tourism city

El Chalten

Argentina · South America

Score

135

Difficulty

1.00

Lit count

Verified count

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Place in Santa Cruz, Argentina

About El Chaltén

El Chaltén is a small mountain village in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. It is located on the riverside of Rio de las Vueltas, within the Los Glaciares National Park near the base of Cerro Torre and Cerro Fitz Roy spires, both popular for climbing. It is 220 kilometres (140 mi) north of El Calafate. It is also a popular base for hiking numerous trails, such as those to the base of surrounding peaks and glacial lakes, such as Laguna Torre and Laguna de los Tres.

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Etymology

"Chaltén" is a Tehuelche word meaning "smoking mountain". In 1877, Argentine explorer Francisco Moreno named mount Chaltén as mount Fitz Roy, in honour of Robert FitzRoy, captain during the Second voyage of HMS Beagle in the 1830s. It has its own flag and coat of arms.

Climate

El Chaltén has an unpredictable subpolar oceanic climate (Köppen Cfc) with subantarctic continental (Dfc) influences, with precipitation distributed on a large number of days despite not being nearly as heavy as in Chilean Patagonia; bad weather is exceedingly common. Summers experience long daylight hours, very windy weather, and cool temperatures, mostly below 18 °C (64.4 °F) during the day and below 5 °C (41 °F) during the night. Frost can and does occur in the summer too. Winters bring snow in moderate quantities, and average temperatures around 3 °C (37.4 °F) during the day and −4 °C (24.8 °F) during the night; however, the coldest nights are much colder than this. Spring and fall are variable, but generally cold as well.

Tourism

The village has commercial camping grounds, mostly for backpackers.