The Fitzroy

April 2, from the itinerary: Laguna de los Tres, Advanced, full day. This exploration begins in one of the trails of the Los Glaciares National Park, hiking through forests and valleys up to the Los Tres Lagoon. We cross the river and begin ascending to the lagoon, where we will admire the magnificence of Mount Fitz Roy at its fullest. Elevation gain: 3251, mileage: 12.6 miles.

Our day started at 8am for the trek. Luckily, Chris' alarm went off on time as I noticed my clock was still on Chile time and they changed time last night - would have been nice to have the extra hour sleep, but not nice to miss our trek.

Our guide's name was Mellita. Our fellow hikers were Chip and Lise (Pasedena and owners of Clark Pest Control), and Raffy (venture capitalist) and Ximena (owns own clothing line) both from Mexico City.

We had a short van ride to the trek start and saw many hares running along the brush at the side of the road - a good sign for the day. No photos of the rabbits, but we did get this beautiful shot at the start of the hike.

The start of the hike (actually the whole hike) was rather level except for the middle 2 kilometers that went up/down 400 meters (1200 feet) in 1 kilometer.

Anyway - the hike began along Senda El Pilar through the woods and ended through a forest. It was enjoyable to see the trees changing leaves.

There was a very nice lookout (3 actually) to see the White Rocks glacier.

At one point we stopped and listened to an avalanche that sounded like a strong wind through the leaves - rumbling ominously.

Further down the forest we saw another family of woodpeckers which were extremely unafraid of humans. Sound on and loud - you can hear them pecking and talking.

The weather was glorious.

Towards the end of the first phase of the walk we got to a camp site people use as a staging ground for the assent to the Los Tres Lagune.

The final kilometer is not too much further on, where you have a final rest before the final kilometer (3/4mile)/400 meter (1200 foot) ascent. There was one outhouse there which smelled the worst I have experienced - and I've been to a lot of them. (no photo)

Starting up the very beginning of the final kilometer. Not steep yet:)

It was Sunday, so it was very crowded which detracted greatly from what otherwise was a beautiful, if rather tiring, ascent. We took our time and no one got hurt. At the top was just enough snow to be rather slippery and treacherous. Lise did a controlled slip, but nothing was hurt except her ego.

At the top we stopped for lunch and had a beautiful view of the the Laguna and the Fitzroy... covered in clouds (eye roll and ugh) and a bunch of people.

Bunny is also there....

Time to go when it started to drizzle/sleet/snow and then we were caught up in the mass exodus from the rim. This was supposed to be the day with no clouds and no rain. Most of the return was down the same way we came up. The first part of the descent was through scree, not so bad coming up, but rather treacherous coming down when you have a bunch of people trying to get off a place at the same time. One poor woman was totally freaked out by the scree and was sitting on her haunches while everyone was passing her by. Mellita took pity on her and helped her down through the scree.

Very slowly we continued down through the boulder field/morraine while faster people tried to pass us by. We kept stopping to let them by.

Coming down we saw an adult male condor riding the thermals. The drizzle produced a really nice rainbow at one point.

At the pause point half way down we had a seat and saw some thorn-tailed Rayadito birds eating bread people left.

Back to the campground where we turned right and continued our trip back to the town of El Chalten.

Some beautiful views along the way.

As you flip through the photos, the lake is Laguna Capri.

We saw a Cara Cara bird in the top of a tree.

We continued down until finally getting to the end of the trail and the car park where we had some snacks and drinks at the van. There were some Magellen Geese near the van too.

Our total distance was 14.87 miles and elevation gain was 3075 feet. I was able to check off one more bucket list hike.

We got back to the hotel for a shower and a cocktail - Chris had a G&T, I had a sparkling water.

Dinner was lamb, fish stew or local spaghetti. Chris had lamb, I had pasta. There were sides of roasted vegetables, roasted sweet potato and lettuce with cabbage. And wine/desert wine. Chris had a baked pear filled with custard and whipped cream on the side.

During dinner we found out his hearing is sometimes affected. Seems he thought Chip'S business was birth control and he asked him if male birth control was catching on. Chip took that in stride thinking he meant in terms of decreasing the population of rats or pigeons. It was only when I asked Chris a question over dinner that we found out he totally misheard Chip. As we left dinner we told Chip/Lise this story and all had a good laugh.