Tell The Truth Travel - Los Glaciares

Los Glaciares - Mt Fitzroy

Poincenot (left) and Fitzroy (right)

Mt. Fitzroy, named after the Beagle's captain in 1877, was first climbed in 1952 by French alpinists. Nearby are a series of dramatic peaks named by French clinbers, including Cerro Torre, Egger, Standhardt, Techado Negro, Saint-Exupery, Poincenot, Mermoz, and Guillaumet.

We arrived in El Chalten about 1 p.m., still sore from our Torres del Paine ascent two days earlier, expecting lunch and maybe a late afternoon walk by the river on the Electrico trail, as mentioned in our itinerary ("time permitting").

So we were surprised to find our guides expecting to hike when we arrived. And even more surprised when, in the middle of the "walk", we realized it was actually a six hour hike. We would have skipped it if only we had known.

Our itinerary had sounded like we had only two days of hiking in the Fitzroy area, but it was actually four. In addition to the long hike the day we arrived, we were scheduled to hike all day the day of our departure! Our return bus tickets were for 6 p.m., putting us back in El Calafate at 10 p.m. We were very unhappy about this and felt our itinerary was very misleading.

We complained, and the local tour company, after first claiming there was no earlier bus, found one and got us new tickets. They charged us for them, but (mysteriously) relented shortly before before our departure and gave us a refund.