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 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.
For those reasons, El Chaltén was named Argentina's Trekking Capital or Capital Nacional del Trekking. In 1985, Argentina and Chile had a border dispute over El Chaltén. There was no war, and El Chaltén was awarded to Argentina. Homes, government buildings, and flags of Argentina went up to mark the city settlement.
The town is located at the edge of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field and about 350 inhabitants live there throughout all the seasons of the year. Snow and ice mostly fence the town, and the homes are low structured with roads mostly made of rocks and dirt.

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.

Tourism

The village has commercial camping grounds, mostly for backpackers.

Climate

El Chaltén has an unpredictable subpolar oceanic climate with subantarctic continental 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 during the day and below during the night. Frost can and does occur in the summer too. Winters bring snow in moderate quantities, and average temperatures around during the day and during the night; however, the coldest nights are much colder than this. Spring and fall are variable, but generally cold as well.