Paine Grande to Los Cuernos

Day 6:
Paine Grande to Los Cuernos via the Mirador Britanicos (26 km, 860 meters of elevation).
Long day ahead of us so we start bright and early around 5:45. The campsite is blissfully quiet, the trails are deliciously empty and the morning light puts a show above the Lake Skottberg (which reminds me to check why the Lake’s name sounds Swedish). After about 8 km we arrive at Campo Italiano, which now serves as a Guarderia where we can let our heavy backpacks to hike up to the Mirador. Walking without 15 to 20 kg on our bags feels veeeery nice and as we are early we only meet a few people.
Confession time: we found a selfie stick, lost or forgotten at a Mirador in Grey and kept it (oups).
Confession time 2: we enjoy doing selfies with a selfie stick. SHAME ON US!!! Karma will bite later, you will see.
So, we do a lot of selfies with a stick. The view on the top is 360° and we enjoy being practically alone there in the sun. Shortly after us we met 2 nice American girls who offer to take some photos of us.
On the way down we meet many people, also from our group and we have to answer the question « is it worth it? » about 20 times. Which makes us wonder: what would people do, if we would answer « no, give up and go down ». The weather looks menacing, probably slightly blocking the view on the top but sunny, warm and windy back at the Campo Italiano.
After an expedition to dig out our bags from the sea of backpacks arrived after us we enjoy a windy lunch with view of the Glacier Frances (which reminds me to read about the history of this valley, as every Camp, Mirador or spot is called with a nation’s name).
Karma punishes us for taking the lost selfie stick with Andreas forgetting his Gor-Tex jacket on the lunch spot.
We continue the hike towards Los Cuernos, a superb campsite on the shore of the Lake Nordenskjöld. We had to book a tent there because no campsite is available so we get a nice, elevated tent in the trees for the modest sum of USD 300 (with Hachis Parmentier for dinner). At dinner we meet a couple of funny Swiss and the evening is spent laughing in French and playing babyfoot (« Place Merde » is the name of our goalkeeper, we win anyway). Because the weather is perfect tomorrow, we will merge the 2 last days in one to have the view of Las Torres. Which means early start again.Læs mere