Mirador de las aquillas – 26.11.2023
After the beautiful hikes of the last few days, I had planned a smaller hike for today. After a quick breakfast, I set out for my walk. I ran to the entrance to the town and left. Then I turned right and headed back into a national park. After a short detour to the park’s small museum, I continued my hike.
From the entrance it went straight up slightly uphill. So I walked up the mountain on the well-developed path until after a short time I reached the first viewing platform. From here I had a beautiful view of the town of El Chaltén.
After a short break, I left the viewpoint again and continued back into the park. There were significantly fewer people out and about here and so I walked through the landscape more or less alone. After a few kilometers I reached the second viewpoint. From here I could marvel at the vastness of Patagonia.
I climbed up a few more rocks and sat at the top of the mountain in a place protected from the wind. From up here I had a great view of the surrounding area.
I made myself some coffee again and enjoyed the view in the beautiful weather.
After a while I made my way back. Instead of walking back the same way, I descended a few meters on the other side of the mountain and followed a small path towards El Chaltén. On the way back I constantly had a view of the beautiful mountains, whose peaks were shrouded in clouds.
Since this path wasn’t marked on the hiking maps, I only met one person on the entire route. I was also able to marvel at a wild guanaco, which crossed the path just a few meters in front of me and ran very relaxed up the mountain. Guanacos are the wild ancestral form of the Andean camel and the well-known llama, for example, is descended from these animals.
A little later I reached the first viewing point again. From here I climbed back down into the valley.
I found out about the weather for the next few days from the park ranger because I wanted to go on a longer tour in the national park soon. Unfortunately, the man didn’t have good news for me and recommended that I don’t start running until Thursday at the earliest. Until then it was simply too windy and since the path was quite exposed to the weather in some places, it would not be completely safe with the strong gusts. Plus, it was always raining, so I wouldn’t be able to see much of the landscape anyway.
Armed with this not so nice information, I walked back to the campsite. There I then looked for alternative routes for the coming days. In the evening, I went for pizza in one of the restaurants before going back to my tent to sleep.
Cerro Paredon – 27.11.2023
I had actually planned a larger daily route for today. But since the weather wasn’t that good in the morning and there was no improvement in sight, I had to reschedule again. So I had a relaxed breakfast and asked the lady at reception about alternative hikes. Since these were all very short, I had another relaxing day ahead of me today. At least the internet was relatively stable in the morning and so I used the time to upload some pictures to my blog, which is not always so easy here.
At around 11 a.m. I set off for another short hike. I left the town over a bridge and walked a bit along the steep rocks.
Further back, a path led up to a plateau at the back. From there I again had a beautiful view of the town and the mountains behind it. Unfortunately, I could already see the dark clouds gathering in the distance. Since they were still far enough away, I sat down first and took a closer look at the surroundings.
Later I climbed another small, steep path to get to the top. Once at the top, I had a good all-round view of the different facets of the surrounding area. I looked around in all directions and thought about which peaks could possibly be easily reached.
After a while a couple from Bonn arrived at the top and I chatted with them for a while. They are only here for the second day and have not had a chance to see the larger mountains yet. There was no improvement in sight in the next few days and so they felt similar to me in that they didn’t really know what to do with the bad weather here. The place also had no cultural highlights and so we probably had to wait together for better weather.
After a while they set off again. Since I wasn’t in a national park today where flying my drone was forbidden, and still saw a beautiful landscape, I took advantage of this to take a few drone shots again. Afterwards I also walked a little further back before the path ended at a small lake.
Since the dark clouds were getting closer and closer and it was already starting to drizzle, I started descending again in the opposite direction, where the sky was still blue.
After a few kilometers I arrived back at the campsite. I did some quick shopping in a supermarket and then made myself dinner. Today I even had burgers from my camping stove, which were pretty tasty thanks to the good meat.
As soon as I had finished eating, it started to rain really hard. I retreated to my tent, wrote in my diary and read a book again. Nothing much else happened so I went to bed early this morning.
Chorillo de Salto – 28.11.2023
The night was very stormy and my tent shook almost constantly. So I couldn’t sleep very well and ended up lying in bed longer in the morning. Unfortunately the weather didn’t really get any better and the forecast pointed to a rainy and stormy day. So I had to go on a smaller tour again today and the only recommendation I had was the “Chorillo de Salto” waterfall, which wasn’t far away.
After breakfast, I bundled up and set off on my little tour. I ran north through the nature reserve again, the strong wind slowing me down on the open road. After a few hundred meters I moved into a small forest that was somewhat sheltered from the wind, where running was more pleasant.
I made quick progress on the very flat path and soon reached the waterfall. In the rainy weather a lot of water came down and it was nice to see.
Since there wasn’t much else to see, I headed back after a few minutes. In the light rain I quickly walked back to the campsite. Since the way back was quite short, I soon reached my tent again.
There I first took a nap, then ate a little something and took a long, warm shower. Since the internet was completely gone, I couldn’t plan much for the next few days. So I lay in my tent for a long time and read before going to a small restaurant in the evening to get something to eat. At around 9 a.m. I was done with it and went to sleep.
Waiting – 29.11.2023
Unfortunately, the weather was still bad and I was slowly running out of ideas for smaller tours. Even at the campsite they had no more recommendations for me in this weather. So today I had to more or less sit around and wait for better weather.
In the morning, I use the time I have to write on my blog. Hoping that the weather would get better tomorrow, I also looked for other tours that I could do again.
Later I started my preparations for the next multi-day tour. I bought a new gas cartridge in an outdoor shop and bought enough food from the supermarket that I would need on the tour.
Afterwards, I rested for the rest of the day as there just wasn’t much else to do.
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