Day 5 Torres del Paine: To Campamento Italiano
Trip Start
Jan 20, 2005
1
13
14
Trip End
Feb 20, 2005
Torres del Paine,
Chile
Saturday, February 12, 2005
On the first 4 days of our Torres del Paine trek we had hiked 85 km (and 75km of that was in day 2-4!)! Although we had planned to do big mileage days, we had got caught up in hiking fast and furious and our bodies were hurting a bit. Thus, over a litre of Gato Negro wine the night before, we collectively agreed that day 5 would be a low mileage day with a good sleep-in (ie. any time after 7am!). Theoīs feet were in rough shape as well (blisters were forming now under his healed blisters from other hikes) despite us having been more attentive of stopping regularly to put on dry socks. And Campamento Grey had a great view (especially with our clothesline screen blocking out all the other tents) and was worth hanging out in for a couple of extra hours in the morning over a lingering breakfast and another hot shower
01) Back to the lookout!
.But our sleep-in was a bit short lived. Our nearest tenting neighbors had decided that they needed to be up at 6:30am to hike. They were "W" people who started their trek yesterday, hiking in 12km from Refugio Lago Pehoe which they described as a "hard 5.5hr day of hiking". So for an hour we endured their loud voices (they seemed not to realize that everyone around them was still trying to sleep) as they stumbled around getting their tent together and deciding what to eat for breakfast. We were in awe though, as they were planning to hike out back to Refugio Lago Pehoe (a 12km hike that did not require a long day) and yet were trying to hurry and were skipping a hot breakfast (famous last words "an apple and chocolate would be good for energy, right?".
Anyhow, what could be expected from a group that had brought along a full jar of mayonaise on the trail! We were terrified of extra weight in our knapsacks, as every extra gram had to be carried for over 100km. We had gotten so good at keeping the weight of our knapsacks low by choosing items that could multitask - jack-knife could be used as a nail clipper, olive oil that was added to meals to increase fat also was used as a body moisturizer by Nadine, concentrated biodegradable soap cleaned dishes, bodies, and clothes, guide lines for tent made a great clothesline, emergency safety pins acted like clothes pins, compression sacks for clothes were used as pillows, etc. Our sleeping bags and tent were incredibly light, and we minimized our clothes considerably each hike with key emergency items like fleece and gortex and toques and mitts always along. We did have one splurge though, and that was a tiny magnetic travel Scrabble set, which was about as big as 2 decks of cards
02) Beautiful in the sun...
. This item is not available in North America, so weeks before our trip to South America we had purchased it through a store in England and were glad to have it along as a bit of diversion at times.But we did manage to sleep a bit more, waiting for the sun to hit our little campsite. It was not clear how far we would make it on this day. We felt that we were well ahead of schedule, since we thought we were going to be on the trail for possibly 7 days. Theo kept tempting Nadine with the views she could get if she agreed to taking the catamaran from Pehoe along Lago Nordenskjold (which would also get us out of the park slightly earlier) to Refugio Pudeto, where the bus could pick us up to take us directly back to Puerto Natales. Lago Grey to Refugio Lago Pehoe was the next leg of hiking, 12km of trail, not very far at all considering our last 3 days of hiking. Theoīs blisters had held their own yesterday through the most difficult section of the trail, but now his feet were hurting as the adrenaline wore off. And our wonderful sleep-in meant we would have to hike in the heat of the day, and the sunny day was heating up fast!
After a quick return to the nearby lookout to catch glimpses of Glacier Grey in the full sun, we were back on the trail to Refugio Lago Pehoe
02a)
. The trail starts off mostly flat through trees, grasses, dusty and wide because of all the day trippers and "W" people that come this way. Lots of Foxglove are seen early in the sheltered shady section of the trail, the purple and white flowers adding a dash of color to the dusty trail. But soon the trail starts to climb up a series of ridges towards a high pass. Along the way lookouts start to open up the view of most Lago Grey and Glacier Grey, and as the hike gets higher than the nanutuk at the end of Glacier Grey, it becomes obvious how big things are. The ablation zone of the glacier becomes visible, much of it further up than even John Gartner Pass (which yesterday we had thought was a long way from Lago Grey). But beyond that, we can see that the glacier is actually coming off the giant south Chilean ice field Campo del Hielo Sur. And that is even higher up, filling the bowls between gigantic mountain summits and making giant valleys puffy, heaped deeply with thousands of meters of ice.Gaining the high pass, we start to see-saw our way up and down for a couple of kilometers, and the trail becomes more dusty. There are a few small lagunas (lakes) hidden up here. The fuchias Nadine has come to love are more common in the dusty south side. We walked without purpose, seemingly dragging ourselves along the trail. It wasnīt hard, just a bit hot, but it seemed that if we werenīt determined to go fast the kilometers took forever and we had difficulty being focused
02b)
. We stopped now and then for a snack, changed socks, and unwillingly threw our packs back on our backs to slog a few more kilometers on the trail. Thankfully the view behind us was spectacular, and we would often take a glace behind and smile!After not too long we found ourselves stumbling down a very New Mexico style canyon. The rock of the side walls are twisted with synclines and anticlines, into swirls.
We stumbled in the midday sun to Refugio Lago Pehoe, quite tired from what was supposed to be a short hike. Well, Theo was tired, Nadine seemed to be like the Energizer bunny at times and was seemingly full of energy again (how soon she forgot her crash in energy yesterday!).
Things at Lago Pehoe had changed. The large boat had been replaced by a racing style motor catamaran, the old store and old refugio were closed, and instead, just by the dock, they had built a MONSTROUSITY of a hotel! The camp ground behind the old little store had been in little lenga bushes protecting the tents partially from the wind, but the new camp ground hugged around the hotel in low drought tortured Calafate bushes, offering no shade, barely any protection from the wind, and worse..
03) Lots of icebergs in Glacier Grey...
. no protection at all from the scarred earth behind the hotel which was being blown into a sand blasting every once in a while when a howl of Patagonian wind came in.Clearly something had gone wrong here. Yet we did not realize yet how bad it was. Theoīs feet were in really rough shape, so it was decided that we should stop here for the night. We put up the tent in the hot sun, knowing that our tent would be an inferno soon. Nadine went off to assess the catamaran fee, and found out they did not take credit card or debit, and that it would be $10 000 peso each. That meant we had just enough money for the catamaran, camping for the night, and barely enough for any more extra food (or wine!). Then we went to have our first dinner of soup, and desperately tried to find a bit of shade in camp. By the time we had finished having soup it was clear that this site would not do, and it would behoove us to relocate camp by a further 2 hours of hiking to Campamento Italiano, a free campsite in the trees along the Rio Frances.
Three years earlier Theo and his friend Andy had stumbled through Campamento Italiano. Back then, there was no toilet. The ground around the camp was littered with little toilet paper daisies, as people are not that good at carrying out all their trash when it comes to toilet paper
03a)
. It was filthy disgusting. Yet there was hope that the new toilet might have changed things. So we quickly threw the tent and all our gear back into our packs, did some quick cyborg feet repairs on Theo, and headed down the trail to Campamento Italiano. The sun was still hot but a breeze had begun and it appeared that we would have a nice cool 8km little hike. The plan was that the next day we could return to take the boat, or even take the boat a day later and run up the Valle del Frances for a dayhike tomorrow. Who knows, Nadine may even be able to convince Theo to do the entire Torres del Paine circuit, not because she secretly likes pain as Theo believes, but just so she could see the whole loop and not miss any great sights.We quickly bought a few more supplies with the money we had saved by not camping at Lago Pehoe (pay camping). The $7000 pesos we saved would go far. Wine, tuna and chocolate were bought (had become staple buys the last couple of nights), and we bought some trail mix and cookies as we had pretty much exhausted all our Clif gels and bars for eating on the trail.
This part of the hike headed towards the Cuernos mountains, which are spectacular as they have "horns" of granite and slate for their summits. The walking was pretty easy though, and the cooling evening was nice after the hot day
04) Oooh, legs a bit sore today!
. But it was evident that a weather system was moving in fast, as the winds began to pick up and the sky grew dark. The view of Glacier Frances was quickly being obscured by grey clouds, and we began to walk a bit quicker, sensing the bad weather that was sure to be coming. Lago Skottsberg was to the south of us on the trail, and we were amazed at what we were seeing on the lake.The winds from the west on Lago Skottsberg come through a very low pass and hit the water to create fantastic mini tornadoes. These swells also pound a piece of the trail that passes near the lake, and we felt the spray as well walked (well almost running at this point as the weather was looking nasty!). Quite an adventure! Another aspect of Patagonian weather to be experienced; as extreme changes to the weather are the norm.
The last few kilometers dragged on, as we were being hit by rain drops now and then and kept hoping the camp was around the corner. Of course our type A personalities had come back to us, and we quickly rushed to pass a few people just the few kilometers before camp. Finally entering Campamento Italiano via crossing two bridges, we found that a new Gaurderia and toilet had been built, and a cleaner campground had sprung up below this. We quickly scouted out out a campsite in the protected area of trees as the raindrops slowly fell, and our tent was set up in a few minutes flat. Any real rain kept holding though, and we thought that getting washed up in the river would be nice before dinner. We grabbed some non-smelling clothes and some biodegradable soap and headed to the river. As we got down to the river we realized how wild the winds really were in unprotected areas. While climbing down the giant boulders to get close enough to the water, a surprisingly strong wind howled down the valley along the river and sprayed us with glacier cold water
05) Group shot in front of the glacier...
. We looked at each other and yelled "skip the wash!" as we shivered our way back to our tent. Nadine had another luxury tucked away in her knapsack, antibacterial Wetwipes that hadnīt really been used yet, and we washed in the tent using about 5 Wetwipes each!Returning to our tent we set up the stove right beside the tent and ate a hot meal with glorious tuna thrown in again... we decided to not to drink the wine, though, but instead to save it for the next night (which meant Nadine would carry it as the food bag was getting light). But the chocolate did get eaten as we warmed up in our down sleeping bags, loving the fact that our bags zipped together and that we could steal each otherīs warmth. The raindrops fell lightly, never becoming the storm that we thought it would be, and we fell asleep easily with the white noise of the raging Rio Frances behind our tent.
