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El Chaltén - A Hiker's Paradise

  • Morgan A.
  • Mar 14
  • 5 min read

We spent a week in our new favorite mountain town - El Chaltén, Patagonia, Argentina. This is a place I could see myself going back to time and time again. A quick list of my favorite things about this magical town:

  1. No rental car needed.

  2. The food is incredible.

  3. You can make this very budget-friendly or go all-in.

  4. Coffee and empanadas. Need I elaborate?



Contents


Getting to El Chaltén

So I'll admit, getting to Patagonia makes for a long travel day. You must first get to Buenos Aires which is already almost an 11 hour flight from the southern US. Then it is a 3 hour flight to El Calafate followed by a 3 hour bus ride to El Chalten. Oof.


We decided to take a long layover in Buenos Aires to go on a city bike tour and get some sleep in a real bed. I would highly recommend at least one night in Buenos Aires, probably more as we actually loved this city. We aren't typically too intrigued by cities but Buenos Aires is beautiful, clean, and full of history. The city was full of green spaces where many people were just enjoying the outdoors. I didn't expect to be so impressed by the city so I do regret not spending another day here at least so we'll have to go back.


Once you get to the El Calafate airport, you can rent a car but honestly, you won't need it once you're in El Chaltén. You can book a ticket on a bus (we chose Chaltén Travel) and the bus picks you up right at the airport to take you to the station in El Chaltén. The bus was very clean and comfortable and very easy to find.



El Chaltén - The Food

I'm not joking when I say you can walk from one end of El Chaltén to the other in 20 minutes. Our AirBNB was right at the top of one of the main streets and just a 2 minute walk from the other main street. Both streets have food options and coffee shops galore. You can walk down either and find happy hours and good food no matter where you stop.


Side note - you may read online that nobody takes card in El Chaltén. That is outdated information. Everybody takes card now and we had no problems with cell reception or wifi. This town has seen very rapid growth over the last 10 years and it is a very young town so from what I understand, businesses pretty recently started taking cards. If you do need cash, there is a Western Union in town but go right when it opens and bring a photocopy of your passport.


A few of our favorite restaurants we tried:

  1. La Lomiteria. They serve huge sandwiches and fries. We ended up going twice it was so good.

  2. La Cervecería Chaltén. Good beer, good vibes, huge empanadas.

  3. Parrilla La Oveja Negra. Unique and local dishes. More of a splurge meal but very tasty.

  4. Paso del Torre. Local grill that was right around the corner from our house. Tiny open-air place with a limited menu but they grill all the meat fresh and the prices were very good.


Our favorite cafes:

  1. La Chocolateria Josh Aike. You must go here for an alfajore. The best alfajore I had the entire trip.

  2. Banneton Panaderia. Amazing pastries, coffee, and bread. I wish we would have found this place sooner honestly.

  3. PAISA High Mountain Coffee. Cute coffee shop. We only got coffee here but they also have pastries that looked good.

  4. La Roti. So many empanada choices, would recommend.


This one isn't a restaurant or a cafe but if you're wanting ice cream after a long hike, which you probably will, go to Heladería Domo Blanco. Incredible.




Hiking in El Chaltén

What I love most about El Chaltén is that there are trailheads in town. At the end of the main street is the main trailhead into Los Glaciares National Park. There is another trailhead on the other side of town as well. All of the trails were very easy to follow and well-maintained.


There is an entrance fee to hike in the national park but we started our hikes before 7:30 am before they opened so there was nobody there to collect the fee. You can purchase tickets online beforehand or at the main trailhead. There was no ticket booth at the Torre Lagoon trailhead.


We did five hikes while in El Chaltén:

  1. Cerro Torre Viewpoint. This was our first full day in town so we decided to take this 3.5 mile trail up to a viewpoint to stretch our legs. This is also the first section of the Torre Lagoon hike we did a few days later.

  2. Laguna Capri, This was about a 6 mile hike to a beautiful lake with views of Fitz Roy. Again, this includes the first section of the hike to Laguna de Los Tres.

  3. Torre Lagoon. This is where things got interesting. About an 11.5 mile hike to a lake with wonderful views pretty much the whole way. What made it interesting was the wind. The last half a mile to the lake was pretty exposed and the wind was whipping. We tried to walk along the ridge around the lake and I almost got blown over the edge sooo we turned around and just went back. You can tell that this is pretty common because there were little make-shift rock walls all around the lake for people to sit behind to block the wind.

  4. Laguna de Los Tres. The most iconic hike in El Chaltén. A 14 mile hike where the last mile or so to the top is pretty steep and challenging but so worth it. Walking through the meadow before the ascent was my favorite part though. The views of Fitz Roy were incredible the entire time. It was cloudy once we finally reached the lake so we couldn't see the peak but it was still breathtaking.

  5. Cañón Río de las Vueltas. A short little hike we did on our last day with a view of the city and the mountains at the top.




Other Adventures

There are plenty of other activities in El Chaltén aside from hiking. They have river rafting, horesback riding, rock climbing. We chose to spend one our days rock climbing and let me tell you, this was probably one of the most adrenaline-pumping things I've ever done. Yes, you are hooked in and falling is not likely but still, You're climing up the side of a cliff with your bare hands, trying to find purchase on any little crevice or rock you can. Exhilerating? Yes. Terrifying? Also yes.




As you can tell, we had the best time in Argentina. It was the perfect blend of activity in the morning followed by a slow afternoon. El Chaltén is the most incredible mountain town but I'm open to suggestions in my search to top it, which seems pretty impossible right now. What are some of your favorite mountain towns?

 
 
 

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