Making the most of a month in Patagonia

Hey Everyone,
I am studying abroad in Patagonia next fall and will have from about December 15th to January 10th to spend in Patagonia.  I would love to explore the mountaineering around the beautiful mountains (El Chalten area?) but have heard about the horrendous weather and I don't want to waste my whole time down there sitting in a tent. I am wondering what people think is the best way to make the most of my short time down there. I am happy to hike and rock climb at lower elevations but are there lots of days where that isn't feasible?

Would also love suggestions for more moderate routes in the area (approximately up to 5.9 and AI3). Moderate is subjective so for my experience: I normally lead low 5.11s trad and climb WI4 and I have solid uphill cardio. I have done a handful of alpine rock routes and ridge scrambles in Colorado and the Tetons. I will be guiding either on Mt. Rainier or on the Matanuska Glacier in Alaska this summer but that will be my only glacier experience.

Also, how important is it to line up partners beforehand? Is it easy to find partners down there or for big routes down there is that not as common?
Any and all info helpful!

Thanks!!

I've only spent a month down there but here is what I experienced:
Weather is worse than you can imagine,  in the mountains there are lots of days where moving around is not going to be something you want to do, (I suppose you could, it's not much fun when you are randomly getting flattened and rolled across the glacier..) much of the trekking is at lower elevations so you could still go most of the time, you just won't see anything and you will get thrashed by the wind, same for the local sport climbing, you can, whether or not you will enjoy it is another thing...

if you actually get weather windows to go into the mountains expect to be pretty wrecked after a window, fortunately, the town living is good

Glaciers were pretty reasonable, if you spend the summer on Ranier you will be fine, some of the moraines getting onto the glaciers are pretty rough, be prepared for an unpleasant time there...

Moderate is pretty relative there, we did some really easy rated routes that were full value hard due to iced up cracks and snow conditions... East face of Guilliumet seems to be popular for "Moderate" climbs and iffy weather windows, ask around though...

I'd want partners lined up beforehand, there's definitely climbers there but it's pretty high risk climbing, I wouldn't want to rope up with a rando

important things in my opinion that you didn't mention:

If you can go with someone who has been before you will save a ton of time learning your way around, approaches, trailheads, groceries, just all the day to day stuff. I would assume several days at least to get up to speed if you haven't been before.

Bring real ice gear! in a month there I didn't see a single rock climbing window, definitely no t-shirt sending in the sun! lots of people were in town with just approach shoes and aluminum crampons, they didn't get on anything for the entire time....

Thanks for the info! I will definitely be dialing back the goals and bringing the ice gear then. Do most people rent a room in town or camp? Hopefully I will line things up with other guides from the summer and hopefully some will have been down there.

Renting a room in town is the way to go, not necessarily easy from the states but you should be able to find a bunk in a hostel for as cheap as you could camp, and even in town the wind would make tent living pretty miserable for any amount of time.

I've heard of better luck in Cochamo if you haven't looked and have had it personally recommended to me, but a visit never worked out unfortunately. Looks awesome down there!

Nolan Huther wrote: I've heard of better luck in Cochamo if you haven't looked and have had it personally recommended to me, but a visit never worked out unfortunately. Looks awesome down there!

Yeah man Cochamo seems pretty incredible and a little less committing alpine wise. Thanks for the tip!

Reviving this thread from a year long sleep.  To the OP: What happened? Was your study abroad cut short? 

I'm also asking myself the same question: How to make the most out of a month in Patagonia.  Maybe 2? 

Unfortunately, I've struggled for years to get partners secured for a trip like this.  What're the guiding services like down there? Just wondering if having a guided trip or two in the budget could help with the uncertainty surrounding partners. The screenshot is a list of guiding services, anyone heard of an experience from them? 

I was toying around with spending a month out there during the pandemic while I was working remotely. (I never did go in the end.) Guided was really my only option. The guiding pricing and structure is complicated due to the weather. Basically: 

- Daily rate to reserve the guide is $250/day.
- You pay for 5 days to reserve the guide for a 7 day period. You can sport climb, etc, with the guide for up to 5 of those 7 days.
- If you manage to get a good weather window for a bigger objective during your reservation period, you pay an additional $250/day. (I got the feeling that number can go up depending on the objective, that was for the Amy-Vidailhet.)
- Sounds like you should basically anticipate reserving the guide in advance for as long as you are there if you want to catch a weather window. So about $5k/mo you are in town. 

Andrew Reed wrote:

Reviving this thread from a year long sleep.  To the OP: What happened? Was your study abroad cut short? 

I'm also asking myself the same question: How to make the most out of a month in Patagonia.  Maybe 2? 

Unfortunately, I've struggled for years to get partners secured for a trip like this.  What're the guiding services like down there? Just wondering if having a guided trip or two in the budget could help with the uncertainty surrounding partners. The screenshot is a list of guiding services, anyone heard of an experience from them? 

Hey Thanks for reviving this thread! I studied abroad in the fall so luckily it didn't end up getting cut short. I didnt really have partners lined up so I decided to go to chalten briefly and then head further north to Frey near Bariloche. Ended up finding a partner shortly after arriving and a small marginal weather window but only enough to hike towards the massif before getting blown back to town haha.

Took a bus to Bariloche and loaded up on food and hiked up to Refugio Frey. That place is freakin heaven: friendly climbers hanging around the refugio, low commitment objectives to ease into things with a new partner, unbelievably good alpine granite cracks and really good weather. Highly recommend this region since even though it isn't "the fitz roy massif" it is as wild or as accessible as you want it to be.