El Chaltén Winter 2025
April 24 - June 13, 2024
After my second trip to the base of Cerro Torre, I stayed in El Chalten for almost two more months living at a much slower pace. I found a cheap place to stay and developed a meaningful friendship with an incredibly sweet cat there. She would come into my room and snuggle almost every night. I got a month pass to the climbing gym in town and enjoyed lifting weights consistently for the first time in years, while also doing some work remotely. I was hoping for much more snow than there ended up being—it wasn’t a terribly productive two months in terms of photography but I still got out to shoot a bit.
In early May, I spent a night partway up Loma del Diablo overlooking the Cagliero Valley. My ambitious drone flying habits finally caught up to me and I watched helplessly as my drone lost battery and plummeted into the forest never to be seen again.
Ty and I did a quick trip in mid-May with the intention of climbing Mojon Rojo. The weather ended up being quite shitty and we spent a miserable night in the tent at Laguna Sucia before bailing and walking back to town the next day.
A week later there was a promising weather window following a substantial snowstorm. Ty and I went out for a few days and camped on the Marconi Glacier. It’s fun and inspiring to go out with another person who is at least as obsessive as I am about mountain photography.
My last little outing was a day trip partway of Pliegue Tumbado.
I felt an intense pang of grief during my last couple days in El Chalten, like I knew I’d be leaving behind a piece of myself here, or like there was something important here that I’d tasted but not completely. I didn’t feel ready to leave but at the same time felt like I’d stayed too long. I don’t know exactly, but I have felt a profound connection to this place from the moment I first laid eyes on Fitz Roy in February 2024 from the bus window way across the grasslands. This connection and understanding has continued to unfold over the six total months I’ve spent here, giving renewed clarity to how I wish to spend my precious time on this planet. One of the things this place seems to have shown me is that these mountains model some essence or posture I’m meant to embody in my own life. My practice going forward seems to be about remembering and coming home to this, shedding the layers of conditioning obscuring it. I’m grateful for the experiences I’ve been lucky enough to have with this special landscape and am curious how this thread will continue to unfold in my life whether or not I ever return to Patagonia.
