Fitz Roy is the mountain that Patagonia uses as its logo, literally: the clothing brand that made Patagonia famous enough that people travel there to see it used a line drawing of Fitz Roy as their logo. The mountain is 3,405 metres, made of granite, and shaped in a way that looks almost designed to be dramatic: a cluster of spires rising directly from the Patagonian steppe with no gradual ascent to the base. It appears suddenly, the way extraordinary things appear when you have been walking for long enough that you stopped expecting them.

The Hike to the Base

El Chalten is the starting point for Fitz Roy access, a village of about a thousand people at the end of a road that begins in El Calafate and ends at the mountain. The main trail to Laguna de los Tres, the glacial lake at the base of Fitz Roy where the towers are reflected in calm conditions, is 21 kilometres round trip with 800 metres of elevation gain. The final kilometre is a steep scramble up loose rock that requires careful footing, especially in wet conditions. I plan ceremony sessions at the lake for late afternoon arrivals, which means departing El Chalten at 9am. The reward at the top is the view: Fitz Roy directly above the lake’s turquoise water with the surrounding spires reflected in the surface when the wind drops. It is one of the few locations where photographs consistently fall short of what the scene actually looks like.