I was here about eighteen years ago on a back-country skiing trip/expedition. When I was here then, there was a ranger station, a police station, and maybe three or four "homesteads"... There were no services of any kind and you had to make sure you brought all your own food and camping gear etc... Very remote.
But, now, its a budding little tourist town with dozens of hostels and hotels and restaurants and guiding companies and gear shops etc. Its still very small and is quite quaint and friendly, but I can see that its changing fast and in about five years it will have lost the "quaint" aspect and become a "hot" tourist destination.
The really good thing about this area though is that its the immediate access to one of the most spectacular hiking areas in the world!
When I say "immediate" I really mean it... There are about a half dozen hikes that start right from town (no need for shuttles etc.) and the "spectacular" scenery and camping places are only about two to three hours away :)... and the access to the park is completely free too :))
The mountains around here are spires of sheer Granit (well it looks like a Granit to me) and they have been and in fact still are being aggressively carved by dozens off glaciers... In fact, the largest of the Patagonian ice caps is being held back just behind these jagged rock peaks.
This time, I came here to do a couple of short hikes to see the rock spires again (I no-longer feel the need to try to climb them)... And the timing seems good since the weather is nice and clear, and Im in need of a bit of a rest for my upper body!, but my legs are working fine :)
So, my first day trip is out to "Lago Torre"
My hike there and back took me about half a day with a height gain of about 600m and a distance of about 11Km or so. The peak its self is at 3100m ASL.
Lago Torre is a glacial lake (complete with glacier at one end) located at the foot of what is probably the largest and most "severe" rock spire in the area. Cerro Torre.
This peak was something of a rock climbing icon in the early eighties when I was first getting into the sport. Its been climbed by several routes (all "extreme") these days, but back then, it had only a few ascents by one or two routes. The big controversy was that a guy called Mastri claimed to have climbed it in the fifties, but his partner fell to his death on the descent and the camera went with him... The next team to make it to the summit was in the seventies and they could not find evidence to support Mastries summit claim... That led to all sorts of speculation!
But Mastri was incensed and went back and climbed it again... this time solo!... and he put a bolt ladder up the side on the upper section etc.... And nobody disputes his claim now...
Anyway, here are some pictures of one of the most spectacular and extreme rock routes in the world :)
