Torres del Paine W-Walk – Glacier Grey – Day 2
My alarm went off at 7am since I wanted to get up early to walk as much as possible along the ice field of Glacier Grey towards the “Paso John Gardner”. As it was still dark and everybody else seemed to be asleep I turned around and continued to sleep until 8:30am. After I got up I noticed I had actually put up my tent on the middle of the trail. It didn’t matter too much since there is nearly no traffic towards the pass since most people only walk to the “Refugio Grey” marking one of the end points of the W-Walk. Probably only Ross and Stuart have passed my tent early this morning on their long way to the “Refugio Dickson”.
It took me about an hour to wash with the cold water from my water bottle, have breakfast and put down my tent. Having breakfast in my small tent is kind of funny since there is really not much space, no table or any other comfort item. My breakfast consisted of cereals with milk and apples. I have figured out all non-dried food I’m carrying weights most and so I started to eat all the apples I’m carrying to make my backpack lighter.
After I have packed all my stuff I walked to the viewpoint of the “Los Guardas” campsite. The campsite is situated right at the rim of the Glacier Grey where the ice is calving into the lake. This viewpoint offered a much closer view at the glacier than the viewpoint at the “Refugio Grey”. On my way back from the viewpoint I met a German guy and it turned out I have already met him yesterday on the trail when he was offering me some of his carrots. He’s a math student and after he finished his study he was unsure which type of job he wants to take. The only thing he was sure is he doesn’t want to spend his life to calculate risks for large multinational companies but do something more meaningful. He decided to travel for nine months through the Spanish speaking countries of South America which are actually all except of Brazil to improve his Spanish. He’s doing the W-Walk with his Chilean friend he has met a couple of week ago.
I continued to walk towards the pass and made it about half way until I started to return. First I had to cross some rocky terrain where I needed to climb up a ladder which was a bit scary with the big backpack on my shoulders. A few minutes later I arrived at another viewpoint which offered a fascinating view over the ice field of the glacier. It’s really beautiful and peaceful up there in this stunning landscape and I had the feeling these are moments I’m living for.
On the way back I stopped again at the “Los Guardas” viewpoint since this morning the rim of the glacier was in the shadow and I wanted to see it in sunlight. I arrived at the “Refugio Paine Grande” at 6:30pm. Actually I didn’t want to spend the night here but at the “Italiano” campsite. Getting up late and chatting to people on the way made me running late. From the refuge it was another 2.5 hours to the campsite but it will get dark in 1.5 hours. Therefore, I decided to spend the night at the refuge and luckily they had a bed for me for which I paid 15,000 Pesos (33 USD).
The room was a mixed gender dorm with three bunk beds. There was a couple from Chicago, three boys from North Carolina and me sharing the dorm. In a few days it will be the 30th birthday of one of the boys and his dream was to come here to the Torres del Paine National Park and do the W-Walk. He read about this hiking experience in a men’s health magazine 1.5 years ago and since then wanted to come here. As you might know people from the US often don’t have more than two weeks of vacation so coming here was his annual leave from work.
At the refuge I also met my fellow traveler Liz from the UK. She was worried because her niece Jo, she is travelling with, wasn’t back from the mountain and it was already dark. She had asked the guards of the park to search for her but they were very much relaxed and wanted to wait a few more hours until they go out and search for her. Luckily, Jo turned up around 10pm. She was running very late on her hike to the “French Valley” but finally made it back to the refuge.
My back hurts a bit from carrying the heavy backpack all day same as the blisters on my heels. However, I was surprise how well I recovered last night and hope it will be the same this one. In the refuge there was also the opportunity to have a hot shower but it was only working during the shower time from 8pm to 9pm. It turned out only the women’s shower had hot water and so some of the guys came to shower with us.
