Glacier Grande and Laguna Torre in Los Glaciares Nacional Park (12km) 12/28
Up at 6 because I need to get shit done to feel comfortable about getting home. First thing cash. I walked to the ATM across town since El Chatén is small and I wanted to be prepared. I walked by the bar and there were 30 some kids outside still drinking. Damn they party! The cops drove by and shooed them away so they jumped in their cars wasted. The fucking ATM was out of cash, WTF?
I hurried back to pack and head to the bus station. A quick shower was just what I needed before our three day journey. The hostel lady was so nice, she's letting us keep our bag there while we hike. Andy convinced her to let us camp there when we return since their rooms are full and we don't have many hostel options, I'm not paying $36 pp to stay in a hostel. I told her there was no $ in the ATM, she laughed and took my USD. She served us a boiled egg w fresh homemade bread and jam. We shoved it down our throats and headed to the bus station.
The line to exchange our voucher into tickets for the bus today was long so Andy investigated our bus options for going out of town. He said everything is shut down on 1/1 so we'll have to leave on the 31. Bummer. Oh well, better to get as close as possible to PA than have to pay $1k each to fly from El Calafaté to Santiago.
Along the way Andy pointed out the guanacos that don't quite make it over the fence, their hind legs get stuck, so they get stuck at die. You could see their carcasses hanging on the fence. 2.5 hour bus ride including a nap, we arrived at El Chatén. A quick intro to the park and we were set for the hike. The town is very small, we walked cross it in about 10 min, but it has stuff to rent for hiking and a mini market. Glad the Belguims told us to stock up before we got here.
We started the trail on the north side of town and headed toward de Agostini campsite. There weren't a lot of hikers in the bus and not many in the trail initially. It was lightly raining and no wind. We walked up the valley, above the rushing river w glacier water. We eventually came across several large groups of people, but nothing compared to TDP.
In 2 hours we made it to de Agostini (10km) and quickly put up the tent in the rain. We were wet and hungry so we made asparagus soup for lunch to warm us up. Then we headed inside out tent into our warm sleeping bags w our hoagies then took a 2 hour power nap w the sound of the river next to us and rain tapping our tent.
Up at 5:30 and the sun was out, just what we wanted. We headed just outside our campground to the Glacier Grande (2km RT) and hung up our wet clothes to dry in a tree along the way. Laguna Torre had pieces of glacier floating in it and it glistened in the sun under the towering mountains of the Cerro Torre range. We soaked it all in as we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Andy took some amazing pics of a eagle, two condors flying 50% higher than the tip of the mountains and a swallow while we were there. The eagle was so close! I've never seen anything like that.
We headed back to the campsite and made some chilli mac w parmesan and a Milky Way to finish dinner off. Andy found a family of finches and got soe up close pics of the little babies. I spotted a bird of some sort on the rock in the river. Andy headed over and found a family of ducks crossing the river. The momma and daddy ducks were watching and guiding their two babies across. They would jump in the rushing river then swim upstream to the next rock. I'm loving all this nature. It sure beats a fancy hotel! Now if we just had another parilla in the campsite we'd be set. Heading to bed soon to get up for sunrise at 5.