January 31, 2023 - Mirador de las Condores, El Chalten, Argentina

What do you do when you are exhausted? Sleep in! There are lots of hikes to do in the area and while we both thought we wanted to hike to Mount Fitz Roy, we knew that we were not in condition to do the hike. It is 16+ miles and rated difficult with much of it scrambling up rocks. Fast trekkers can do the hike in 8-10 hours. Why Mount Fitz Roy? Well, it is 11,170 feet tall, but because it is so steep and remote, Fitz Roy wasn't scaled until 1952! The hike goes to the Laguna de los Tres, which is a bright blue lake at the base of the mountain. The view of the lake would have been amazing, but ... we are realistic, so we decided to take an easy hike today to Mirador de las Condores.

From our hotel at one end of the town to the ranger station where the hike actually begins is about a mile. This is the sign going into El Chalten - with a beautiful view of Mount Fitz Roy in the background.
Our first panaramic views!

The trail today was much easier on our feet. It was mostly dirt as it wound its way up to the top the hill in the picture below.


We climbed about 450 feet to reach the summit where we had beautiful views of El Chalten and watch for condors.


You can see where the Fitz Roy River on the left and the De Las Vueltas Rivers come together just outside of the town. The De Las Vueltas was very blue compared to the glacial Fitz Roy.
After sitting and enjoying the view for a while we noticed several large groups climbing up the hill. The tour buses had arrived!

We were rewarded by seeing several Andean condors flying overhead. Condors mate for life and can live up to 70 years! They only have chicks every 2-3 years and share in raising them. They can go several days without eating and have a pouch on their neck which allows them to store lots of food which is good since they may fly up to 120 miles in one day!

It is hard to take a video of them because they are so high, (over 16,000 feet is possible!) but I did catch a little of their flight. VIDEO https://youtu.be/nmLD-7QyoSw
We had our last good panaramic views as we headed back to town for lunch.
Tobey spotted an Argentinian weather station.

If the rock is wet - it's raining.
If the rock is dry - weather is dry.
If there is a shadowon the ground - it's sunny.
If there is no shadow - it's cloudy.
If the stone is dropping - earthquake!
If the rock is oscilating - it's a little windy.
If the rock isn't here - it's a strong wind.
If you can't see the rock - it's night.
If you can see the rock - it's day!

We could see the rock, we could see the shadow, and it wasn't oscilating, so it was a good morning!

Before dinner tonight we took a walk around town and down to the river. There were several people out enjoying the warm weather and some were wading in the river.

Looking downstream we noticed some climbers up on the rocks.

Call me crazy, but there is NO WAY you would find me doing that!

Tomorrow we are going to get up EARLY hoping to see the sunrise over Mount Fitz Roy before we check out of our hotel and head to Calafete so goodnight!