Introduction
Laguna de Los Tres is the closest place to the wall of mount Fitz Roy, one of the most famous mounts in Argentina. While Fitz Roy mount can be seen even from El Chalten, the trek and later on the lagoon are giving different insight and gorgeous landscape all along the day.
There are 2 ways to go to Laguna de Los Tres in one day:
- El Pilar – Laguna de Los Tres – El Chalten
- El Chalten – Laguna de Los Tres – El Chalten
The first option has different trail in the morning and afternoon. In order to get to El Pillar, a shuttle is needed.
The second option is completely free but will make you hike back and forth the same trail.
We opted for the first option that we will describe now.
Table of Contents
Getting to El Pilar
The simplest way is to ask your hostel/hotel to organise the transfer from your accommodation to El Pilar. We organised then one day in advance. There are two departures in the morning, 8am or 9:30am. It costs 500 pesos per person.
Around 8am a van picked us up from our hostel. At this time there was already one passenger in the van. We kept on picking up more people, but it wasn’t crowded. The van could welcome 15 passengers, but we were 4.
The road to El Pilar is a dirt road with lots of bump. But it takes approx. 30min to get there.
Laguna de Los Tres
El Pilar to Camping Via Glacier Piedras Blancas
The hike is not too long and take between 3h30 to 4h. It is also relatively easy from El Pilar to the camping area. Along this trail, you will have the possibility to see the Glaciar Piedras Blancas and its lagoon.
The end of the El Pilar trail is the camping where the trail from El Chalten also arrived. All together in the morning, we came across 2 groups of peoples with guide and some hikes but globally it wasn’t crowded with people.
Trail to the lagoon
From the camping, we kept on till Rio Bianco which was also quite easy. Rio Bianco used to be a checkpoint for earlier hike. But now there is not much left and the small shelter there was closed. There are also some kind of WC there, but we would prefer to use natural toilet than those ones.
From there it became challenging at to reach the lagoon it is 400m ascent over 1km.
We started the trail at 8:38am, made it to the camping by 10:30am, Rio Bianco by 10:45am and arrived at the lagoon around 11:50am.
Trail to El Chalten
When we left the lagoon, it started to get more crowded with hikers that started they day later. Also, all along the way to El Chalten there were more people compared to our morning trail.
Again, from the lagoon to Rio Bianco, it is a bit hard has it the trail is going down but later on till El Chalten, it is a really enjoyable walk.
We were back at Rio Bianco by 1:15pm and out of the trail at the end of El Chalten by 3:50pm. From there we still had 2km back till our hostel that was on the other side of town. We ended up arriving at 4:15pm.
When we finally arrived at our hostel, the cloud was gone and the sky blue. Yet, we don’t regret to have seen Fitz Roy with clouds.
“With age, comes wisdom. With travel, comes understanding.” – Sandra Lake
Where to stay in El Chalten
- Budget: Lo de Guille
- Mid-Range: Complejo “Nahuel Pan “
- Luxurious: Destino Sur Hotel & Spa de Montaña
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