Camping La Torres to Campamento Dickson

Trekking Day 3: We walked, we walked and we walked some more. Today was a long tiring day. It took us 10hrs to walk 30km following Banca as he set a fast pace. The trail led us from Camping La Torres to Campamento Dickson. On paper the trail looked easy; it was flat with a few short climbs. In reality, the weight of our packs and the length made this a challenging day for me. To give you an idea, our packs were about 15% of our body weight.
Today’s section of the trail may have been our favourite. We followed the river around the mountains and entered a large valley on the backside of the Torres Mountains. The landscape was beautiful and filled with tall yellow grass which contrasted the barren landscape we have seen in much of Patagonian country side. The valley was surrounded by mountains. The weather today was mostly sunny. We seemed to be chasing off a distant rain cloud that never hit us. We chatted with our guide who spoke English and learned a bit more about the region and Chilean culture. Thanks to Banca, we stopped at one ranger station and enjoyed some tea. A well-deserved break! We didn’t see a sole on the trek until the final few kilometers. The final stretch of the trail brought us to a great lookout over Campamento Dickson which in our opinion is the best campsite as it was located on a small peninsula that the river looped around. To our surprise when we arrived at camp, there were over 20 people camping! We had been told the backside was closed in April unless you hire a guide. Turns out the information wasn’t completely true. There was a small refugio at the camp that was partially closed but we were able to take shelter there while we ate. We talked to a nice German couple who had been travelling for 7 months. Exhausted, we went straight to bed after dinner around 8pm. Cooler tonight, the temperature dropped to zero.Read more