The twisted, tortured trees of the beech forests, las lengas to the locals, make for a Harry Potter landscape if there ever was one. And while the trails are usually dotted with mudholes and the area plagued by hurricanes, this season's sunny conditions made those same trails dusty and raised fire danger in the beech forests to record levels.

On a previous visit more than five years ago, I reached the moraine below Cerro Torre, bundled up in down and a wind shell, only to have my pack blown away by one of those legendary Patagonian wind gusts like a candy wrapper in the breeze.

This year, the same place felt more like the Sierra of California in July, with the calm waters of Laguna Torre reflecting like a mirror the dramatic pinnacle of Cerro Torre. The chief problem has been fording streams, as the unusual heat is melting the glaciers big time, making for fast, high rivers. Big landmark glaciers, such as the nearby Glaciar Viedma, which extends miles into the Lago Viedma, has seen its snout melt back by a staggering 200 meters.

"Nobody can believe the weather," said Lipshitz, a Bariloche-based climber who guides for Expediciones Fitz Roy in Patagonia during the summer months.

"We have some good days every season," he said, "but this is unbelievable. There's nothing to do but enjoy it."

El Chalten, the tiny village at the base of the Fitz Roy group, near the entrance to the Argentine national park in which the mountains are located, has changed dramatically over the past five years. The Mediterranean-like weather this season has put a glorious light on the rapidly changing hamlet and its growing array of creature comforts.

I was last here in the mid '90s when Chalten was a dreary, cold, windswept place, little more than a military outpost where just getting a bottle of water or the simplest of groceries was a challenge. It can still be cold and windswept, but in the recent sunshine the many lodges and restaurants and other amenities (like a microbrewery) that have sprouted in just the last two years are giving the place more of the feel of a Jackson Hole.

Some of the changes are fueled by last year's opening of a new airport in Calafate City, just six hours away, saving a day's travel on bad roads from what used to be the closest airport at Rio Gallegos on the Atlantic coast.

Certainly in the years to come tiny El Chalten, set beside the graceful oxbows of the glacier-fed Rio de las Vueltas (where hikers and climbers were swimming and sunbathing after a hot day among the peaks) will become the resort town in keeping with the world-class scenery around it.

The evidence is irrefutable: the presence of Ken Wittencamp proves the point. An Argentine chef who trained and worked in Canada, Wittenkamp serves outstanding international cuisine and worries about flying fresh fish from Puerto Madryn to El Calafate for the final stage by truck to Chalten. The very idea of a serious chef in Chalten would have been hilarious a few years ago, but now it just makes sense.

"Only here can you see this landscape," Wittenkamp says. "People from everywhere will want to come here, so it makes sense that quality food and lodging is now becoming available." His restaurant, Ahumados Patagonia, which opened this year, is right next door to the new microbrewery, which serves a mean pale ale.

The gentrification of Patagonia is a situation that incites mixed emotions from those who have been coming here for a decade or more, and who enjoyed the backwater, frontier feel of the place. The few bars in town, including venerable classics such as El Chocolatier, were abuzz with the news of the outrageous weather and the summits that have resulted, as well as with the changing face of tiny Chalten itself. But it's inevitable that these mountains are going to draw adventurous travelers in increasing numbers. And while the crowds that have come now include Japanese tourists and German travelers, who tend to move around in large groups, most of those who come are hikers and climbers drawn by the unparalleled wilderness just outside the village.

Around the fireplace at El Puma Lodge, a newly opened residence of genteel comfort, I met a couple from Buenos Aires in town to escape the pressures of Argentina's current monetary woes.

"There's no way to find out what's happening when you're in El Chalten, so it's perfect," they said. The economic problems have saddened the Argentines here and in the cities, but have not made travel in the country more difficult for visitors. The one inconvenience is that it's much harder to use credit cards, so come armed with travelers checks.

Also at El Puma were five doctors from the Cleveland area, back at the lodge earlier than expected as their intended climb out on the ice cap beyond Marconi Pass was roached by one of the few storms of the summer. They were disappointed, but it was hard to tell as they sipped a glass of wine and spun their "blizzard hell" yarn. The sunburned couple by the fireplace who asked me to go outside and point out the Southern Cross (after all, you can only see it when you're on this side of the planet), turned out to be honeymooners from the Bay Area who had logged impressive mileage on the local trails in just a few days. They asked, "Is it always like this?"

The world of wild places is changing, and while one can debate the merits of that, there was no better place to think about it this February and March than in the mountains of Patagonia.

— Peter Potterfield, MountainZone.com Staff