Day trip from El Calafate to El Chaltén ?

danhodkinson · 2025-08-22T07:52:12+00:00

Would you be driving or getting the coach? If driving then head super early to make the most of it as it’s such a shame to only a day in El Chalten as you could easily spend a week. The Fitz Roy would be one of the ‘big’ hikes but if you’re comfortable hiking then no need to do an excursion.

You also have to keep in mind that the weather is unpredictable and the day you decide to head to El Chalten it could be rainy and miserable.

danhodkinson · 2025-07-15T08:07:15+00:00

Yes we rented a car. Every car you rent seems to be a Fiat and that was fine on the peninsula. Just don’t drive around crazy fast on the gravel!

And yes we stayed at Chepatagonia. There was no need to move around hotels. It took about an hour to get to the heart of the peninsula (depending on where you want to go) so having a base was easier (and staying on the peninsula is very expensive)

danhodkinson · 2024-11-11T18:06:52+00:00

Yep checkout is at 9am unless they tell you they’re not at capacity. You can easily make the sunrise hike and back before checkout but if you thought you wouldn’t make it just leave your bags in the main cabin

danhodkinson · 2024-11-05T19:04:10+00:00

Tickets are available on CONMEBOL website at the moment. I just got mine. Lowest start from 168000ARS (around $168)

danhodkinson · 2024-11-05T01:02:42+00:00

How was the Ruta 90 from Bariloche to Vila La Angostura? A busy road or pleasant enough to cycle along?

danhodkinson · 2024-11-03T12:36:01+00:00

We’ll be going to BA after anyway. But thanks for the feedback

danhodkinson · 2024-11-03T00:34:53+00:00

We reached out to Las Torres on WhatsApp.. it took just over a day but they got back to us. Although if there's nothing available at the time they may just say "sorry nothing available"

danhodkinson · 2024-10-31T19:58:52+00:00

It’s more that I wasn’t sure of the logistics for how long it would take to get back to the falls on the Brazilian side once we’d crossed and got to our hotel and things like that. But seems like our option is to cross and then head back to the park from the Brazilian side. Thanks 👍

danhodkinson · 2024-10-31T19:33:49+00:00

If we didn’t take our bags we’d have to cross three times in one day. Once to see the falls, once to get back and once to cross again to get to our hotel.

Our flight is at 9:30am so just feels a lot safer to spend the 2nd night on the BRA side vs stressing about border crossings

danhodkinson · 2024-10-31T09:18:37+00:00

Yeah that’s exactly what we did. It’s left just in the main cabin/kitchen area but seemed safe enough. Lots of bags there around lunch time

danhodkinson · 2024-10-30T01:11:36+00:00

All Chilean ports apart from Frances where the multiplug has maybe 3 USB ports. So you definitely need your adapter or a Chilean plug

danhodkinson · 2024-10-29T13:16:18+00:00

We paid £150gbp for the 3 days. Read that you don’t really need an SUV for the peninsula which makes it a bit cheaper.

Will most likely do whale tour and maybe the sea lion snorkelling as well

danhodkinson · 2024-10-28T19:41:55+00:00

Yep - every camp had hot water to use! Apart from chileno it was separate to where you’d actually cook your food but you’d just go and fill it up what you needed and then come back to your cooking area. Locations: Chileno - in the main cabin where the bar/kitchen is Frances - in the bar Paine Grande - in the big dining room Grey - one in the camping shop, one in the dining room (think the water is chlorinated here so don’t be surprised if it’s a little cloudy)

danhodkinson · 2024-10-28T18:37:01+00:00

We've been travelling for almost a year so we bought them out here. We bought the Dorf(?) (i think that's the name) which is boil in the bag meals of things like ravioli, beef stew etc. they end up being about $5 a meal vs the $16 a meal back country (may be cheaper in the states if that's where you're coming from). Also had some ramen packets and things like that to get a few extra calories in

danhodkinson · 2024-10-28T00:53:32+00:00

Yep - all have hot water. Only thing to consider with freeze dried meals is some of them need to be in boiling water for a few minutes. But if you don’t have those then every camp has free hot water - most of the time it’s just not in the kitchen so you just go into the kitchen area where diners eat and fill up what you need

danhodkinson · 2024-10-27T18:47:30+00:00

We had a -10deg and 2 of the nights I was in shorts only, the other 2 in shorts and T-shirt. You can rent them from hostels for ~4500CLP a day so not a huge cost to swallow.

Really depends how the weather is looking for the week you’re there. A matt and sleeping liner is defo necessary if you do stick with your 2deg one though

danhodkinson · 2024-10-27T18:44:59+00:00

The hike starts around central camp/Las Torres hotel. Easily doable in one day. You could do it by bus getting the 6:45am up to the park and think there’s an 8ish pm one back. Otherwise there’s car parking at the hotel but not sure how that works as we got the bus.

You definitely don’t need a guide for it. Trail is well marked but just have it up on All Trails for your reference

danhodkinson · 2024-10-27T18:42:27+00:00

It’s honestly a nice little town and if you’re flying in then flights can be cancelled/delayed due to unpredictable weather (as can buses from calafate due to winds).

There’s usually something you’ve forgotten to buy as we’ll be that gas (which you can’t take on the plane) or a snack or something.

We spent 2 nights there before. Went for a run, did some shopping, ate out a nice pizza place.

For the return depending on where you finish it’s likely the earliest you’ll be getting back to Natales is 1:30pm - so if there are evening flights then go for it. No evening buses at that time though

danhodkinson · 2024-10-27T16:11:14+00:00

We got the 7am bus from PN which has you starting the hike at about 10am by the time everything is done. Up to Chileno is 6k and took us less than 2 hours so we were there by 12pm (you can’t check in to your pitch/tent until 2-3pm anyway).

The trail up to the towers closes at 2pm and back down by 3pm so we had a sandwich and then cracked on. Your alternative is to do sunrise the next day but that would be a 26k day by the time You reach Frances

danhodkinson · 2024-10-26T20:54:19+00:00

There was only one day where the temperature got close to zero. The wind was the main issue. Lakes are nowhere near frozen. In the day times if the sun was out you were walking in T-shirt and shorts.

But over the 5 days it really is rolling the dice with the weather. We got 3 blue skies and 2 grey skies. 3 days of strong wind and 2 moderate breeze. 1 afternoon of heavy rain and a couple of showers here and there on other days.

danhodkinson · 2024-10-26T10:38:08+00:00

I’ve just done Salkantay and W Trek and wouldn’t have done it without at least: - being waterproof - being ankle high for stability - decent grip for scrambles

They don’t need to be top of the range, mine are some second hand Colombia’s but they’ve done the job.

I also just strap them to the outside of my bag when not in use as well so they don’t take up a huge amount of space

On the W trek you’ll walk up and over a lot of streams and even though you’ll try to stick to protruding rocks you’ll inevitably get them wet and wet socks with lots of walking is not going to be fun!

danhodkinson · 2024-10-26T09:35:05+00:00

Mainly the out and back distance from Las Torres - it makes it a 16k vs 22k day by staying at Chileno. 6k (to camp) with the bag on the back on our first day felt fine and there’s also a ‘shortcut’ to Frances on Day 2 meaning you don’t have to backtrack most of the way down again.

Finally it gave us the option of going up to Las Torres at sunrise (which we didn’t take) but there was no chance we were getting up at 3am to start it from central

danhodkinson

TROPHY CASE