Just a short one this time. A quick run through of how not to experience Mt. Fitz Roy. Or – depending on how you choose to look at it – the very way to do it.
My last post finished off with me and my riding buddies Moritz and Greg finally reaching the township of El Chaltén. The small village resting on the foot of the mystical mountain of Fitz Roy, that’s majestically towering over town on any given moment of a sunny day. And who’s sharp contours vanishes completely as soon as the first clouds form in the sky.
Arriving in sunshine, we decided to waste zero time in the quest of chasing down our epic mountain view experience. After finding our way to our first ever Casa de Ciclistas (google this if you’re cycling South America), we dumped our bikes and quickly regrouped into some sort of pretend-to-be-trekking crew.
Voila!
One stop by the supermarket later we were well prepared with the given necessities for any serious mountaineering expedition. Breakfast for tomorrow. And gin. Lots of gin for tonight.
A mandatory ice cream cone later we were off, headed out of town straight towards the heart of the beauty.
Less than 2 hours from El Chaltén township
This was a beautiful evening. One including walking. And taking breaks.
Breaks including views. And drinking gin.
As evening fell we set our camp. The sky was still clear enough to present a proper mountain sunset and we excitedly set another one of those way-to-early alarms to get up and catch the sunrise over that epic peak of Mt. Fitz Roy. The steep ascent between us and the top meant one good hour of dawn walking before reaching our viewpoint of the summit.
But that was all tomorrow’s burden.
…
…
Then suddenly tomorrow had arrived. And though this was where things first started going downhill, it would still take a good while before any of us would realise that.
With drowsy eyes, torch-dressed foreheads and heavy feet we tramped off in the darkness, aiming for the peak that was still drowned in darkness. Thinking back, the clues of that we were headed in the wrong direction were definitely there. Some clearer than others – but all equally ignored by Team Too Tired.
Worth noting is that this is one of the more well prepared tourist spots in all of Patagonia. Paths are clear. Bridges are built. And river crossings like this should be a heads up that quite possibly you’re a little off route.
For us it took a little more still.
To be exact, it took our ‘path’ abruptly ending with a cliff wall and this sign.
Just on time to when we’d expected to be at the top, we realised that we weren’t even moving towards it. Success!
Slowly we found our way back to signs telling us not to go where we’d just been
Back on track. Or on it for the first time.
So this whole thing obviously didn’t really work out as planned. Yes, we did manage to find our way back to the proper path. We did get to the top. And we did have a lot of fun reaching it. The one detail though was that way before we made it there – the rain clouds did too.
And we didn’t get to see a thing.
Plans are great. But let’s not forget that plans gone to hell – are too.
Epic fail?
Oh yes.
However – I think I’ll choose to remember this as only epic.
Until next time,
Fredrika