El Chalten to Lago de los Tres
Day's Hike: approx 15 Miles
I woke up on the morning of the 12th shivering uncontrollably. The lack of cloud cover had caused the temperature to plummet and the vapor from my breath had frozen to the underside of my tent fly in a fragile lattice of ice. I was seriously regretting bringing my worst and oldest sleeping bag; after warming up a bit and eating breakfast, I hunted down some cardboard to insulate my tent hobo style against the upcoming night.
Once again, Dylan and I joined our new found gang of North American friends and hit the trail. Today's hike would take us up to the base of Fitz Roy. The trail head was a short walk outside of El Chalten and began with a brisk climb.
The weather turned out to be crystal clear and after an hour of hiking, we reached a lake with a great view of the approaching peaks.
The trail continued on and the views of Fitz Roy and it's surrounding spires became progressively more stunning.
The hike was fairly mild for the most part and was made even easier by the fact that we were only carrying day packs. It was nice to have a group of Americans and Canadians to talk to as we hiked.
Just before the last portion of the hike, we came to a small shelter and found this bird just hanging out a few feet away from the trail:
Apparently so many people have fed this thing that it just stakes out next to the trail every day and waits for scraps. I threw a rock next to it to see if it would scare off, but it just took a couple of hops and then tried to see if the rock was food.
The last portion of the hike was a steep scree covered trail that left me breathless. Fortunately, the view at the top was worth it.
The views from Lago de Los Tres were totally breathtaking, despite the hoards of people that were at the mirador with us. We were even treated to a few small avalanches from the hanging glaciers above the southernmost lake.
After spending an hour or so eating lunch and taking pictures, we headed back down to El Chalten and cooked up some dinner. I ended up staying up till midnight and drinking a few beers to celebrate my birthday. At 29, I'm starting to feel old, almost like I should go and do something with my life!
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