Torres del Paine NP, Chile
Los Perros to Grey Lodge. About 15 km.
An early and chilly start to the day today. Breakfast at 6:30 and we were pretty much ready to go right after. Our camp was in a treed area so it was hard to discern the cloud cover situation, but it turned out to be zero. A simply perfect weather day to do our most challenging hike. I can't imagine they get many days like this in a season.
The routine is that we have breakfast and then pick up our bag lunch for the day. We have had generous portions each day; usually a big sandwich, juice box, chocolate bar, granola bar, nuts, piece of fruit, etc. Today was a bit of a surprise. We were handed a bunch of MRE-looking pouches and a grey bag that was to be used to cook our main course in. I should have taken a picture! Oh wait - Carole didn't eat much of hers and took a picture at the end of the day.
Of course I had my contacts in and therefore couldn't read any of the contents or instructions when it came time to actually use them. Oh well - just part of the adventure!
It was such a long and varied day that it's hard to remember all the details. We were told that it would be about a 10 or 11-hour hike. I think the numbers were something like 15 km, 600m up and 1200m down. What was a bit of a surprise, though, was the condition of the trail in places.
We started out in the woods in a jumble of rocks, roots, and mud (no pictures). I managed to keep my boots dry, but yuck! After some time we emerged from the woods and started the rocky ascent to the pass. The pass is just slightly left of centre in the first picture below. I was at the top in about 2 hours and 20 minutes.
It was definitely a shorts and t-shirt day but there was a bit of a breeze at the top. I layered up and hunkered down for about a half hour waiting for everyone to make it up. Jill breezed on through but everyone else stopped to regroup.
What a sight to behold as we crested the pass at 1241m (the John Gardner Pass). The Grey Glacier lay before us as well as a huge ice field (the Southern Patagonia Ice Field) and many glaciated peaks. It was no hardship to sit at the top and take in the view for a while. Besides, I never really look forward to 1200m of downhill!
Partway down from the pass was the Paso ranger station. It was almost noon by the time I got there and everyone (except Jill) was behind me so I figured it was time to try the boil-in-a-bag rations. It actually seemed to work pretty well although it was a bit time-consuming. About 12 minutes in the bag, then eat the meal (some type of chicken curry that seemed to be mostly rice), then wait about another 15 minutes for the bag to cool enough to pack it away. Due to the remote areas we've been travelling through these last few days we have to pack out all our garbage. It was about 45 minutes before anyone else showed up so I warmed up my hands (on the still-cooling bag), ate all my bars, and just hung out.
We thought maybe the worst of the downhill was over, but maybe not..... The highlights of the last section were the viewpoints of the glacier (we saw some calving activity at one of the viewpoints) and the three suspension bridges. On and on...... Little bit up and mostly down. On the water we saw some evidence of our impending re-entry to civilization - a tour boat and a group of kayaks. And then on land - oh my! A rather large campground and then the store and refugio. Much more substantial than we're used to, and many, many more people.
We've been moving along mostly with the same group of people for the last 4 days. Most are not staying over an extra day at Grey so we'll lose them tomorrow. And since we're now on the W route, it will be much busier going forward.
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