5th December 2024

Both of us woke before our alarms, keen to explore El Chaltén. We ate a breakfast of yoghurts alone in the hostel common room before donning our runners and setting out to hit the trail. 

Todays hike took us over then through a valley of petrified woods, sheer sandy scrambles and alongside Rio Fitz Roy to the base of Laguna Torre.

On reaching Laguna Torre we were luckily enough to hear the glacier cracking (like thunder mixed with a car backfiring) reverberated around the basin so loud that you could almost feel it vibrating your bones.

We were advised by a camper to work our way up the ridge in order to better see the glacier. As instructed we climbed higher to Mirador Maestri, a view point of Glaciar Torre.

Hungry, we sat at the viewpoint and devoured our lunch of sandwiches at 08:45am! we were rudely forced to move on and retrace our steps due to a sudden onset of snow!

Still hungry and now wet on returning to El Chaltén we treated ourselves to a second lunch of dulce de leche waffles and hot chocolates. Back at the hostel, clothes drying out, we set about carrying out chores such as laundry, sewing up my runners which now had a hole in them and sorting out tomorrows adventure.