El Chaltén: Four Days of Food & Hiking in Argentina's Trekking Capital

Argentinean Patagonia was hands-down my favorite part of our three week trip! I’m not including every detail here, because logistical guidance for this area is quite simple to find with a quick google search or a skim of a library copy of the Lonely Planet guide. We did not bring that book with us, because it is heavy & we have more of an adventure figuring out some details on our own.

El Calafate

Downtown El Calafate is like downtown Jackson Hole without the inflated prices and the antler arch.

Pros:

This is where the airport & bus station is located.
You can find incredible lodging for a low, low price. We stayed in a modern, one bedroom apartment with an entire kitchen for 60 bucks at Tierra Tehuelche. This place is conveniently located within walking distance of the bus stop and downtown, but is still located on the outskirts of town.
The food/beer/wine is tasteful & cheap (but wine is cheap everywhere). We ate the most delicious empanadas right across from the bus station.
Flamingos!

Cons:

Pretty much everything else including a countless number of collared dogs wandering around freely & begging for your dinner.

El Calafate is purely a functional stop for getting to and from other places including Perito Moreno Glacier & El Chalten unless you enjoy tacky resort towns. That might sound a little harsh, but we didn’t love El Calafate. We did make the best of the sunshine though & the lodging was one of our favorites.

El Chaltén

On the other hand…El Chalten is a funky mountain town located in Los Glaciares National Park and tucked between an iconic section of the Patagonia Andes and Rio de las Vueltas. El Chalten reminded me a little of East Glacier, MT except with better food, more affordable lodging, and easier access to trails. Sorry East Glacier. Cerro Fitz Roy (aka Cerro Chalten) dominates the scene as you head East on Route 23. Chaltén is a Tehuelche word that means “smoking mountain.”

But, if it decides to appear behind heavy, curling cloud cover, the most striking and real-life Dr. Seuss mountain is Cerro Torre. As an armchair alpinist, I vaguely knew Cerro Torre was a big deal, but then I read our B&B table copy of the book The Tower: A Chronicle of Climbing & Controversy by the climber/author Kelly Cordes. This is such a fascinating, well-written, and well-researched history of the climbing of Cerro Torre as well as the town of El Chalten itself.

While climbers have been coming to the area for decades, the town of El Chalten was not officially established until 1985 after a border dispute between Argentina & Chile. Today, El Chalten has paved roads and wi-fi, although the latter is generally quite slow. No matter, we came to El Chalten for the mountains, not the internet! And, of course, El Chalten is the trekking capital of Argentina.

Lodging & Food in El Chalten

We stayed in the yellow-painted, cozy Hosteria Lago Viedma which is a 5 minute walk from the Laguna Torre trailhead and a 15 second walk to our favorite El Chalten restaurant find. There are a variety of lodging options available from *camping, dorm-style hostels, B&Bs, individual apartments, hotels, etc. & the pricing seems to encompass a large range but is generally very fair. You can see our Tripadvisor review (under SarahRyan1) for our gushing review of this hosteria (and everything else in El Chalten).

*Pro-tip on camping: To me, camping equals a tent with some amount of personal space, especially in backcountry designated sites. We didn’t camp in on this trip, but passed through enough popular campgrounds to get a pretty good idea. If you are camping in backcountry designated areas (required in many places in lieu of special permits), then imagine a KOA dirt lawn littered with tents 1/2 foot apart from each other, and one very smelly outhouse. I’m sure this is not the case in less popular areas like the Huemul Circuit (which we were strongly considering). The front country sites in town also appeared to be very close quarters but at least they are set up with hot showers & other amenities. We love camping, but we were pretty content with opting out of it on this trip especially when there are affordable alternatives that include a roof & made to order eggs for breakfast.

That favorite restaurant was a vegan place called Cúrcuma (Spanish word for tumeric) which offers heavenly pizza, smoothies, fruit, bag lunches, chai, mate, and banana nut muffins. Our second favorite was Techado Negro which is more traditional Argentinean fare with delightful lamb stew. Chile might be offended, but this place had the fluffiest and most delightful pisco sours of our entire trip (and we drank quite a few), as well as beers in comically large goblets. You really can’t go wrong with the food in El Chalten from vegan to traditional vertical spit barbecue.

Things to Do

Well, seeing as this is the trekking capital of Argentina, this should be pretty obvious. Other alternatives are drinking hot chocolate & reading a book at La Chocolateria or getting a massage. The latter experience was a hilarious mix of language barriers, very thin “privacy” sheets, shockingly freezing (aka “refreshing”) leg wraps, and Ryan hitting his head multiple times on some sort of decorative hanging lamp. Somehow we felt very relaxed afterwards.

But onto the hikes! For some reason, hikes in Patagonia are often listed by approximate time instead of distance/elevation gain. None of the treks are particularly challenging if you are a seasoned hiker & these are all on a trail, which makes life easier. Anyway, the time approximations are obviously variable & difficulty is subjective.

Laguna Torre

Distance/difficulty: 11 miles (18 km) round trip, plus add some mileage to walk on the right side of the lake to an overlook. The trail is mostly flat (actually flat, not Nepal flat!) We could not see any of the Cerro Torre group peaks and were nearly blown away on the way to the overlook, but we still loved this rather leisurely hike.

Highlights: Close-up views of Grand Glacier, Cerro Torre (if clear skies), and of course Laguna Torre with icebergs.

Laguna de los Tres

Distance/Elevation gain: 14.2 miles (22.9 km) round trip. Elevation gain 3159 feet. A lot of people stop at the point where you can first see Laguna de los Tres, but they are missing out. Continue up on a well-worn path just a quarter of a mile more for views of the arguably more stunning Laguna Sucia, situated directly under Cerro Fitz Roy.

Highlights: Lakes, mountains! What more can be said? And yes, being right there under Fitz Roy! I loved the wind curved Lenga trees as they remind me of our own Limber Pines.

*Pro-tip: Leave early! And “early” does not mean 9 am. This trail gets plenty of traffic and you don’t want to get stuck behind slow hikers on the last 1000 feet of elevation gain. At least, I don’t.

Loma del Pliegue Tumbado

Distance/Elevation gain: 6.2 miles (9.9 km) round-trip. Gain of 3574 feet (seemed like a very gradual gain). Maybe the elevation gain scares people away or maybe it was due to the gray, spitting light rain morning…but we saw exactly zero other people on our hike up. We did see a small herd of cattle, one fox, and a trillion caterpillars (which we were later told would sadly not turn into butterflies). This was not our best day weather-wise, it was chilly & snowed on the top, and we saw absolutely nothing from the overlook and yet this was somehow my favorite hike. The day was also dead calm (except the top) which I believe is an anomaly in Patagonia!

Highlights: Allegedly, this is one of the best views of the entire range, as well as all lakes (Laguna de los Tres & Laguna Torre included). Fewer people seem to venture on this hike, so you have more of an opportunity for quiet.

Ridge to the West of El Chalten

Distance/Elevation gain: Several miles? And maybe gain a few hundred feet? This is not an official hike & it is not located within the national park. Mostly it seems that folks go there to practice climbing, but there are two trails to get to the top (one is straight up and the other wraps around to the southwest). The first time we went up the ridge, the gusts were so strong that I just sat down and crawled to the southeast ridge. The second time, it was calm and sunny and ideal for landscape photos.

Highlights: Gorgeous panorama view of mountains! Great views of the whole town, Rio de las Vueltas, and Lago Viedma. Very few people.

We were so sad to leave El Chalten but at least we had upstairs, front row seats on the bus ride back to Calafate.

Part II—Perito Moreno Glacier coming soon!