The sheer scale of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares is hard to comprehend. It is almost 3000 square miles... numerous towering peaks... almost 250 glaciars, some huge like Perito Moreno,flowing down from the massive Southern Patagonia Ice Field... many smaller ones scooping out dramatic cirques... lakes formed from glacial meltwater including the giant lagos, o Argentino and Viedma... and pampas full of wildlife.
The Idiots moved on from one access to the park, the remote small town El Calafate on the south shore of Lago Argentino to the other access, the even more remote, smaller village of El Chalten on the north shore of Lago Viedma. The drive was only about 135 miles, but between a leisurely breakfast and a little shopping... and then dozens of soaking-up-the-scenery stops, the drive took them most of the day.
A few pictures explain their dawdling better than words ever could.
The terrain is a never-ending tutorial in the titanic tectonic forces that have formed the faee of the earth. In southern Patagonia, the massive South American plate collides with three other plates and the forces unleashed raised a 4500 mile long wall of mountains, the mighty Andes... and numerous displays of sedimntary layers formed in ancient seabeds alternating with twisted volcanic estrusions.
In 1905, two English-speaking bandits going by the names Santiago Ryan and Henry Place robbed the bank in Rio Gallegos on the Atlantic coast of southern Patagonia. They did not tarry in the area... riding hard they evaded the Federales and made their way about 200 miles into the interior and hid out for a number of weeks at a small guest house on the Rio La Leona – River of the lion. Their real names were Robert Leroy Parker and Harry Longbaugh... but most remember them by their aliases – Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Built in 1894 by Danish immigrants, the guesthouse had only four rooms when the famous outlaws used it as a hideout. Somewhat expanded, it continues to shelter travelers to this day.
A couple of years later Butch and Sundance surfaced about a thousand miles farther north in Argentina and set up a country store. But it seems the sedate life of small town storekeepers did not suit their wandering souls, so another bank was robbed... and the two outlaws, along with Etta Place, once more disappeared. Just a few months later they were murdered by army forces in Bolivia. The reward posters did read “Dead or Alive” and the Bolivians chose the more expedient approach to the problem
Why, the Idiots wondered, was a small river flowing through the Patagonian pampas called River of the Lion? The answer is another little historical tidbit. Francisco 'Perito' Merino was the intrepid explorer who made three great expeditions to inform Argentinians about this huge part of their country that most dismissed as a worthless desert and who is memorialized in the magnificent glaciar that bears his name. He named the river after he was attacked and badly injured by a female puma – a leona.
Eventually the turquoise-tinted glacial waters of Lake Viedma appeared. At one of their stops, a grey fox – the primary predator of the area – appeared and posed for a photo shoot.
The horizon above El Chalten is dominated by Mount Fitz Roy. It's sharp granite spires shine against bright blue sky – on the covers of brochures and guidebooks. These photos are more representative of what most vistors will see... a tantalizing peek-a-boo show as clouds swirl and alternately obscure and reveal details of the peaks.
The road finally curves down to the picture-perfect trekkers' haven, El Chalten, tucked up in a protected valley under towering Fitz Roy.
