Because yesterday was such a tough day, today was an “easy” day. We were only doing 11k instead of 28. And at this point I needed the break. Last night was the worst night sleep that I’ve gotten the entire trek. There were 6 of us girls in bunkbeds sleeping in sleeping bags. I hate sleeping in sleeping bags – I feel like a sausage in a casing. Yuck.

We set out on our short trek a little after 8. Today we’d have rain. My fellow trekkers definitely had all of the appropriate gear for the rain. But thanks to Lisa, I stayed nice and dry. But it was seriously funny. The poncho she lent me was a godsend and it covered all of me – from my head to my pack and all the way down to my knees. But I looked like the hunchback from all sides except from the front! It was the butt of many jokes and gave us a lot of laughs. No worries, I have evidence of this too. Good thing I have no shame and can laugh at myself!

Again, the trek was beautiful – and relatively easy. The sounds during the trek seem to be the thing that’s staying with me. And trekking through the rain is completely different than through clear skies. The sound of rain hitting your gear drowns out the other sounds and you get lost in your thoughts and in the moment. With this type of terrain it’s a bit dangerous to not keep your eyes on the ground in front of you so it gets somewhat meditative. Follow the person in front of you, pick a good line – try to find stones to step on that aren’t loose – and avoid dunking your boots in puddles of mud.

Halfway through we came to a viewpoint where we got our first look at the Grey Glacier. It’s a massive glacier with bits of ice floating miles away from the main part of the ice. It reminded me of a scene from Titanic J I was very excited to see it up close.

Another couple hours and we were at Refugio Grey – another place for trekkers to camp for the night. We had a quick lunch here, grabbed 5(!) bottles of wine from the restaurant and boarded the boat that would take us on a tour of the glacier. For an hour or so we drove within 50 yards of this huge, magnificent, menacing piece of ice! I asked about the temperature of the water and was told you could survive for about 7 minutes in it! I took tons of pictures and we all drank a good bit of wine and just celebrated being off our feet and the gorgeous sight before us.

We had just a short walk after the bus in the now-pouring rain to a van that would take us back to Ecocamp. I’d already gotten spoiled at Ecocamp. We have warm showers there, wonderful food and wine, warm, cozy lounges and soft music. It’s totally unlike the refugios but it was very cool to experience at all. I was, however, ready to get back to the relative luxury of our camp.

We finally got back, I had a shower and headed down to the bar where the rest of our team was. Our assistant guide had gotten some ice from the glacier – no one really knows how he got it – but the guides took it outside the bar, chopped it up with a hammer and we all had a bit of scotch over glacier ice. Seriously, unbelievable!

Tomorrow is our final “difficult” trek to the base of the towers – the most famous trek of the area. It’s said to be 22k and will take about 8 hours. And one of our fellow trekkers asked our assistant guide – Diego – if there was any way he could do a trek to the base of the towers AGAIN to be there for sunrise. So I’m seriously considering that as well. I mean, how often do you get to do a trek in the middle of the night and see something 99.9% of the population will never see?!?! Of course it makes me want to do it…check back…

I’m not sure where to start describing my day today. So I’ll just begin at the beginning. I woke to a beautiful sunrise reflected on the mountain and casting a pink/orange glow on everything. It was going to be an even more beautiful day.

We started our trek at 8:30 am in the direction of Campo Italiano. Our trek today would take us into the French valley – Valle del Frances to the highest lookout point – the Mirador Valle del Frances. We’d then trek back the way we came and continue on to the Refugio Paine Grande.

The beginning of the trek was what our main guide – Roberto Carlos – called Patagonia flat. Not flat! But relatively gentle incline and declines followed by some not so gentle inclines and declines. We were all pretty full of energy at that point. We trekked to Campo Italiano – our first resting point – on our way. At that point we were at 190m altitude and we could see the mountains and the glacier – Glacier Frances – in the distance. As I said in a previous post, it snowed a couple of days ago so the possibility of an avalanche was very high. We started to hear and see them at that point. To me, the avalanche sounds like machine-gun fire. And then there’s a small snow-explosion followed by the snow rolling down the mountain. It’s spectacular and very, very scary. The sound that it makes is indescribable.

From Campo Italiano, we were on our way to the highest point of the French valley. We started the climb and immediately ran into snow. So we were trekking through mud and ice and snow and it was so amazingly beautiful. And HARD! Although it was probably only 45 degrees, I was in just one layer and sweating like crazy.

The sounds were what really struck me. I’d hear an avalanche, which was loud enough to cause all of us to stop dead in our tracks and try to find it. That would be followed by complete silence as we all stared in complete awe. And then the steady sound of boots hiking through the snow and the sound of my  own heavy breathing. You couldn’t help but be in the moment – partly because if you weren’t something bad might happen – but it was so very peaceful.

We made it to the summit around 3 pm. So we’d been trekking without more than a 5-minute break for more than 6 hours. And we’d gone from 190 meters to 970 meters elevation. It was quite difficult! But it was worth it!We had such a great view of the towers up there and stopped for 30 minutes or so to refuel.

None of us were looking forward to going back the way we’d came but we made the most of it. We slipped and slid back down through the snow and mud and made complete messes of ourselves. There was a bet made between 2 of our guys that whoever fell – on their butt – not on their hands – had to buy the other a beer. Probably needless to say, I did go down. But not all the way and only once.

It’s fascinating listening to the conversations that occur in the middle of a trek – from music to politics to cartoons. It’s fun getting to know these people. We all have something in common, right, so it’s great getting to know them day by day.

After repeating our way up and getting past Campo Italiano again, we were on our way to our final stop. At this point we’d been going for over 8 hours and were whipped! But we still had quite a while to go. However, on our way back we got to take advantage of more Patagonia flat. But at this point my neck and knees and feet where just aching! The only other time my feet had been in such pain was when I ran the marathon. Ouch!

Fortunately nature felt the need to give back to us. There was no wind and we could see all of the mountains perfectly reflected in the Largo Pehoe – a gorgeous lake we followed home. I’ve always seen pictures of snow-capped mountains perfectly reflected in water. Now I was seeing it in person. It looked like the clouds were perched right on top of the perfectly still water. Simply stunning! I’m not sure a picture will ever do it justice but I certainly tried to get the right shot.

Finally! Finally we got to the Refugio and we all went in the direction of our highest priority. Mine happened to be a shower at that point – followed shortly by a nice Chilean white shared with a new friend, Chelsea.

I feel like I haven’t done this day justice with my writing. I simply can’t describe the peace and contentedness of being on this beautiful mountain surrounded by snow. There were so many moments when I would just look around and smile. It was remarkable and a day I’ll never, ever forget!

To more…’night