Patagonia advice?

[goldberry]

Hey!

I'm planning a honeymoon (getting married this summer!) to Patagonia for next January. We're both pretty serious hikers - my fiance was my hiking partner for my recent trip report, for example. Looking for a mix of day hikes and longer backpacking routes, looking for big views. Anyone here ever been? Any advice on either specific trails/routes (ie, is the w trek worth the crowds?), or in general on planning a trip in an unfamiliar mountain range?

Thanks!

[balzaccom]

We've done some hiking in Patagonia, and even more in Peru. If I had to choose, I would pick Peru, but that's just me. And a note here--I speak fluent Spanish, so my experiences may differ from others.

The "epic" hike in Patagonia is the Torres del Paine. It's a multi-day hike at the bottom of the world, and you can count on the weather being completely unpredictable. You will get wet. The wind will blow. You may or may not see the peaks from close-up. It's on everyone's bucket list, which means that it's crowded. In fact, after talking to many friends (both live and on-line) we decided to pass on this hike. But I don't know anyone who had done it who didn't think it was an amazing adventure...if also quite uncomfortable at times. My wife doesn't like to hike in the rain, so that was a factor for us.

Instead, we flew to Calafate, and hiked out of El Chalten to see the amazing Cerro Torre and Mt. Fitzroy. These are every bit as spectacular at the Torres, and they do have fewer people. You can backpack in this area, but after we hiked through the backcountry campground on a day-hike, we decided to avoid it at all costs. There was literally one port-potty for 200-300 people, and the campground was packed with loud campers. Not our idea of fun. We stayed in an affordable B&B in El Chalten, and did day hikes (Some of them 10 miles plus) and really loved it. Spectacular scenery, condors overhead, and nice people. Plus the restaurants in town often have local beers and decent food.

In Calafate itself the big trip so to Perito Moreno Glacier. It's a day trip, and we did it in the morning and still had time to make our late afternoon flight back to Buenos Aires. There are plenty of trails that give you differing views of the glacier, but if you add them all up, I think you would be under six miles. We did them all, and it was great. Calafate is a larger town, with fancier restaurants and more expensive prices.

Much of Patagonia is completely empty. You see this as you fly over it--vast stretches of empty space, all a vague taupe color, with a few rivers or lakes breaking up the miles and miles of pampa. It is massively large, and you need to fly to get around, unless you want to spend most of your time in buses and trains, rather than in the mountains.

In Peru we've done both the Camino Inka (four days to Machu Picchu) and also the Santa Cruz trek in the Cordillera Blanca--in Huascaran National Park. Both highly recommended. Whereas in Patagonia the peaks are barely 4000-5000 feet tall, here they are over 20,000. One of the passes we climbed on the Santa Cruz trek was 15,600 or so.

The limit the number of people who can hiked the Camino Inka, so you won't see huge crowds. I think the number is 250 per day...but that also means that you are likely to camp with up to 250 people on any given night. You must hire a guide (who [pulls the required permit for you) and you must hire one porter per hiker. At first we thought this was silly, but once we realized that it gave work to the locals, and meant that every town knew at least one of our porters, it all made sense. We had no worries about theft, or crime of any type---and part of that came from the porter system. Our porters carried everything but our clothes, sleeping bags, and snacks...and provided not only tents and food, but chairs to sit in. You can shop around for guides and porters, but know that the very cheapest alternatives might not show up, or might have pretty cheap equipment. We aimed for the middle of the road in terms of pricing, and got an excellent guide, and great team of porters, and good quality gear. In the end, our group of four (daughter, boyfriend, my wife and I) were the whole group.

The Santa Cruz trek can be done without a guide, but it's a bit complicated, and we chose to use both a guide and a single muleteer with a team of donkeys. In both Machu Picchu and Santa Cruz, we found our guides were not only very knowledgeable, they also played a key role in protecting both the environment and the archeology. On both trips our guides reprimanded other hikers for littering, climbing on ruins, and generally acting like idiots. And we were glad they did. Other guides did the same. On this trek we did meet a group of hikers whose guide told them that rather than do the hike in four days, he decided that they should do it in three, and then go to a hot spring on the fourth day. That made some of the group happy, but we also talked to some who felt very rushed and stressed during the whole hike. Here my wife and I were joined by one other hiker, a young woman in excellent shape.

In all of the towns for these hikes (El Chalten, Calafate, Cuzco, and Huaraz) there were plenty of shop offering gear for sale, and most of the guide companies rent gear as well. And you won't have any trouble finding English speaking people in any of these areas...at least in town. Up in the boonies, it's a whole other story.

And In Latin America, crowded campgrounds are considerably more densely packed than what we think of as wilderness camping. Do NOT compare this with hiking in our national parks.

But we loved it. We would go back to Peru in a split second, and we're going hiking in Ushuaia this spring.

Our website (in my signature line) has reports on all of these trips, if you're interested.

[wildhiker]

In Peru we've done both the Camino Inka (four days to Machu Picchu) and also the Santa Cruz trek in the Cordillera Blanca--in Huascaran National Park. Both highly recommended. Whereas in Patagonia the peaks are barely 4000-5000 feet tall, here they are over 20,000. One of the passes we climbed on the Santa Cruz trek was 15,600 or so.

Correction Paul - Fitzroy on the Argentine side of Patagonia is 3,405 meters, or 11,171 feet tall and the other peaks around it are all above 10,000 feet. And the trails are all below 2,000 feet elevation. In Chile, the peaks in the Torres del Paine region are from 2,600 to 3,000 meters, or 8,500 to 10,000 feet, and they rise straight up from lakes at less than 100 meters (328 feet) above sea level, where the trails are. In both cases, the mountains are spectacularly high above you when you are hiking. Fitzroy is the most spectacular peak. We hiked in both areas in late 2014 and lucked out with good weather which made it well worth it. As you say, there are crowds all on the same trails and campgrounds (or refugios - lodges), so your immediate environment is not as good of a wilderness experience as the High Sierra. But the scenery is amazing.

-Phil

[balzaccom]

Hi Wildhiker. Thanks for the correction. Yes, it's the trails that are so low in Patagonia. It is quite an experience to be hiking on glaciers at such low elevations. Thanks for noting.

[SirBC]

I was in Patagonia in March of 2015 (both Argentina and Chile). It was some of the most spectacular scenery I've ever seen. We sorta lucked out with the weather as there was some great "Fall" color but it also snowed, so we got snow covered peaks with fall colors, which made for some pretty amazing scenery and photo opportunities. On the other hand, the first 3 or 4 days it just rained non-stop and we were debating just leaving Argentina and heading to the Chilean side. Luckily the weather broke and we spent a good 4 days or so on the Argentinian side before heading over to Chile.

I flew into Buenos Aires and then you have to transfer airports to take the next flight down to El Calafate. If I remember correctly folks were saying that you want to leave at least 4 hours to make that transfer. I remember seeing posts of people saying they missed their connection as things in Argentina do not run like a Swiss Clock and I found that be quite accurate. It all just seemed really haphazard the way things run there (not the case in Chile). I was worried about making that connection and didn't want to take a cab after reading a lot of horror stories so I arranged ahead of time with a private service run by an American that lives there who runs a "limo" service (not really limos). He was great guy and very helpful. His email confirmation included photos of the inside of the airport showing where to go and really just covered any questions I had. I highly recommend him {EDIT: I just checked his website and it is no longer active. I'll leave this here just in case):

Fred
SilverStar Transfers and Tours

www.silverstarcar.com
Cell +54 911 6826 8876 (from outside Arg)
Cell 15 6826 8876 (from Arg)

The Very Best English Speaking
Premium Car Service
in Buenos Aires, Argentina Since 2009


I'm not sure what it's like now but in 2015 US cash was highly desirable and they preferred big bills. I stayed one night in Calafate and took a morning bus to El Chaten. I spent a few days there by myself before meeting up with others that I spent the rest of the trip with. We didn't do any camping in El Chaten, just day hikes. I had my tent with me (we camped in Chile) but I didn't bring any camping food as I don't think it was allowed to bring food into the country and the pickings were very slim at the only grocery store in El Chaten (if you are not allowed to bring backpacking food on the flight down I'd suggest getting some in Calafate). I know I've seen others say they dispersed camp there but I don't know if that is legal, or if it was legal then and not now. I've heard, but don't know if it's true, that it's required to have a guide now(?).

There are only a handful of trailheads to chose from in El Chalten. The trails at the north part of town heads towards Fitz Roy and the ones in the middle towards Cerro Torre. Along each are many different areas to explore. I found a lot of nice photo compositions by frequently heading off trail exploring and then continuing on the trail if nothing presented itself. My first day there I was hiking on the Fitz Roy trail which runs along a river that you often can't see but can hear. I kept leaving the trail and headings towards the river looking for compositions. At one point nature called and I headed off the trail to find a spot and came across this:

Fitz Roy Falls by David Young, on Flickr


These kind of spots are found all along the river (I have a number of photos from the trip on my Flickr page found in my signature). You can get into the "good stuff" quicker on this trail than on the Cerro Torre trail so if time is limited on a particular day the Fitz Roy trail would be the better option. When we hiked the Cerro Torre trail we started at 3 am as it's about 7 or so miles to where the views are, so if you want to shoot sunrise you have to start early if you are not camping. The trail goes to Laguna Torre which had tiny little icebergs floating in the moonlight below Cerro Torre. The outlet river has a ton of good photo opportunities too.

If it is raining consider checking out the Chorrillo del Salto waterfall north of town, it's a beautiful little area and quick to get to:

Rush by David Young, on Flickr


In 2015 there was something called a "reciprocity fee" that was around $180 that was required to be purchased before leaving the US. You need to hang onto the paper and present it when leaving and coming back into Argentina if you visit Chile. My understanding is that you would not be allowed to come back into Argentina without it (or something like that, I forget the details).

We rented a truck to drive to Chile and for the return to Argentina. As everyone told us before the trip, the rental cars were garbage. Our front axle broke in Chile just as we were pulling into a rural hotel for our last night in Chile. Luckily they had a machine shop onsite and they came up with something that held until we got back to Argentina.

In Chile we camped at a campsite that was right next to a lodge that served food so that was convenient. We day hiked over 3 or 4 days and didn't do any of the circuits. From our campsite it was no more than an hour or so to get to amazing views.

What a great place to honeymoon! I hope you have a great trip.

[wildhiker]

By the way, there have been at least three reports here on HST in recent years for Patagonia trips. You should read those for more ideas.

http://highsierratopix.com/community/vi ... =8&t=15498
http://highsierratopix.com/community/vi ... =8&t=15697
http://highsierratopix.com/community/vi ... =8&t=17511

-Phil