How to get there:
A reference location is Perito Moreno on Hwy. 40 where Hwy. 43 forks west to serve
the border crossing to Chile. Continue to the border town Los Antiguos. This is the
last place where one may find any services. Locate Hwy. 41 forking south (left) shortly
before the border. This road is a good dirt road, it follows the border staying just
east of several mountains. Continue to the location S47.03566, W71.81076, elevation near
1400 meter. This is a good area to park off the road and serves as a reasonable trailhead.
The summit is about 9 kilometer directly east, thus this ascent is a full day if attempted as
a single day trip.
Route description:
The first leg of this route is to get into the valley just north of Cerro Rincon, about
5.5 kilometer, straight line going a little south of east, when measured from the trailhead.
If you consult the tracks posted on Peakbagger, the return track is likely best since it
avoids a section with talus. One needs to cross a couple of local valleys in order to enter
the correct valley about 3 kilometer from the trailhead.
After getting into the correct valley, continue gently uphill as the route curves more north, then
turn sharply right to climb more east (key exit) to exit near location S47.05514, N71.70264, elevation about 2450 meter.
This exit v allley is pretty obvious, the on ly way to reach higher terrain on your right (east) side.
The route now turns more left, crossing east of north for about 2.5 kilometer. You will enter a pretty flat beginning of
the glacier. On the glacier, gradually climb (left), but only towards the end of the traverse. Aim for location
S47.03408, W71.69420, elevation near 2600 meter. With visibility, this
should be a pretty obvious notch in the ridge ahead.
Cross over here and do an ascending traverse, the terrain is fairly loose, some care is needed. This traverse is about
300 meter (direct line). You may end up on the main (north) ridge a little below the summit. In that case, just turn left
and ascend to the summit. Comments:
I had limited information about this ascent, but it did look like a very full day. We had driven on hwy. 40, south
the day before. A market was in full swing in Los Antiguos, a short break there with some local food. We continue
to the trailhead and camped right next to the road.
We started at 0615, the going was easy until we ran into bad talus that slowed us down, before we could do
a small descent into the correct valley. The next section was more agreeable to hike and we soon observed
what seemms like the only reasonable exit up and out of this valley. We had strong wind, strong enough to
influence balance and progress. With fog, we had no view whatsoever, careful navigation was needed. We hit the
glacier and started the traverse. No need to rope up, hardly any crevasses. Crampons were useful as we had to side-hill,
more so after an easy beginning. We reached the notch, removed crampons and continued the final ascending traverse
on a mix of scree and talus. Finally, arriving at the summit
at 1300, it had taken us 6:45. No good weather,
wind and fog, we left after 10 minutes.
The return took almost as long, my left foot got painful, quite unexpected. We were back at 19:15 for an
overall trip of 13 hours. We next continued south searching for
a place to car camp. Thanks to Michael for
good company and some patience as my return hike slowed down towards the end of the day.
