Conquer No Mountains

TREKKING PART 2

Meditation of the day: “It is not the mountains we conquer but ourselves.” -Sir Edmund Hillary

Started with this picture because it was hands-down the best view from a hike I’ve ever been on. The picture doesn’t begin to capture the feeling of being there. But I’ll get to all that.

After a few days of trekking, we were feeling like pros. My knees constantly ached slightly, and it felt like my hiking boots had become permanent–and incredibly smelly–extensions of my feet.

Los Glaciares National Park is in a remote part of southern Argentina. It is three hours away from the nearest city (El Calafate) and the “town” only exists during the tourist season- thus, it had a very different feel than the other places we visited. This one oozed commercialism. It seemed to be devoid of any real Patagonian culture (or street signs, for that matter), but it also felt very safe and clean. There weren’t many stray dogs, for once.

We started out with a moderately steep hike to a viewpoint overlooking the town and the surrounding mountains. This was the first time we felt the famed Patagonian wind. It seemed to blow in every direction all at once. As I tried to ascend a rock face, the wind gusts caused me to fall over.

Even with the wind, it was an enjoyable hike. The view at the top was great- one the one side, there was a view of Argentina’s largest lake (pictured from El Calafate in my last post), and on the other side was the town and a few mountains in the background. The famous mountains that loom over the hills and the town were obscured by clouds, unfortunately.

The next day, the wind died down enough for us to do the famous hike of Los Glaciares, Mount Fitz Roy. The crown jewel region, it offered a 24km hike to the best views of the range. Now, let’s be clear: 24km is a lot of hiking, particularly when the last kilometer includes a 400m elevation gain. We woke up early so we would have enough time to finish the hike before nightfall. After a breakfast of toast (something about this toast was incredible though- not sure why, but I think it was my favorite toast ever), we were ready to trek through the woods and cross streams and climb mountains. And we did all those things over the next eight hours. The path was diverse; sometimes we walked through thick forest, sometimes we crossed plains, and sometimes we reached thick rivers.

The entire hike, we only got brief glimpses of the mountains to which we were hiking, because they were usually obscured by thick clouds. At the last kilometer, when the path becomes incredibly strenuous, the mountains seemingly disappeared behind the daunting hill we had summit. After an hour of climbing, suddenly we had made it to the top. The clouds cleared a minute after we arrived, finally giving us an unobscured view. The best view of any hike I’d ever been on stood before me. It was absolutely breathtaking and otherworldly. I stood there, incredibly humbled, and I felt sufficiently insignificant. I was reminded of the quote I included at the start of this post- how can I use all of these experiences to grow as a human being? How can I conquer myself?

It was so incredible, we had a hard time leaving, but we still had a long way to go before nightfall. After a lunch at the most beautiful picnic spot ever, it was time to head down. We made really good time on the way down, perhaps energized by that amazing view. It was a very long day, so needless to say, we slept very well that night.