After a beautiful first day, I woke up to a much better day than expected. The sky wasn’t completely covered in thick grey clouds and my tent wasn’t wet. How unexpected. Some people head up the steep trail to laguna de los tres in the dark in order to catch the sunrise. I had a slight moment of fomo. Should I have done that? But who am I kidding. I was too busy trying to stay warm!
My day was pretty easy, so I had a slow morning. I turned around one more time to say goodbye and thank the Fitzroy range for a great time. Then I took the turn towards lagunas madre and hija. To my surprise the trail didn’t actually go close to the lagoons until it led me to the gray beach at the end of the little “daughter” lagoon. From there I continued through the forest, which was good because those clouds finally caught up to me and they looked ready to burst. By the time I got to the turn off for laguna Torre the rain had started. It wasn’t too bad, but enough for me to put on my rain pants. I met many people who were returning to town and I wondered if I was mad to continue to the campsite.
I pitched my tent in between the drizzle showers, so at least I had a dry place to go. I shouldn’t have waited any longer, because the drizzle turned into an afternoon of steady rain. I wouldn’t have guessed I’d be lying on my mattress watching Netflix in the middle of a national park for a few hours. After those hours it was still raining, but I needed to go to the toilet and decided to add a walk. I got absolutely drenched. The leftovers of washing powder created foam on my rain pants. At least I would smell good. The path to the lagoon had turned into a steady stream of water, but the lagoon was still magnificient. I was all alone with the icebergs and enjoyed the silence. I only had small regrets later when I had to put my dripping rain gear in a corner of my tent.
The next morning my boots were still wet, even inside. My pile of rain gear hadn’t dried either. But… was that sunshine I saw? I couldn’t believe it. Once again mother nature did me a solid. I wiped off the tent so it could dry quicker and hung my stuff over some logs and my hiking poles. I took my time, but was keen to pack up camp in case it would rain again later. This did mean I had to carry my full backpack up to mirador Maestri, which went to a slightly higher altitude. This part of the trail went along the edge of the laguna Torre, towards the glacier that has been producing all the icebergs.
It was only about 45 minutes of walking and it was more than worth it. On my very first day in el Chaltén I had gone to a view that looked down on laguna Torre, but because of the clouds I could only see so much. Today I got a closer look at the Glaciar Grande. I could clearly see the mountains around it. They were lit perfectly by the morning sun. There were only some faint clouds behind the barren landscape. As I stood taking it all in I saw 2 familiar faces coming up over the edge of the hill. It was the Austrians from Antarctica whom I’d met at the laguna two days ago as well. We started laughing.
As I went down the long trail back to town, a lot of people were just coming up. About halfway a girl said, exhausted: “Are you really all coming down already?” She’d been struggling and was in need of a little peptalk. So I reassured her it was worth it, that she could finish at the lagoon and that the rest of the way wasn’t that bad. And indeed, the steeper parts were closer to town. Until then I’d been following a lot of narrow paths through bushes. A bit further along the views changed. I saw a waterfall that came down the mountain in a playful way and ended in the river. Here, you felt more like you were entering a valley. Then, very suddenly, I saw el Chaltén. I made it! Another adventure in the pocket.
