El Chalten is a small village in the southern part of Patagonia, Argentina. It’s located in the Los Glaciares Nationalpark with mountains such as Cerro Torres and Fitz Roy close by and that’s also why it’s been named Argentinas Trekking capital.
Laguna de los tres (Fitz Roy)
This is probably the most famous hike in El Chalten and after doing the hike I can definitely understand why!
It’s a 13 km hike and the estimated time is around eight hours with return. It’s a quite challenging hike with a 700m elevation gain and most of it comes the last kilometres.
We started early in the morning before it was light outside to catch the sunrise at Laguna Capri. I would recommend you to do the hike early in the morning to avoid the crowds, when we got up at 10am there was maximum ten other people but within a few hours the place was really crowded!
Hike: 13km and around 8hours return
Elevation: 700 meters
Los Cóndores & Las Águilas
This is a relatively new and easy hike and to reach it you have to cross the Fitz Roy river and then the trail starts at National Park Visitors' Centre. It takes about half an hour to reach the Los Cóndores viewpoint where you frequently can see condors flying between the valley of the De Las Vueltas river and the Fitz Roy river.
If you continue on the trail another 30 minutes you'll reach Las Águilas which is a natural balcony with a panoramic view over the steppe and the Viedma lake to the south, the Cerro Huemul to the west and the Cerro Piramide to the east.
Laguna Torres
This is another beautiful hike in El Chalten with an estimated 7-8 hours hiking time, the hike is not to challenging and you can easily do it in a day. You’ll hike through beautiful sceneries and landscapes with panoramic views over Cerro Solo, Adela Range and Cerro Torres.
I really enjoyed the hike to Laguna Torres because of the amazing sceneries, the Laguna Torres was quite grey and it was super windy so maybe we were a bit unlucky with the weather.
