Ushuaia

Patagonia is not all mountains and glaciers. We spent much time on the bus looking across the plains to the mountains in the far distance.
We had lots of travel ahead, but not as much as could be. We were heading back to El Calafate where we would fly out to Ushuaia. From Ushuaia, we would get supplies together and then head back out on the trail. We did not make the tactical error that we had last time wandering the streets of El Calafate without a place to stay. We decided that after a week of backpacking, it would be a good idea to treat ourselves to something a little nicer.
We booked a room at the Hosteria Austral, which was a rather fancy hotel by Patagonia standards. We had showers in our room and television. We spent the day mostly taking it easy, even getting to watch some NFL playoff games. We had enough of that after one day, though and were ready to get back out on the trail.
The next morning we were up bright and early. We had a provided traditional Patagonian breakfast that consisted mainly of bread, coffee, and some orange colored sugar water. It was not quite the breakfast to fill one up as most people seemed to just drink lots of coffee. Not being a coffee drinker, I was never thrilled by it. On our way back to the room, we were joined by a scorpion.
We were so excited to exit El Calafate that we got to the airport before it even opened. I guess the two hour early rule only applied in the United States. Even after it opened, they only opened up the gates for our flights about 35 minutes prior. So, we played a lot of cribbage and read our books until our short plane ride that would take off two full days of bus rides.
Once again, when we got to the airport someone was supposed to be waiting for us but there was no one to be found. This time, the hotel did send out someone to pick us up. We were staying in another rather nice hotel. We spent the day getting supplies together. Our plan was to take a boat ride out into the bay which was one of the most massive in Patagonia. After the boat ride, we would have our backpacks completely packed, take a taxi out of town and begin a new backpack of a couple of days over the Paso de la Oveja.
Well everything seemed to be going as planned. We got an early boat ride. We first found seats inside the boat, but eventually decided that it was too crowded and there was much more room outside. It was definitely chillier, but after Dad hung out there for long enough, I decided that it was a much better idea. He met some English friends and was chatting with them for much of the boat ride. Strategically our spot became much more important as the ride became more interesting.

At first, it was just a view back to the city of Ushuaia, which was beautiful. So far, this had been my favorite city on the whole trip with mountains rising above the city. We would be going to the other side of those mountains after our boat ride as our trip would go over a pass behind the mountains. But soon the bay would be more interesting. The first rock outcropping that we would come to was stained completely white with lots of white birds circling above it. We could tell that the island was dyed white specifically because of bird droppings.
There were literally thousands of birds just dotting this entire island. As we passed by, the views of the bay with the large snow covered mountains in the distance rising up made for one of the prettiest views in all of Patagonia. The next island brought out the swarms of humans because there were two new animals. One was a bird that looked remarkably similar to a penguin called a puffin. They looked like miniature penguins. We had a choice of taking a much longer boat ride to see bigger penguins, but chose to not be on the boat all day.
Sharing this island with the puffins, though, were the sea lions which really brought the crowds out. We had the best view right by the rail, but eventually we were getting pushed aside mainly by Asian tourists, I think because tight spaces just do not bother them like they do us. They were really impressive and fun to watch. For one thing, they were noisy, grunting all the time. For another thing, they were really mean animals. There were quite a few of them that were either covered in their own blood or covered in the blood of another sea lion.

We understood why they were referred to as lions when we saw the males fight. This was not an animal where one could not tell which was a female and which was a male. It was obvious as the males were 2-3 times the size of the females. And they fought aggressively and once again were very noisy. It was fun to watch when I wasn't getting too much snuggle time with a 60 year old Japanese man. We saw many more cruise ship tourists at this spot then others as not everyone came to Tierra del Fuego for the mountains. This was the jumping off point for any trip down to Antarctica. We thought briefly of going down there ourselves, but then it did not fit into our plans.

The boat ride was a three hour tour, but no Gilligan and the skipper were not there. The highlight of the trip for many was the lighthouse at the end. But for me, of course, it was the mountains and the animals, so I will not include a picture of it. I'm sure you can find one if you google it. I just don't want to waste a space that could show pictures of the water with the mountains. There is just something that seems so incredible when you can see glaciers from the ocean. Maybe it is growing up in Washington State. We talked with the British people the rest of the ride back where Dad won his argument on when the wars were fought in the Falkland Islands that we were having before we met them. It was nice to have a conversation with someone in English so I could follow along. My Spanish is just bad and it is said to say that as the trip went along it did not get much better. We left the boat ride, got a bite to eat, then walked up to our hotel where we picked up our packs and caught a taxi that would take us to the trailhead for Paso de la Oveja.

Back to El Chalten

It was time to depart from the Fitzroy region. We were up bright and early because we had a long hike ahead of us. Our trail on this day would take us back the way that we came first by the Rio Electrico. It was sad to not be going farther into the mountains of Patagonia, but by this point it was sure going to be nice to take a shower and sleep in a bed. We were both enjoying being out, but it was time. The weather was still really good and we were having incredible weather on the trip thus far. The wind was not horrible and anyway it was at our back helping push us out of the mountains.

There was not a whole lot new at first just retracing our steps under Cerro Electrico and back up the river valley to Poincenot. Once we were past Poincenot, we were finally on new trail again. This trail was the most popular of all the trails. It came up from El Chalten to Poincenot. It was filled with all those same kind of hikers that charged their way up to Angel's Landing in Zion. There for the day, not prepared to stay overnight, really not quite completely prepared to be out for the entire day, but doing their best to see one of the most beautiful sights that nature has hidden up its sleeve. 

And why not, the views were amazing. Fitzroy was out in all its glory looking like the massive behemoth of granite that it definitely was. We were definitely leaving our wilderness behind as many, many others were coming up the trail. We were also leaving our cool comfortable weather too as the trail kept getting drier and hotter as we went. We could have avoided it by taking a shuttle bus down the valley from the Rio Electrico, but why spend money when hiking is the cheaper way to go. We were very happy when we saw El Chalten come into view. It was a long walk through town to our hostel, but this time we had a room to ourselves and just needed some laundry and some cold beer to complete the day.
The next day we woke up very early with the sunrise, which in Patagonia meant that we were up by 5 AM. Our goal was to get a view of Cerro Torre which we unfortunately were not able to see from Laguna Torre. Dad's idea was just to charge up a hill outside of town until we could get a good sight of the peak. He and I both chose different paths after a while feeling different viewpoints inspired us. I think after it was all over, we both thought that our choice was the better one of course, but regardless we each got excellent shots of Cerro Torre and all the peaks in the Fitzroy region of Los Glacieres. I sat there for a while just looking at the peaks because we had a bus out of there later that morning and I knew that more than likely, I would never be back to this place again. I was happy that my camera battery had lasted long enough for me to get to take pictures on the backpack as the low battery light had come on when we were just getting into Laguna Torre. I had been conservative with my picture taking, but now we were back in civilization and I could take many pictures.
 It was awesome to see Fitzroy sticking out above the others and just how incredibly steep Cerro Torre was. I enjoyed this spot and I had just one more photo to get.

A picture of good ol' sunburned me staring into the rising sun. I snapped my pictures and got prepared for the traveling. We were headed way down south to the end of the world, a town called Ushuaia that was the backdrop of many mountain peaks in Tierra del Fuego, the land of fires. I was excited for this part of the trip as this was going to be the more rugged and less touristy part of the trip. Or at least I hoped. 

The Windiest and the Steepest Trails

We had the whole day to spend hanging out in Piedra del Fraile. We started the morning out with a hike to Lago Electrico. This lake was not very far away, but we still got an early start because we were up. We went around the large glacial erratic to where the terrain opened up. The wind was intense! I could not believe just how powerful the Patagonia wind was until I was in it and experiencing it. We struggled to keep moving forward. True, the lake was not that far away, but it sure seemed like it as we battled the wind. There was probably a reason why there were no trees in this landscape.

The video will show just how powerful the wind was. I wish I would have got a better video, but I think with the sound, you can get the point. By the time that we made it to the lake, we were good. It was awesome to see the power of the wind creating white water type conditions on the lake. This was not a place to go kayaking or canoeing as this lake looked like it had waves or tides just from the wind. It would have been interesting to go around the lake and up onto the glacier above, but Dad was using this as his rest day and he did not want to push it too much. We were going to have a big day on the following day as our plan was to walk all the way back to El Chalten, so it was understandable.

We found ourselves some shelter away from the wind to relax a bit before we went back. Going back was a lot easier, though with the wind at our backs. I wondered how the lake could keep all the water it had in there as it was being blown out of there by the wind creating the feeling that we were being rained upon. We seemed to fly back to camp where we decided it would be a good idea to switch our camping site. We decided to go around the boulder to a spot closer to the river with a bit more sunshine. Here we sat around playing cribbage and reading our books until the afternoon. I got the urge to go explore another trail that led steeply up the side of the "hill".
It looked like a short trail on the map, but it also looked incredibly steep. It went next to an impressive series of waterfalls that cascaded down below Cerro Electrico. My favorite of the waterfalls were the ones that were side by side pouring into the same pool. If something like this existed in the U.S., there would be thousands of people visiting this place every day. For us, we had the entire experience to ourselves.
I charged across the field and found the trail rather easily by using the map. It did quickly decide to go uphill. It was steep! There were series of switchbacks but they were so close together it was really like doing a zigzag all the way up the hill. I was feeling good and moving really swiftly. I went at Dad's pace when we were hiking together, but with just myself, I moved quite a bit swifter. I should have been having to tough out this incredibly steep hill, but I was feeling really good. There were not many trees, mainly just some short stumpy bushes. This gave me a good view down into the valley below.
I could see the glacial erratic right next to the river that we were camping next to the entire time. As I looked down, I would not have believed I could just hike to that spot if I had not been there. Eventually, I reached the top of the hill and the trail began to get less steep. It was still steep, but not quite as bad. The views were incredible. I could see the mountains on all sides of this glacial valley and even over to the ice cap that one could access from the valley behind Lago Electrico. This was quite the spot. I figured that I could keep going even further if I felt like it, but for some reason I was not incredibly ambitious.

I really just went as far as the trail would take me and after that decided that going up the scree slope was not in the cards for this day. Sitting here writing about it, I wish I would have gone further because I am sure that the views would have been even better, but I just wasn't ambitious. I guess after days and days of hiking, even I can get satiated on that.
 I traveled the steep trail back down instead where we were to have dinner at the little restaurant in the middle of nowhere. It was extremely expensive, but considering they had to bring it in by horseback, it was understandable. We would awake in the morning to leave the Fitzroy region and return to El Chalten.