El Chaltein and mt Fitz Roy

First of all we´ll have to admit we had to take a bus for one of the legs. We looked at our time schedule and what we wanted to do before we reached Santiago for Christmas and found out we had nowhere near enough time to cycle all the way and do the hikes we wanted to do. We needed to be in Santiago for the 22nd of December for the arrival of Las Novias, the girlfriends as we´d explained to many people on the route. My sister Lorr and her boyfriend John were joining the 4 of us for new years also so we had to be there on time.
After a lot of juggling figures and debating we took a bus from Puerto Natales to El Chaltein covering distances that would have taken us two weeks to cycle across barren ground with no shops and nothing much to see. Tough decision to take, but we´re glad we did now we´re getting to cycle the Carretera properly.
We stopped off for one day in El Calafate where we met some great people, Charly and Jo Edwards from London and their friend Cyril from Paris along with Jessica from Manchester who was on the same bus. We all got along great, ate out together and headed to see the spectacular Perito Moreno glacier together.

Paul and I headed off to El Chaltein in the evening, arriving late at night and very hungry so we headed into a cafe for a hamburger and a few beers. We ended up chatting to a few of the locals and trying some of the local stout, awfully sweet stuff. Later, round 1 am, well over the limit we cycled in the dark down the gravel main street and headed to the national park free campsite on the edge of town. Only we couldn´t find any other tents in the dark so after a few laps of the building with our head torches lighting the way we pitched up our tent outside the park ranger station beside a picnic bench. Seemed like an ok place to put a tent. Next morning at 9 hunger woke me and first thing I saw was a big field full of tents across the road from us, as it turned out the signs were only on the way into town as I explained and apologised to the Park Ranger who was none too pleased with us, inisiting we move immediately.
Later though he was decent enough to let us leave our bikes at his house while we were hiking.

Fitz Roy park was a better experience than the chilean Torres del Paine, less people so you didn´t have to say hola every 5 minutes and the trails were´in better condition, plus it was all free incuding a great info centre at the ranger station.
As we hiked out of town in the afternoon who did we meet but Charly Jo and Cyril from El Calafate, we hiked together for the day and pitched up our tents before heading up to see the base of mount fitz roy together.
I have to say of all the sights I´d seen so far mount fitz roy was outstanding, the approach shows you the mountain bit by bit, the peaks are awe inspiring and even standing where we were at the base you felt tiny looking up at the peaks. We had a geat clear day, cloud cover lifted and we could see all of the sublime peaks, remembering when they were summited first from the info centre.
The summit of Fitz Roy itself is rarely conquered and the first summit was in 1955, even that was disputed as one of the climbers fell to his death with the summit photos, so much so the other guy returned 11 years later and controversially used a portable compressor drilled rope anchors all the way up to conquer the peak. More info here

I was also impressed by the modern climbers returning from their summit attempts on various peaks. We talked to one pair to find out what they used the ski´s on their backpacks for only to be given a very short answer by one of the climbers; his older climbing parter explained that they´d failed at their attempt and apologised, saying they were tired, the skis were hinged at the front and had directional grip so they could use climbing boots to get over and up snowy sections easily. Later we met more mountaineers on their way down, some clearly elated but more were exhausted and shaky on their feet. Seeing the peaks up close gave me such respect for those guys, I get such bad vertigo that it will never be a sport for me but you had to admire their courage to climb such difficult peaks. Think how much work is involved in climbing 2000 metres with a 50 metre length of rope!

Later at the campsite in the middle of the woods we all ate and shared some wine, everybody cooking up their own camp food concoction, the french english contingent being more gourmet than the rest of us had some vino tinto which we all shared.
Next day we all the lads hiked to see the glacier then we returned to pack up camp and head on to see Cerro Torre. Id said goodbye to Charlie and Jo at the perito moreno glacier, then again at
the hostel in Calafate when our bus was later than expected, and then said goodbye again as they were headed back to el chaltein whereas we´d planned on camping again, only to meet them again later as we arrived at the Cerro Torre campsite and of course say goodbye for a 4th time, We also met Jessica on the trail later on, along with Robbie the Scottish-Aussie hiker who we´d met in the snow at the back end of Torres del Paine and again in El Calafate. Great to bump into such friendly people on the trail and swap stories.
Unfortunately Cerro Torre was hiding under it´s cap of cloud that evening and the next day so we decided to packup early next day and head into town to chat to the owner of a local wine store who we had heard was a touring cyclist also.

Fitz Roy photos are here