After a great night sleep, and a big breakfast, we had to get going so we could catch our bus back to Puerto Natales. It was a beautiful day which made for a great hike.
This is the view from the trail on the way to our final destination, Hosteria Las Torres. Our final day was a nice easy, 2.5 hour hike down hill (for the most part). Hosteria Las Torres is a hotel visitors can stay in as well as a refugios for us stinky hikers.
The shuttle for our bus showed up right on time. We were in a 15 person van that made us un-load before venturing accross the smallest bridge I´ve ever seen because we were ¨too heavy¨..hmmm..... so, Noah and I promptly got out, and began walking....
Can you believe this van fit???
NEW YEARS EVE!! In the photo is (from left) Geranimo, Owen, Bill (co-founder of the hostel) and my self. We were tired, but happy. It was truely one of the best trips I´ve ever taken....
Day 4 was going to be tough so a good, hearty breakfast was in order..... in addition to Finn enjoying his noodles for breakfast, we also had to doctor up his blister which was getting worse...
hitch-hiking...
And, now, time for Owen to work on the blister at hand.... All in all, Finn gets 5 stars for never complaining about his blister at all....
Today we were heading from Los Cuernos, all the way over to Campamento Chileno, and then up to the Towers (Torres del Paine).... This was 8 hour day that was also through some steeper terrain that made for tired legs. The weather was constantly improving from our first day of heavy rain so we were all happy that the only thing we had to deal with was the wind.
Did I mention we didn´t have our luggage for this trip? I´m wearing all men´s clothes that are obviously too big for me. BUT - they kept me warm and dry so I can´t complain....
This is on the way to camp. Owen still had enough energy in him to climb to the top of this rock, it was really windy so it was hard for him to remain standing.
Tired legs and a blister will earn you a ride on Dad´s backpack.
If you look close enough, you can see the trail on the left side of the valley in the side of the hill, this was the trail that was taking us to a good resting area before we made the final push to camp.
One final push to camp from our rest area, and boy, everyones legs were really tired. In this photo, we have about 1 more hour before we get to our camp. The last hour, though, hard, was through a really beautiful forest.....
WE MADE IT!! After setting up camp.... we managed to gather enough energy to climb for another hour to view the Towers. Because of unpredictable weather in days past, (there were reports of people heading up to the Towers in the morning only to be greeted by a socked-in valley with no view) we took this beta and made the executive decision to push on, and see the Towers when we new we would have a wonderful view. I was exhausted..... but I´m so glad we did it.....
Awwwww..... what a great looking couple....
It was so cold up at the view point. We were actually snowed on a little..
YES!! The Mesdag´s all made it to the top!!
Finn was ´done´ at this point and earned another ride, this time he was IN the backpack...
Bed. yawn.... a VERY VERY long, and really fun day!!!
Day 3.... ya, at this point, I had a blister, and Finn was working on his first blister. Other than that, spirits were high and we were ready to move onto our next camp...
This was our easy day in that we were moving on from Campamento Italiano to Campamento Los Cuernos. This was a beautiful 3 hour hike through the woods and on the beach...
The wind on the beach was sooooo strong, it actually blew me over into a bush (no, I´m not kidding).
One of many river crossings we encountered on our trip...
This photo was taken from the beach looking up at the Cuernos (the other side).
Camp. There was a refugio here which is where we enjoyed a hearty hot meal with many other trekkers and got ready for a good night sleep in preparation for what would be our longest, and most difficult day - day 4.......
Day two we woke up after sleeping in - it was great. After eating breakfast and breaking down camp, the plan was to start hiking towards our next camp site - Campamento Italiano. This was the lake we camped next to for our first night.
The hike to our next camp took us about 2.5 hours and was a beautiful hike...
ahhhh..... the glacier water is the best in the world!
This is the bridge into camp. This suspension bridge only allowed two people on the bridge at one time do to the stability (or lack there of....).
After setting up camp and having a snack, we began our day trip which was heading into ´Valle del Frances´ (the French Valley). This was a 5 hour round-trip journey that took us into some of the most beautiful terrain I´ve ever seen... at that point..... The photo above was taken about 10 minutes outside of our camp.
This mountain kept having avalanche releases (don´t worry mom, we weren´t anywhere close to the snow!)
From the view point, you would look to the left, and see this very cold, glacier covered mountain and to the right, you´d see the most beautiful rock formations with no snow at all, the Cuerno´s (above) was amazing!!!
After we returned to camp, we hung out for the rest of the night. This is the suspension bridge right next to camp - absolutely beautiful!
We began the first day of our trip by waking up at 6:00am and catching a bus into the park at 7:00am. All was great, we had a 6 person team (Owen, Rustyn, his sons, Finn and Noah, a friend named Gerinamo, and myself). After a 2.5 hour bus ride, we arrived at the boat to take us on a 30 minute journey to our starting point and our first camp site at Camp Pehoe.
We arrived at our camp site with very cold weather and LOTS of rain....the camp site is a Refugio which was almost like a ski lodge. You can rent a room, eat a hot meal, or hang out in the bar if you want to..... I wouldn´t call this ¨roughing¨ it by any means, but I must say the cocktail at the end of the night was great! This camp site had a cooking area for all of the campers that provided fuel to run stoves and drinking water. This is essentially where people are either starting their hike, or ending it.
After setting up camp, we began our first hike that would take us out to Glacier Grey.
There were lots of beautiful things to see along the way....
The hike to the glacier was great. Being that it was so cold, we were hiking pretty fast to stay warm. The winds can be so strong here it´s unbelievable.
You can see the glacier in the back ground.... at this point, it was almost 8pm. It stays light until about 10:30-11:00pm which allows for sleeping in every morning and having a nice long day to hike late into the evening.
