El Chaltén and El Calafate are the two anchor destinations in Argentine Patagonia and they are very different from each other. Choosing between them, or planning to do both, depends on what physical commitment you are willing to make and what visual character you want the photographs to have.
What El Chaltén and Fitz Roy Give You
El Chaltén's defining characteristic is that the best locations require physical effort. Laguna de los Tres is twenty-two kilometres round trip with five hundred metres of elevation gain. Laguna Torre is eighteen kilometres round trip. The photographs at these locations have an earned quality to them that a drive-up viewpoint cannot replicate. Couples arrive at these lakes in a state that shows in the portraits, and the scale of the Fitz Roy massif, the jagged ridgeline above the glacial lake, is genuinely overwhelming in person.
El Chaltén also rewards staying. The village itself is small and unpretentious and the Río de las Vueltas valley in evening light, with the peaks behind it, produces beautiful photographs that do not require any hiking at all. The combination of the accessible river valley and the demanding mountain trails gives more photographic variety than almost any other single Argentine Patagonia location.
What El Calafate and Perito Moreno Give You
Perito Moreno requires no hiking. The boardwalk puts you directly in front of a glacier face that is seventy metres high and constantly calving. For couples who want a Patagonian ice photograph without the trail commitment, Perito Moreno is the answer. The glacier is also more visually dynamic than any static mountain: a calving event, where a column of ice breaks from the face and crashes into the lake, can happen during the shoot and produces a photograph that is genuinely unrepeatable.
Three Hours Apart, Both Worth Doing
With five or more days in the region, do both. The road between El Chaltén and El Calafate is three hours and passes through extraordinary steppe landscape. A combined trip gives you the physical earned quality of the Fitz Roy hikes and the accessible drama of the glacier. They do not repeat each other.
Destination Wedding Photographer
Vancouver · Medellín · Worldwide
