The Huemul Circuit - Day Three + Four

Day Three

After not covering much ground on day two, we had a massive day ahead of us. We commenced the day before sunrise – I think this was the fastest we had ever packed up!

The first part was finishing the ascent to the top of the mountain. It was spectacular watching the sunrise as we made the journey. It definitely lessened the blow of not completing day two in time – it would have been a beautiful site regardless, but seeing the first light hit the mountain peaks was something else.

After stopping to cook ham and cheese toasties for breakfast (a MILLION times nicer than our meal of pasta and tuna the night before), we made it to the top mid-morning. Technically we were behind our planned schedule already for the day, but it was too hard to not stop every few minutes to take in our surroundings!

The views at the top were PHENOMENAL. I didn’t know what to expect, but I felt like I had been transported to the Swiss Alps, with mountains surrounding us covered in snow. Once again, the pain of the journey to get there was entirely worth it. Immediately I thought “OK, I could do day two all over again if this was the reward”.

The descent back down the other side took a while as it was quite slippery, having been sunny for the last couple of days there was a lot of ice. I had wished that the National Park office hadn’t told us not to worry about crampons, as I think they would have helped a lot!

At the bottom, we came across a fully frozen over lake, that we stopped to play on for about half an hour. By this stage we were just ignoring the fact we weren’t even halfway through our planned day and still not even at the night two campsite yet!

We finally arrived at the night two campsite at about 2pm and stopped to have lunch there. I lucked out with trying to be healthy and packing an asparagus soup – it was absolutely awful, but I know I needed the fuel as we still had about 15km to cover so I painstakingly sipped my way through. The night two campsite was scenic enough, but I had much preferred the views of our makeshift campsite.

Day Four

Our final day – or at least we hoped, given we still had a lot of ground to cover!

It started with viewing another stunning sunrise, that made the fall foliage truly glow. The track down to the base of the mountain was not an easy one to descent – first we had to squeeze through overgrown vegetation with our big packs, then clamber down 650me across 2km. Some parts were so steep and rocky there were ropes tied to trees to help you down. Some of these ropes definitely looked like other hikers handy work opposed to part of the circuits construction. It was about halfway down that Tim bid farewell to his second hiking pole which snapped, so I gave him one of mine and navigated the rest of the way down with just one pole. (Actually, as it turns out I would not get said pole back for this hike or future hikes in El Chalten…).

Finally after about 2 hours of struggling down the mountain, we reached the official campsite for night three. I am so glad we did not attempt that descent in the dark the night prior, there is no way I would have made it down in one piece. We had a late breakfast at the lake next to the campsite, before officially starting our “day four” hike.

Thankfully, day four was a lot easier than the previous two days. It was mostly flat terrain, and the only difficult part was when we came to the other river crossing/zipline. It didn’t look as scary as the first one on day two, however it was a lot more difficult to manoeuvre. With having missed about 6 months’ worth of Pilates, my arm strength is, well, non-existent. Due to their being no slope across, it meant we had to pull ourselves 20 metres across the river on the wire. I got about halfway before I needed Tim to pull me the rest of the way in with the rope!

The rest of the afternoon was a pretty easy walk, mostly on the flat which was a nice change. However, it was starting to get dark, and we still had about 6km to go to the campsite. We reached another incline right as the sun was about to set – and it was a steep, scrambling incline that took us about 30 minutes to walk up. Just over the peak there was a campsite that was closed due to rejuvenation, but we made the decision to camp there opposed to risking our lives trying to climb down the other side of the mountain in pitch black.

All in all, we ended up doing a 12-hour day, with starting before sunrise and ending after sunset. Even though we didn’t quite reach our goal of trying to catch up on our progress, we gave it a decent effort without sacrificing the whole reason of doing the trek and enjoying our surroundings.

Before we’d left, we had asked a few people about how to get back to El Chalten once we had finished the hike. One popular option was to hitchhike from the boat ramp at the lake. I was so excited when the lake finally came into view – despite it being a relatively easy day once we had got off the mountain, it had been long. By that stage we had been hiking about 10 hours.

So, imagine my disappointment when we arrived to the lake, and there was no one there to hitch a ride with! Being a) late in the afternoon and b) shoulder season, the lake was deserted. I assume in summer months it’s normally pumping with people.

The second option we were given was to walk another 2km to a hotel that’s on the way back to El Chalten, and ask them to call a taxi. 2km would have felt like nothing on most days, but that day it felt like the longest time. I think it actually was longer than 2km – probably closer to 4km as we were walking for about another hour.

When we got there, the disappointment hit once again – there was no signs of life at the hotel, it looked fully closed and like it had shut down for the season. By this time, the sun had fully set and the headlamps were on, so we sucked it up (not that we had much choice) and made the final slog back to town. After starting our day at 8am, we finished after 8pm, and we were dirty, tired, hungry but equally proud, fulfilled and joyful.

As I am doing a final edit of this post two months after completing the Huemul Circuit, after doing multiple more hikes across Chile, Argentina and Peru, I have to say this is the best multi-day hike I have done so far. It was the most challenging as well, but the scenery just blew me away. If you are going to Patagonia, this is a MUST-DO.

I can only assume it will get more and more popular as people discover it, but it is what I assume the O-Trek and the Huayhuash Circuit was like before they hit all the "Top Hikes of the World" lists. If you want to experience Patagonia without the crowds, this is the hike to do.