El Chalten

My bus from Puerto Natales left at 8:30am. Crossing the Chile-Argentina border was fairly straight forwards and I made it to El Calafate at around 2:30pm.

In El Calafate, I got an Argentinian SIM card and went to a coffee shop to eat and do some work. My bus to El Chalten was at 6:00pm and we arrived at around 9:00pm.

El Chalten is an amazing little town situated in the middle of a national park. There was no cell service, so doing work was a bit of a challenge. But this meant more time for hiking.

As I was checking in to the hostel, I met Colm, an Irish who has been traveling for five weeks down from Ecuador through Peru and Chile. We were in the same room and agreed to hike the Laguna de Los Tres together the next morning.

We went to grab some food and beer. When we returned to our room, we met our roommate Cameron (American) who was planning to do both the Laguna de Los Tres and the Laguna Torre in one day with 2 others he'd met previously.

Hiking Laguna de Los Tres and Laguna Torre

The next morning, we made an early exit (out the door at 6:45am) and headed to the Rancho Grande hostel to meet Rafa (Swiss) and Morgan (American). We had a quick breakfast at their hostel and were at the trail head at 7:24am.

Rafa had actually done the hike to Laguna de Los Tres 2 days prior and the hike to Laguna Torre the day before, but on both days it was very cloudy and was not able to get a view on the towers.

That day, the weather was perfect and we could see the towers of the Laguna de Los Tres from the middle of the hike.

The first 9km of the hike were not too challenging. The last km the steep ascent begins where you climb 400m to reach the top. We made the top at 10:10am and the view was incredible. There were small clouds on the larger tower, but they cleared while we were still at the top.

The 2 Americans had bad knees and took it very slow on the descent. Rafa, Colm and I made it down fairly quickly and decided not to wait.

On the way back, we took the Laguna Madre e Hija trail that takes you to the Laguna Torre trail. Rafa had a bus to catch at 6:00pm and found that it would be too rushed for him go to Laguna Torre, so he headed back.

Colm and I continued to Laguna Torre. It was a bit cloudy at the destination and we were not able to see the full mountain. It was still a nice view but not as impressive as the one at Los Tres.

While at the top, we met Joanna from Austria and we hiked back together. We made it back to town at around 5:30pm with Colm and I having hiked a total 39.2km. Joanna, Colm and I stopped for a beer at the first spot we found after the trail ended.

We went back to the hostel to shower and then met Joanna and her friend Louisa (from Denmark) for wine at happy hour.

After the bar, Colm and I went to a micro-brewery for some beers.

Hiking Loma del Pliegue Tumbado

The next morning, we had a slower start. I packed my bag and left it at reception since the checkout time was at 10:00am. Colm and I decided to hike the Loma del Pliegue Tumbado, while Cameron wanted to do Laguna Torre since they didn't get a chance to do so the previous day.

From the town, you can see that it was cloudy on Los Tres and Torre, so we got lucky with the weather the previous day. We grab a quick breakfast and started our hike at 9:30am.

The first 10km were a slight uphill and are not challenging. The last 2kms, the climb becomes very steep and the last stage of the hike is probably a 50% incline. The top provides a beautiful 360-degree view, with views on Los Tres, Laguna Torre, Laguna Torro, and the town center.

The hike back was mostly downhill and fairly tough on the knees. We were back in town at 3:00pm. We went back to the hostel to grab our bags and went to have lunch and wine.

After lunch, we headed to the bus station. My bus to El Calafate was at 6:00pm. Colm did not have any plans made after El Chalten, so he decided to head to El Calafate too at the same time but ended up in a different bus.