taxis and excursions. Here’s a picture of our rental car, a compact Chevrolet. Everything is manual: transmission; windows; door locks; lights; and, there is no alarm. But I … Continue reading →

The town of El Bolsón sits in a valley about 75 miles south of Bariloche. The first non-native inhabitants of the area were German immigrants arriving from Chile. In the 1970s, hippies from Buenos Aires settled in the area, resulting in the town gaining a reputation as a crafts center. At least that’s what the … Continue reading →

Our excursion today was to the base of El Tronador, “The Thunderer,” an 11,500 foot high extinct Andean volcano. To get to El Tronador, we had to drive south from Bariloche along the shores of Lago Guitteriez and Lago Mascardi for a distance of about 30 miles, turning east at Villa Mascardi where we entered … Continue reading →

There are pros and cons to having a rental car here in Argentina. In this post, I’ll tell you the pros; I’ll save the cons for a later post. We spent the entire day Tuesday driving the road less traveled: the Seven Lake Drive through the northern half of Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi and the … Continue reading →

The Circuito Chico drive ends at the base of another “hill” with a commanding view of the area, Cerro Campanario. This one, however, is on the tour bus circuit and has been made much easier to climb – there’s a chairlift! We had coffee at the observation deck on the summit. There was a great … Continue reading →

We decided to stretch our legs yesterday and hike to the top of Cerro Llao Llao, one of the foothills of the Andes Mountains which separate Argentina from neighboring Chile. This “hill,” as they call it, has a peak elevation of 3,600 feet, rising from the trailhead at 2,500 feet (which is also the approximate … Continue reading →

We arrived in Bariloche in northern Patagonia late this afternoon, picked up our rental car and drove straight to Chiado Restaurant to meet Germán, the owner, who is our home exchange partner. Here’s Germán (left), hard at work… …and here’s Dale enjoying a cup of tea in Chiado. Chiado overlooks a finger of Nahuel Huapi … Continue reading →