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The RP23 turns off the RN40 35km west of Tres Lagos, running parallel to the northern shore of Patagonia's third largest lake, Lago Viedma. From this position the Fitz Roy Massif rears up threateningly in the background. The northernmost section of the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares , the Fitz Roy sector, contains some of the most breathtakingly beautiful mountain peaks on the planet. Two concentric jaws of jagged teeth puncture the Patagonian sky, with the 3445-metre incisor of Monte Fitz Roy at the centre of the massif. This sculpted peak was known to the Tehuelche as El Chalten, "The Mountain that Smokes" or "The Volcano", due to the almost perpetual presence of a scarf of cloud attached in rakish fashion to its summit. It is not inconceivable, however, that the Tehuelche were using the term in a rather more metaphorical sense to allude to the fiery pink colour that the rock walls turn when struck by the first light of dawn. Francisco P. Moreno saw fit to baptize the pagan summit with the surname of the evangelical captain of the Beagle , who, with Charles Darwin, had viewed the Andes from a distance, after having journeyed up the Rio Santa Cruz by whaleboat to within 50km of Lago Argentino. Alongside Monte Fitz Roy rise Cerro Poincenot and Aguja Saint Exupery , whilst set behind them is the forbidding needle of Cerro Torre , a finger that stands in bold defiance of all the elements that the Southern Patagonian Icecap hurls against it. Though not as extensive or as famous globally as Chile's Torres del Paine, this area rivals it on most counts. Geologically, the two are in many ways sister parks, characterized by majestic spires of granite-like diorite, formed when the softer layers of rock that had covered these igneous intrusions eroded over the subsequent eighteen million years (twelve million in the case of Torres del Paine) to reveal their polished bones. The two massifs are afflicted by some of the most unpredictable - and frequently downright malevolent - weather you will come across, and many meticulously planned climbing expeditions have been foiled by the  © 2003 by Rough Guides Ltd. as trustee for its Authors. Published by Rough Guides. All rights reserved. Rough Guides name is a trademark of Rough Guides Ltd. Buy the book here!
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mountains' stubborn brew of sulky grey weather. When Darwin spoke of summits "occasionally peeping through their dusky envelope of clouds", he was conveying a generously pastoral effect that distance conferred. Some 77km after the RN40 turn-off, you cross the tumultous meltwaters of the Rio de las Vueltas . The park's information centre is a further 11km further on, and less than 1km past that, across the bridge over the Rio Fitz Roy, lies the village of El Chalten.
Your Tips For El Chalten and the Fitz Roy Massif
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