Monte Fitz Roy

Monte Fitz Roy (also known as Cerro Chaltén, Cerro Fitz Roy, or simply Mount Fitz Roy) is a mountain in the border between Argentina and Chile that is located near the village of El Chaltén that is in Argentina. 49°17′S 73°05′W / 49.283°S 73.083°W / -49.283; -73.083. It is in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in Patagonia. The mountain is 3375 metre high. It was first climbed in 1952 by French mountain climbers Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone. It is one of the most difficult mountains to climb on Earth. The clothing label, Patagonia, used Monte Fitz Roy as the idea for their logo, after Yvon Chouinard climbed the mountain in 1968 and made a movie about it.

Francisco Moreno first saw the mountain on 2 March 1877. He named it Fitz Roy, in honour of Robert Fitz Roy. Fitz Roy was captain of HMS Beagle and had travelled up the Santa Cruz River in 1834 and made maps of large parts of the Patagonian coast .^[1]

Cerro is a Spanish word meaning hill, while "Chaltén" is a Tehuelche word meaning smoking mountain, as they believe it was a volcano for its peak is most of the time covered by clouds.

Geology

Fitz Roy is a huge pyramid shaped granite monolith, carved by the winds, snow and ice. Fitz Roy is made of igneous rocks from deep in the Earth. When large tectonic plates collided about 100 million years, magma escaped between these plates and solidified between other rocks. The erosion of these rocks led to the formation of the mountain.^[2]

Plants and animals

There are no plants on the bare walls of the summit. In the steep foothills, below the summit there are forests of beech and vast plains of short vegetation adapted to extreme climatic conditions^[2]

Animals are very rare in the region of Fitz Roy. There are a few eagles and rabbits.^[2]

Gallery

Monte Fitz Roy from Lake Desert, Argentina
Mount Fitz Roy as seen from a road, Province of Santa Cruz, Argentina
Mount Fitz Roy as seen from the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, Argentina
Clarifying on Mount Fitz Roy, a stormy day
The Fitz Roy, before a storm
Town at the base of the hill
Panorama of Monte Fitz Roy in the morning

References

↑ Moreno, FP (2006) [1879]. Viaje a la Patagonia Austral (in Spanish). La Nacion (Elefante Blanco). p. 2. ISBN 987-96054-7-0. Como este volcan activo no ha sido mencionado por los navegantes ni viajeros, y como el nombre de Chalten que le dan los indios lo aplican tambien a otras montanas, me permito llamarle volcan Fitz Roy - English: Since this active volcano has not been mentioned by navigators or travellers, and since the name Chalten that the Indians call it is also applied to other mountains, I allow myself to name it Fitz Roy volcano
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 Alessandro Gogna 2006. Les plus beaux sommets du monde. Arthaud.

Other websites

Fitz Roy at Peakware Archived 2013-05-12 at the Wayback Machine
Monte Fitz Roy in History (in Spanish)
News El Chaltén Archived 2009-11-12 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)

Video

[Moreno1879-1] Moreno, FP (2006) [1879]. Viaje a la Patagonia Austral (in Spanish). La Nacion (Elefante Blanco). p. 2. ISBN 987-96054-7-0. Como este volcan activo no ha sido mencionado por los navegantes ni viajeros, y como el nombre de Chalten que le dan los indios lo aplican tambien a otras montanas, me permito llamarle volcan Fitz Roy - English: Since this active volcano has not been mentioned by navigators or travellers, and since the name Chalten that the Indians call it is also applied to other mountains, I allow myself to name it Fitz Roy volcano

[Gogna-2] 2.0 ^2.1 ^2.2 Alessandro Gogna 2006. Les plus beaux sommets du monde. Arthaud.

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