Torres del Paine NP, Chile
Paine Grande to French Camp via the French Valley. About 14 km.
The day dawned with us cautiously optimistic. The nearly full moon was visible during the night. There was increasing cloud cover during breakfast, which made for a beautiful pink sky during sunrise (which Jill captured quite well in her photo below). We were gone before many of the masses were even up, which made for a nice quiet hike.
It was an easy 2.5 hour hike to the Italiano camp. Not too much to see along the way but some nice views of Lake Pehoe (although without the stunning blue colour that we enjoyed yesterday in the sunshine) and a nice smaller lake (Skottsberg Lake) right along the trail. The smaller lake provided some lovely reflections of Cuernos del Paine.
We were able to unload some of our gear at the Italian camp before heading up the French Valley trail. It started to rain lightly almost right away - sigh... We had some decent views of the Frances Glacier on the way up and were close to a roaring river for parts of the trail. It took us just over an hour to get to the Frances Glacier mirador and it was raining quite a bit by then. Jose had recommended that we not go to the second viewpoint if the visibility was not good. So - we turned around and went back down. We were lucky enough to see lots of avalanches (ka-boom!) coming off the glacier while we were there.
So - back to Italiano to re-stuff our packs and off for the short walk to the French camp. The French camp is quite spread out, with the campground above the trail. Of course we would be camping in the most spread out camp on the day that it rains! Restrooms are about 50m down the hill, and the dorms and dining room are about 200m further down a steeper hill. Nice lakeside location for it, though.
We were too early to check-in to the campground so we went down to the dining room to get out of the rain. They were good enough to let us in to eat our lunch and hang out for a while. Check-in time was 2:30, so back up the hill to join the line-up. Imagine our surprise when they claimed that our reservation was for just 1 tent and no food; yikes! It took about another half hour to sort that out but all was good in the end. It feels like these are our smallest tents yet; certainly no room to spread anything out. Oh well - I just have to remember not to step off the platform when I get up in the night - that 2nd step is about a 6-foot drop!
The forecast looks better for tomorrow. If it looks good some of us will go back up to the top of the French Valley before heading to the next camp.
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