Hike to (near) Laguna de los Tres

Our small hotel (Hosteria Senderos) offers a simple but filling buffet breakfast of fresh croissants and other baked goods, fruit, cereals, and ham & cheese. A good start for a day of hiking.

Our guide, Sebastian, met us at our hotel and we drove in a small bus shared with other hikers to the trailhead — about a half an hour out of town. Rain was expected today and the peaks were not so clear, but the day started off promising with a full rainbow as we started our hike.

The plan was to do a 13-mile trek up to a high lake honoring three early explorers in the area (hence, “Laguna de los Tres”), one of which was Saint-Exupéry, author of The Little Prince. Because of the iffy weather and tricky trail conditions, we cut out the last 2 miles and 1,500 feet of elevation gain (no one was too disappointed!).

The rain mostly held off, and we had natural blow-drying for the light rain we got. We had fantastic views of Piedras Blancas glacier, we had lunch at Laguna Capri, and our trail followed the Rio Blanco on the way up through the forest, and on the way back to town we followed the braided Rio Viedma.

Sebastian is a trained mountain guide (3 years of school), and had lots to share about glaciers, trees and animals—all in a very conversational way, not like a lecture. We learned things about him, too, like how he has just opened a bakery in town, which we visited as we returned from our hike.Read more