The locals said we were idiots…

As I sit in the hostel, working towards my 5th cup of tea of the day, I look out the window at the weather. An oddly warm feeling passes through me, nothing says home to a British person like tea and terrible weather. Since returning from my Fitz Roy hike, it’s not stopped raining and blowing a gale. I’m waiting out the weather here in hopes of starting the famous Huemul (Weh-mool) Circuit. It’s a wild route into Patagonia, complete with 65km of poorly marked trail, 4 Tyrolean Traverses, exposed passes and 2 days alongside the largest glacier in the world outside of Antarctica. It’s far too early in the season for it, but the forecast looks promising and it’s not like I have anything better to do, so I’m waiting.

After a few days, it feels like I’m becoming part of the furniture at the hostel. Most people arrive and disappear in 2 or 3 days, and I’ve become one of those weird guys who says they’ve been here over a week. I’m off to the reception desk to extend my stay for yet another night and I venture via my dorm first. I notice a new bag sat there and its owner perched on his bed. Leo comes from Brazil and seemingly, is as mad as me and here for Huemul. Excitedly, we decide to team up and instantly start dreaming out the perfect trip. The forecast is terrible for a few more days but Leo has a plane to catch on Sunday and the four days means we need to start tomorrow. We head straight over to a gear shop to ask about rental of equipment for the Tyroleans. Fortunately, I speak little Spanish but I get the gist of what is being told to Leo by the lady in the shop. It appears we are idiots and ‘hate ourselves’. Having seen the weather we completely agree. The wind at the high pass is holding steady nearly 60ks and the chill is in the negative double digits. We tell her we’ll think about it, but know really that we aren’t leaving tomorrow.

The next morning, with the forecasted 15cm of rain well on its way to being fulfilled, we head across Chalten to the trailhead and visitor centre. The outlook is again quite bleak, we are told of thick snow at the pass, but the reality is no one knows the condition because no one has been stupid enough to go there yet this year. The ranger refuses to make any recommendations on whether we should or should not go however. What is clear by this point is that Leo will not be able to make the full loop with his timings, so will turn around at the pass (if we even make it). We agree I’ll decide whether to continue on the day.

When Thursday finally comes round, the rain has stopped and the mountains are almost visible again. We spend the morning preparing our backpacks and filling our bellies with a nutritious breakfast and head off around 11am. We take the 20 minute stroll to the other side of Chalten and join the start of our trail. With it being easy going and the weather gentle, I say “To be honest, I don’t know what all the fuss was about.” Leo (explaining that Brazilians are very superstitious) tells me to shut up. We plod onwards, stopping to de-layer briefly and accidentally flash some very unexpected passers-by who have come to a viewpoint on the track. Whilst stripping, Leo sings a song about not wanting to be French, as a Brit I happily concur. Continuing with my positive outlook, I elect to strip right down to my shorts. I don’t have to wait long until I regret this decision as we hit the snow line at an altitude of only 700m. The track quickly disappears and turns into a swamp, my trail shoes quickly become sodden and my feet cold. It’s not long before we begin wading through deeper and deeper snow, a level of activity which keeps even my bare, snow-kissed legs warm. The going is hard and slow, and my ETA in tonight’s camp looks unlikely. We finally break through the trees into an open plateau. Still positive, I suggest that perhaps that was the worst of it and maybe the snow has caught in the forest. Not at all. We spend the next 2km wading through knee to waist deep snow at a rate slower than 1km/h. Being so exposed, we are occasionally hit by snowy gusts that all but stop us in our tracks until they pass. After what feels like a few days effort, we make it over the top and back into the tree line on the other side of the hill. Downhill through the snow is easier on the lungs but rougher on the joints. A twisted knee or ankle here would not go down well with the local rescue teams. We do get a wonderful view of Huemul and the valley ahead however.

We finally break through the worst of the snow and get to enjoy a few more freezing swamps when Leo announces his feet are very cold. Given our very first conversation together was around climbing in Peru, where he got frostbite in his toe, this is a slight cause for concern. We agree the best course of action now is to carry onto camp (still a few hours away) and warm up there. With less than an hour of daylight to spare, we finally make it and find a spot to pitch our two tents. Camp is made quietly and we cook dinner. Leo is amazed/horrified by my ramen with a dollop of peanut butter and politely refuses my offer to try it. Fortunately, by this point his feet are much better and I am much relieved. As the sun sets, it gets cold and we say good night and retire to our tents. For everything you read of Huemul, day one is meant to be the easy one.

Awakening almost 12 hours of perfect sleep later, I realise just how much of an effort yesterday was. As I make my cup of tea and continue my dolloping of peanut butter (this time on wraps) for breakfast, I tell Leo that after what we had at just 1000m it’s unlikely that I’ll make it over the pass (1500m) and I’ll return to this camp with him. This means we can leave most our stuff here, staying lightweight to give us the best chance of making it to the pass. We finish up with breakfast and set off into another beautiful sunny day. As we pass a beach area alongside the lake, the conversation turns to whether one could realistically hold a Thai-style Full Moon Party here. We agree the logistics would be difficult but the result likely quite epic.

A few kilometres later we hit the first (and for us, the only) Tyrolean line of the trip. There’s a sigh of relief when we see the pulley is on the correct side, and we take a moment to figure everything out. A few screwgates and a safety line later, I’m on my way. Going this way is the ‘uphill’ direction so it’s nice to feel a burn in my arms for a change. I’m particularly smug when my plan to bring the bags across using the pulley works out a treat and Leo swiftly follows on the third trip. We are certain no one is coming behind us so I tie up the pulley, ensuring the wind doesn’t entice it on a journey back downhill leaving us stranded on our return.

The next leg of the trip can really only be described as quite awful. A small amount of climbing gets us to the view of the glacier. We decide not to go along the glacier edge but the undulating scree alongside it. Big mistake. What ensues is quite similar to yesterday, covering less than 1km/hr and severely regretting our life choices. Leo’s statement of “if this is a trail, then I’m Santa Claus” sums it up rather well.

Finally, the other side of the glacier is reached and we begin upwards, towards the famous Paso del Viento (Windy Pass). The snowline is higher in this side of the mountain but nonetheless, we hit it quickly. More worryingly, by this point the sun has been on it for a few hours and the slope is much steeper than yesterday’s joy. We plow on slowly but as the trail gets more and more exposed, we agree there’s little point or pleasure in continuing. We are both in trail shoes, with no rope or axe to arrest a fall, which feels not impossible on such wet, slippery snow. We can see all we could see from the pass, and it is beautiful. Huemul isn’t the poster boy of El Chalten but there’s something about it that makes me question whether it should be. The mountains and glaciers are huge and rugged. It is a landscape as wild as I have ever seen, and any place where you can safely say there is 30km of hard, snow covered trail to the nearest human is really quite special.

On our return, I make the bold decision to try out the glacier and in what is simultaneously a joy and highly frustrating - it’s absolutely fine, easy walking. Anyone doing the Huemul - walk on the glacier edge for the love of god. We are careful not to fall down any crevasses but the few that are present are clear and obvious and easily navigable. Along the way we keep glancing at the steep, screey slopes we had traversed a few hours back and regularly share the comment “what the fuck were we doing up there?” Joining the scree for the last section (where the glacier runs out) reminds us one more time of its joy and before we know it we hit the Tyrolean  (with pulley still tied nicely). With more time, I take the opportunity to position myself for some pro shots of Leo making the traverse and we tidy up and head back to camp. Stopping only to admire our future Full Moon Party beach once more. That night, we discuss music. What we like, what we don’t like, what it means to us and Leo shares some Brazilian favourites with some quite pretty lyrics. We’ve discussed ‘Into the Wild’ a fair bit over the days and I am astounded to see he has the soundtrack downloaded on his phone. We eat tea and chat some more to the backing of Eddie Vedder, and all is well.

Day 3 is really just Day 1 in reverse. The sun is shining, and the walk through the valley is glorious. The walk over the hill through the deep snow is somewhat improved, as we’ve deliberately hit it early to avoid it softening. That said, it is still miserably hard and slow. An embargo is made on mentioning any form of pints or steak at this point until we are within sight of Chalten. Unsurprisingly we are both thinking mostly of these two things. Otherwise, the walking is fairly uneventful. Leo carries on singing his song about not wanting to be French. I return with various songs that pop into my head, usually loosely associated to whatever we have just discussed. I regularly say ‘ta’ (thank you) whenever I pass him, he announces later that he had no fucking clue what I was saying. A similar reaction was also provided when I described my shoes as ‘sodden’.

At one point, I ask “would you rather have done the full circuit, or done what we did and saw what we saw?” Unanimously of course, we both pick our journey every time. The landscape, the views and the sheer isolation has made it unforgettable.

And the battle of it all, well that just means that when we hit Chalten, arrive at a pub at exactly 1559 (happy hour starts at 1600), sit down with a view of Fitz Roy and start on the first (of what turned out to be many) cold tap pints, it is all the sweeter. And as I’m sat there, sipping away, I’m reminded of a lyric from an old song I first heard way back in my teenage years:

“Leave the morning to the morning.

Yes pain can be killed,

with Aspirin tablets and Vitamin pills.

But memories of hope,

and glorious defeat.

Are a little bit harder to beat.”

Waking up the next morning, following a significantly extended happy hour, I think I could do with the Aspirin and Vitamins. Otherwise, I feel that our memories of hope and a most glorious defeat surely will be hard to beat.