Day 4: Return from Huemul - tough ending

We started relatively early in order to come back to El Chaltén in time to find a hostel for the night. The first part of the day was a moderate but long hike along the steppe - where we lost our path a couple of times and performed some detours. But that’s what we wanted instead of an overcrowded national park :-)

It was considerably warmer today because of the lower altitude and being on the less windy side of the mountain. The problem we had was that we didn’t have access to a fresh water source at our latest camp site and drank/used for cooking all the 3 liters we had :-/ It took us 3.5 hours to get to a spring where we finally drank and refilled. From there, we could already see the big river which we needed to either cross on foot or use the zip line - depending on water levels.

When we arrived, the water was moving fast but we thought it to be refreshing and okay to try it further down in the delta where the Rio Túnel river streams into the Lago Viedma. Said and done :-) although both of us had thigh-high water marks :-) Once crossed, we were suddenly called by a woman in utter panic who was running back and forth on the other side and then came running - partially falling and on all fours - through the water. An accident had happened at the zip line and a man was hanging still over the water, not moving. We quickly got going to help but, fortunately did not need to as he had apparently mobilized some last power to pull himself over...

From here, we walked about 1 hour to the bay and 2 more hours to El Chaltén, which was not difficult but it made for a very long day with 25km in total. We dutifully returned our registration to the rangers’ office to let them know we made it home safely and went into town. The fourth hostel finally had a bed (for 1 night) and we we happy to get a shower and have fuel up at the supermarket with Alfajores (Argentinian cake filled with caramel) and Schweppes Pomelo; hmmmm :-)Read more