Mount Fitz Roy and around travel guide

The soaring granite towers of Mount Fitz Roy rise up from the smooth baize of the flat steppe, more like a ziggurat than a mountain, surrounded by a consort of jagged snow-clad spires, with a stack of spun-cotton cloud hanging constantly above them. Cerro Fitz Roy (3405 m) is one of the most magnificent mountains in the world, towering above the nearby peaks, its polished granite sides too steep for snow to settle. Its Tehuelche name was El Chaltén, (‘smoking mountain’ or ‘volcano’), perhaps because occasionally at sunrise the pink towers are briefly lit up bright red for a few seconds, the amanecer de fuego (‘sunrise of fire’). Perito Moreno named the peak after the captain of the Beagle who saw it from afar in 1833, and it was first climbed by a French expedition in 1952. It stands in the northern end of Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, at the western end of Lago Viedma, 230 km north of El Calafate. Around it are Cerros Torre (3102 m), Poincenot (3002 m), and Saint-Exupery (2558 m), in an area of lakes and glaciers that makes marvellous trekking country, every bit as satisfying as Torres del Paine across the border.