Crónicas Patagónicas Torres del Paine II

Second day starts early but nicely. A warm fire and a decent breakfast. The day looks good and the legs feel r ecovered after the almost ten hours rest. Besides, at least during the first hours, we wont need to carry the backpacks. The plan is to leave them in the refugio and head North until we reach the glacier. Once we get there we will try to find a way to jump on it. Regardless of us achieving this or not, we will have to backtrack our way back to the refugio Pehoe to continue walking the bottom part of the W.Walking without a backpack is a different story and, even though the way is quite uphill, we progress fast. The path goes through a nice forest and, from time to time, you get a new view of the glacier. The small rivers coming down from the mountain provide water which, is not only drinkable but also delicious, very cold and clean. Nothing to do with that yellow shit I had to drink in Chapada Diamantina. The only problem is that the trekking route is quite far away from the glacier and also in a higher level. Our first try to reach the ice fails, we bump into a cliff which does not look secure enough to go down.

The second is the good one, after crossing quite a deep canyon we reach a point in which the downhil to the Grey is not so extreme. We have thousands of rocks to jump on the way but, been careful, it looks like a possible way. We will see later how to get back but this is definitely our chance to do the ice trekking. So, we head downhill for quite a while and… yeah! We made it to the glacier.

Besides, we have been fucking luckly, at this point the glacier has built a sort of ice cave on its edge. It is hard to describe how it felt been inside that, touching that crystaline deep blue ice… In a way, it is like been inside the glacier…

All right, next it comes the complicated thing: climb into the Grey. And make it in one piece if possible. We have to find a place where, in case of slipping down, the fall is not too high. In the end it happens to be much simpler than we thought thanks to some rocks next to the glacier and almost as high as him. Besides, you may thing walking in a glacier is difficult, like trying to jump on top of one of those ice cubes that so quickly melt in your drink, but is not. The Grey is a fucking solid guy and you dont feel any break while walking over it. And it is not completely flat, its surface is kind of non-regular, with foot size wholes all over. So you can easily walk it. Just for you to get an idea, I will tell you that I am not exactly a very balanced guy but, still didnt fall a single time.

Been up there was a really high moment. It was like I had taken an ice cube from my rum with coke, make it extremely bigger and then jumped on it. Walking a glacier is an unique experience which is really worth it. One thing is to see it from distance, a very different one to be on it. The Grey looks endless, with cracks and blue caves everywhere. Common sense prevented us for going any further but that short walk in the ice was just amazing. Seen how things happened in the rest of my Torres del Paine experience, I can say the Grey was the highlight of the journey. At least this edge of the W was more than covered.

After the ice delirium, it was time to get back, which meant trying to find the path again. Not so easy actually… We had gone down quite a long way and backtrack all that was a real pain. Although we had done it without backpacks, it had taken us quite a while to reach the glacier and even more time to come back. We were already tired by that time. Bad news cause, according to the plan, we still had to go all the way back to the first refugio (the Pehoe, where the chilean guy stayed) and then walk another two hours to reach the Italian camp, right in the center of the W and free for been low season.

However, as we were walking, I was considering more and more the idea of staying in Pehoe. Firstly, cause I was feeling myself a bit too tired to continue and I fancied the idea of taking a hot shower (something not possible to do in the italian camp). Secondly, but not less important, cause the idea of continuing the trekking at my own was growing in my mind. I was convinced they would continue no matter how tired they were just to avoid paying the 7 euros fee for camping in Pehoe. So I was tempted by the idea of staying there and maybe join the chilean guy or someone else to continue doing the W. Not that I had had any issues with the couchsurfers, but they had not been a great company either.

If I had still doubts about this, they dissaparead when we arrived to the Pehoe. The french guy announces that he plans to come back to Puerto Natales when we are done with the trekking by hitchhiking. I tell him we have hired a guy to pick us up. Moreover, we arrange it through the people hosting him for free. He says is ok, that he spoke with the woman the night before we left and there is no commitment in our side. It smells a bit bad actually, specially cause I was the one who spoke on the phone with the guy and, in my opinion, the appointment was quite set up. So I ask him to phone the woman so we can make clear noone will be going to pick us up but he says he is not going to pay of that. What a rat!

All right, enough of that cheap shit, I am staying. The american does not look so sure about what to do. He is a bit less cheap than the french but not too much. In the end, he also decides to continue so we split the food we have between them and me. They keep the portable kitchen cause I wont need it in the places I will be stopping. I keep the rum cause it does not deserve to be wasted on people like that. The french complains cause we still havent used my bar of pate. I compensate this by taking less cheese. They leave, I stay.

The truth is that, at that point, I wasnt so sure about the decision I had taken. Due to my limited time, it was also very convinient for me to extend the journey that day. But, in the end, the important thing is to enjoy the trip and, as soon as I entered the refugio, I realized it had been the right decision. The chilean guy didnt show up but I met the belgians who were staying there. I had a beer with them and also met this brazilian guy who was finishing his lonely trekking. Great guy this Ricardo. Maybe cause I still was influenced by the bad vibrations coming from the other two, but I inmediately felt simpathy for this guy. In theory, we both would have to set our tents there (the belgians had booked the refugio expensive beds) but, we endid up sleeping in a sort of kitchen - house situated in the middle of the camping.

Much better than outside where it was fucking windy. Ricardo and I shared a dinner which tasted like heaven, combining the food he had left with the stuff I had. This is, my friends, the real Paine spirit I had heard of. You give me cookies, I give you pasta etc… It was an interesting guy the brazilian. He had a small notebook when he started to write thoughts he had been having during the three days he had walked alone. Very philosophical stuff but, as I said, I liked the guy from the beginning. I ended up sleeping in one of the kitchen benches, a bit colder than the night before but with better company

Itinerary Day Two

Tags: Glaciers, Patagonia, Torres del Paine, Trekking