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Today we took a hike up to a viewpoint called Mirador de la Loma. The trail goes a bit further, you can hike up to a second view point on top of a mountain called Tumbado, but we stopped at the first view point and were rewarded with some fantastic views. The trailhead for the Tumbado hike is at the National Park visitor center in El Chaltén. As we walked to the start of the hike, I could see eight or nine condors sailing in the sky above the visitor center, (the Mirador Condores - the viewpoint of Condors - stands right behind the visitor center) - but by the time we actually got to the start, all of the big birds had disappeared. We just missed them. Like all hikes originating in El Chaltén, you must do some climbing as soon as you leave the town. This hike is uphill the whole distance, but if you stop where we did, the elevation gain is not too severe. We did have to stop at one point to shed some layers, because we were heating up on the uphill. We did see another condor sailing overhead as we walked, so that was exciting. About half way up, there is a good viewpoint of FitzRoy. We got some photos, but didn't stay too long because there was a large hiking party already there. Just beyond the first viewpoint, the trail splits - we took the right fork and entered a forest. After a mile or two under the trees, we had climbed up to an alpine region above the treeline. From that point onward, we were in exposed surroundings, but it was a windless day (apparently this trail isn't recommended when the winds are gusting.) We left the ranger station at 9 A.M., and by noon we were at the Mirador de la Loma. The view from this vantage point is excellent. We could see the pinnacle of Cerro Torre. We could see the glaciers and Lago Torre. It was a nice place, we spent an hour up there - eating lunch, taking pictures and talking to a few other hikers - this was a popular spot on such a nice day - we saw several large parties arrive. Most people stopped where we did, but perhaps a quarter of them continued up the steep rocky side of Tumbado to the higher view point. It looked like it took half an hour to 45 minutes to do the additional climb up to the summit. On the hike back down, we stopped at an area that was labelled on our map as Zona De Fosiles - the Zone of Fossils. We spent another hour looking at rocks and had some good success at finding well preserved fossils. It looked like a marine layer, because we found fossilized shells that looked like mollusks. A couple of the fossils were clearly shells embedded in the rock. I wished we could have taken one of those home, but since we were in a National Park we left all the fossils in a pile beside the trail. (We didn't find all of the fossils, there were already five or six together in one heap, it was pretty clear they were placed there by a guide or ranger who frequently took hikers up to the viewpoint and would stop to examine the fossils. We added our finds to that pile.) On our way back down to El Chaltén, we saw another condor in flight. By 3:30 PM the hike was over. Another excellent day of hiking, and the successful hunting for fossils made it even more fun. We had a giant early dinner at the Don Guerro restaurant and returned to de lo Tomy for the night. Panorama Photos
MapsThe map of our hike 
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Click on any thumbnail to begin the slide show at that photograph Tumbado Photos
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