Discovering things for yourself is a great feeling, especially when in the past it seemed all but barely possible. I remember when reading Blixen's 'Babette's Feast' I could have never imagined that I would ever try Veuve Clicqout champagne (not millesime 1860 but still - bourgogne from Clos de Vougeot still to go).
The same feeling I had when I watched for the first time Herzog's 'Scream of Stone' about climbers reaching Cerro Torre peak in El Chalten. The movie is from 1991 and was mostly shot in the area. It seemed like a profound wilderness, isolated from civilization and completely subdued to the forces of nature. Chalten in indigenous people language means 'smoking mountain' due to clouds often covering the top of Monte Fitz Roy, the highest in th area. In 1991 El Chalten was just a small pueblo with few cabins only reachable in warmer months - now it is sizeable hub for gore-tex crowd. But people then and now come for the same - unique mountains shooting up out of Patagonia's plains on one side and Southern Patagonian Ice Field on the other. And it is a great place for hiking tourists (like me) and professional climbers alike. Some of the climbs are the most challenging in the world, not only for the sheer difficulty of the mountains' vertical slopes but also for the changing weather and hundred-knots strong winds. Now when some days over 100 people reach the summit of Mount Everest, Cerro Torre (only 3.128 m high) and slightly higher Monte Fitz Roy are often successfully ascended only once a year.
Yesterday there was blue sky all around but Cerro Torre was all covered with clouds. It took 4-hour patient waiting for clouds to clear up to get just the glimpse of what the mountain is really like. I will probably :-) never climb this mountain, but by seeing something you always thought of, it just makes you want more. So next time no hostels, just tents, no trails, just tours deeper into the valleys - all just to get closer, to see the sunrise over Cerro Torre and make the relationship even closer...
Photo: Cerro Torre - left top, Monte Fitz Roy - right down, the rest me ice climbing
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