Hiking, hiking, hiking

Our next stop was the only town inside Los Glacieres national park, El Chalten, which we were very surprised to discover was only 28 years old. The main sights are Fitzroy and El Torre (mountains), neither of which we got to see up close due to the weather, but thems the breaks. We arrived from Calafate and decided to take it pretty easy for the first day and just relaxed around the hostel... Matt napped and I read, very pleasant. The next day we did our first big hike, 9 hours. Maybe should have started a bit smaller. We hiked up to an area with a glacier and on a clear day a view of El Torre. The glacier was pretty cool as were several of the sights along the way but the cloud meant El Torre wasn't visible. We got back completely stuffed and seriously questioning the wisdom of our plans to hike like demons for the next 8 days (including the W). The next day we were somewhat recovered, but decided to take it a bit easier as it was once again cloudy and Fitzroy was nowhere to be seen. We hiked up to a really pretty lake, about a 4 hour round trip and enjoyed the warmth and food at the hostel again.

We finally got a sunny day on the day we had to leave, we didn't have quite enough time to attempt the hikes to see Fitzroy up close, but did a shorter hike that gave us some brilliant views of a family of condors that called the area home, as well as both El Torre and Fitzroy from a distance. In some ways it was probably the nicest hike of the lot and was a nice and easy 3 hours. Next stop Puerto Natales and the W... Eep!