As a mirage appearing and disappearing as it pleases to the clouds which surround it, its higher summit draws up such the rise of Chartres cathedral across the Beauce wheatfields.
With this difference that here nothing grows except the stunted grasses, victims as well of the cold as of the burn of a relentless sun.
Nothing lives either, except some nandus, tatus or guanacos which resists to the violent winds came down from the large Chilean glaciers on the other side of the mountain.
Recently macadamized, the Ruta 23, only access road to El Chalten, stretches immense straight lines to the feet of the giant.
The track last kilometers allow to understand the fascination this mountain exerted on the greatest mountaineers, and why it was conquered only very few times since 1952 (*).
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Indescribable fascination except perhaps by those who left their name to the summits which surround it: Guillaumet, Mermoz and…Saint Exupéry.
(*) article "Lionel Terray et Guido Magnone"
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