Day 1: Camping at Los Torres, hiking up and back to el base de los torres - Thursday was the rainest day of our trip. Not a great way to start, and certainly the worst day to do our hike up to what many say is the park's most stellar site--el base de los torres. The hike up from camp is steeper than it looks, and it was tough in the rain. About an hour into the hike, Charlie, Jeff, and Dan decided to turn back--I couldn't blame them since they were without rain paints. Kate and Evan and I, in our impermiable gear, pressed on to the first refugio, El Chileno, in our impermiable gear. In the shelter, I gladly dropped an exorbatant mil pesos ($2) for a Nescafe--but in the rain, it may have been teh best coffee I've had here. We decided to keep going from El Chileno up to the base, even though we couln't see los torres or any of the other mountains around us because of the clouds. My rain pants were doing a bang-up job though, so I felt good to keep walking. We met a British couple at the campsite near el base (a great free site to camp at, espeically if you want to get up and see sunrise over the torres!). They looked really, really beaten by the weather--and had just done a monster day all the way from a campsite in the middle of the park. Evan gave them a coconut cookie--"You just about saved my life," our fellow trekker muttered. We decided to keep going in the rain, and began the steep hour-long walk up to the mirador, scrambling up large boulders and creeks, with only an orange marker here or there to guide us. We were pretty sure we were near the top, but couldn't see a thing in the weather, so we headed back since it was getting dark. It still turned out to be about 7 hours of hiking just to get up there and back. "What will the guys be doing?" we mused as we walked back to our campsite. Drunk? Napping? To our pleasant surprise, they had a great fire going by the time we got home--pefect for cooking baked potatos in the first of many delcious camp meals planned by Kate. (Also, the only site in the park, I think, where campfires are allowed, so worked out perfect!)
Day 2: Los Torres to Campamiento Italiano - We had fabulous, favorable weather--enough to get down to rolled up pants and a t-shirt! Woke up to our first glimpse of the torres right from our campsite--they were there all along! The hike to Italiano was pleasant but long, with beautiful acqua-colored Lago Nordenskjold alongside us most of the way and the bi-colored cuernos fiinally coming into view. By evening, we were making our way into the Valle Frances, to a wooded (and free!) campsite at Italiano.
Day 3: Hiking up and back el Valle Frances, Campamiento Italiano to Refugio Grey - At 9.5 hours on the trail, today was our longest day. We got up at 5:30 so we could do an early morning walk into the Valle Frances. The walk is a difficult one, we soon realized, with a lot of scrambling up boulders again on the way into the valley. I took a wrong turn (the path is marked pretty poorly at first) and found myself nearly walking into a gushing waterfall. Luckily my compañneros got me back on course--although I definitely slid down a huge rock to join up with them again. Once you are deep enough, and high enough in the valley, you get an amazing 360-degree view of los cuernos, the opposite side of los torres, and el glaciar frances. We heard and saw a lot of avalanches on the mountain as we were walking. That all felt like a dream however, by the time we returned to camp at about 11 with a full day of walking still ahead of us. We had a power vegetarian chili lunch at the quincho at Paine Grande and then pressed on up to Refugio Grey. I guess it was only 3.5 hours between Paine Grande and Grey, but it seemed much longer. However, this walk was one of my favorites--a lot of high cliffs with beautiful views of el glaciar grey and the enormous campo de hielo it connects to. When we reached the refugio at long last (all of us acting pretty goofy with fatigue at that point), I enjoyed my first shower in days, which was stupendous. Probably should have delayed on the shower, however, since it was raining by the time we had dinner. Jeff, and Charlie, and Evan stayed in the tents--but heavy rain did not stop Kate, and Dan, and I from enjoying homemade pasta sauce (there was a problem cooking the actual pasta) outside!
Day 4: Refugio Grey to Administración - Morning's task was the 3.5 hour hike down from Refugio Gray back and back to Paine Grande for lunch. We were still hurting pretty badly from our 9.5 hour day previous, but somehow managed to press on back at our own pace. Had to be careful of the time, however, as our bus was leaving at 6:30. From Paine Grande, it was still going to be another 5 hours back to Adminstracion. You can also pick up a catamaran at Paine Grande for a cool $11,000 ($22), which will take you back to a bus, but we were being typically tough and cheap, and decided to hike it. It was a mostly a flat hike on a dirt track through pampa, with the best scenery (a great overview of the park, as a friend pointed out) at our backs. The worst thing about this final leg was that it was just very monotnous and desolate. Not another hiker in site. I was walking alone most of it, trailing Kate and Evan (Dan and Charlie, at 6 feet plus, were unbelieveably fast). My feet and brain were both struggling to function--I tried resorting to that "name game" (i.e. Ella Fitzgerald. Francis Ford Coppola. Celine Dion. Etc.) but was too brain-dead to play, and btw, it does not work with one person. I caught up with Evan and Kate and found them as destroyed as I was, and still a gruelling 2 flat hours to go. We made it though, back to adminstracion, and a wating bus. The CONAF ranger gave us this survey to fill out at the end of our journey. It's funny in it's own right, I suppose, but at the time we were filling it out, it was the most hilarous thing ever, with all of us cracking up in our seats and exchanging glances.
That, in short, is the "W"--we had a terrific time walking it and pushing ourselves to the limit!
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