Mount Fitz Roy
Monte Fitz Roy
Interesting facts
- Yvon Chouinard, who climbed the mountain's Southwest Ridge in 1968, went on to found the Patagonia clothing company; teammate Douglas Tompkins had co-founded The North Face.
- In February 2014 Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold completed the Fitz Traverse, a five-kilometre line along the whole skyline with about 4,000 metres of total climbing.
- With a topographic prominence of 1,951 metres, Fitz Roy counts as one of the world's ultra-prominent peaks.
- Under a 1998 agreement, the border between Argentina and Chile detours eastward specifically so that it passes over the main summit.
- The first free solo ascent of the mountain was made by the American climber Dean Potter in 2002.
- The first winter ascent came in July 1986, when a team of three climbed the Supercanaleta route.
- A Polish team opened a new route on Christmas Eve 1984 that has reportedly never been repeated.
- In 2021 Sean Villanueva O'Driscoll soloed the whole traverse in reverse, naming it the Moonwalk Traverse.
- Moreno named the peak on 2 March 1877, honouring FitzRoy's 1834 journey with the Beagle up the Santa Cruz River.
Why it is worth it
Few mountains are shaped as purely for looking at as Fitz Roy. Its granite tower, 3,405 metres high, stands on the border between Argentina and Chile in southern Patagonia, within Argentina's Los Glaciares National Park, and it rises in sheer, smooth walls well above the ice fields and spires that surround it. Its older name, Chaltén, comes from the Tehuelche language and means "smoking mountain" — clouds form so often around the summit that it seems to be steaming. The Argentine explorer Francisco Moreno renamed it in 1877 after Robert FitzRoy, the captain of HMS Beagle, who had charted this coast in the 1830s.
The mountain's reputation among climbers is as severe as its looks. It was first climbed on 2 February 1952 by the French alpinists Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone, by the south-east ridge, and it remains a technical ascent of steep rock and ice, made harder by the ferocious Patagonian wind and weather that can shut the summit off for days. Its silhouette is the emblem of the region: it appears on the flag and coat of arms of Santa Cruz Province.
What most visitors come for is the view, and here it rewards the effort. From the small town of El Chaltén, built at its foot, a trail climbs to Laguna de los Tres, a glacial lake set directly beneath the granite; the last stretch is a steep scramble up a moraine, and the round trip is about 25 km with some 1,200 metres of ascent. Hikers who camp at Poincenot, below the lake, go up before dawn to see the first light turn the towers red and orange, the moment when Fitz Roy looks most like the name its first inhabitants gave it — a mountain on fire.
Getting there
El Chaltén is the base for the mountain and its trails. It lies about 200–220 km by road from El Calafate, via National Route 40 and Provincial Route 41, around three hours by bus, with services running daily all year. The nearest airport is El Calafate – Commander Armando Tola International (FTE). On the Chilean side the nearest town with an airport is Puerto Natales (PNT), much farther away.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Cerro Torre 4.6 km · summit
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Monte Fitz Roy is a mountain in Patagonia, on the border between Argentina and Chile. It is located in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, near El Chaltén village and Viedma Lake. It was first climbed in 1952 by French alpinists Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
-49.27139, -73.04333per Wikidata