Lago Nordenskjöld

Trekking Day 2: An early start to the day. We rolled out of our sleeping bags at 6:15am, grabbed our head lamps and warm cloths, and began an hour long steep 300m ascent up to the base of Las Torres lookout. The sunrise at Las Torres is a must see on the trek! We followed the trail by the light of our headlamps. It was very dream like watching all the headlamps float up the mountain. At one point 2 trekkers ran by us in the dark without any lights. I have no idea how they followed the trail. A short while later we made a wrong turn (which others followed) and had to backtrack 50m. It was quite a stressful climb with the worrying that we might miss the sunrise. However, despite the stress we made it to the top and sat and waited…the sun slowly crested the mountains to the rear and beams of light illuminated the towers into a magnificent fiery orange. What a sight to behold!

After a short while, the mountain turn back to its boring gray and we headed back down to camp for breakfast. We enjoyed a delectable breakfast of gruel mixed with hot chocolate powder and dried apples. Apparently, we bought 5 bags of oat flour instead of rolled oats! Oops!

After breakfast, we packed up and hiked back down via the same route to Hotel Torres and walked another 15 minutes beyond the hotel to Camping La Torres. After setting up camp, we met our guide Banca who would lead us through the backside of the mountain over the next 3 days. One luxury of this campsite is the refugio where you can order beer and food. We capped off the night with a cerveza and a game of Wizard.

Sadly, after a long strenuous ascent and descent, our friends started to feel under the weather and opted to complete the shorter “W” circuit. We made plans to meet up in 3 days at Campamento Grey on the other side of the park.Read more