Elevation Gain: 426m
Distance: 6.59km
Total Time: 1 hours 16 minutes
Date: January 29th, 2022
Cerro Rosado is the small rocky peak located on the northern boundary of El Chalten. It’s visible from virtually any part of town and is close enough to make a very easy morning or afternoon outing. Despite its proximity, there’s no official trail up. One can take a number of ways up, but the one I found online uses the Lago de Los Tres approach trail to the base. From the base a small foot path will take you to the top. I found a GPS track from Bill Wrights trip report and decided to use his route to get up.
On the 29th, the weather was looking sub optimal, but I still wanted to get out for some exercise. Jacob wasn’t feeling well either, so I decided to go for something short and sweet. Cerro Rosado fit that bill perfectly and so I left the hostel around 2 in the afternoon with just a pair of head phones and trail runners.
I ran from the hostel to the trail head and then up to the Lagos de Los Tres trail. I stopped near the base of the western slopes in search of the foot path reported in Bill’s post. Sure enough, I found a path, albeit very faint, exactly where Bill had turned off. I was able to follow this up relatively easily until about 750m.
At this point the foot path ran out as the terrain turned to barren rock. The summit was now visible from this point though and I just ran up without needing to pay much attention. Despite the deteriorating weather, the views over El Chalten were nice. I didn’t want to risk getting rained on though and left quickly. I found the trail start again and made a fast descent back down to the approach trail. Then it was a nice run back into town and finally the hostel.
For those who need to gain a summit this is surely the easiest in the area and provides an awesome vantage. Add it to your list for those lazy or bad weather days.