Chile & Argentina

We woke up at 5:00 am to walk up to the Laguna de los Tres to watch (& photograph!) the sunrise at the bottom of the Mount Fitz Roy lake. The sky seemed cloud-free, stars were still shinning and there was no wind. Sounded like the perfect conditions for this one hour hike, uphill, steep, trekking around 750m (height) in 1,5 kms.

Micha and I only trek together when it´s flat. As soon as it starts going uphill, my speed is dramatically reduced. I keep going, “sin prisa pero sin pausa” until my pace automatically adjusts to the terrain once more. This is what happened here too, so Micha went ahead.

We were not alone, half of the Poincenot Camp had also woken up and made their way up! Still dark, and with a couple of layers less I slowly made my way up. I even overtook a couple of hikers, but after climbing the last flight of rock-stairs before a flatter terrain, I realise that I don´t have the jacket around my hips anymore. As I realise, I freeze: should I continue climbing, or should I go down to get it? Maybe someone has seen it and kindly brought it up!?

I decided to make my way down once more, asking all the hikers if they had seen my turquoise jacket… around 50m meters later, a girl kindly responds that she saw it on the trek path, and hang it on one of the poles and that I should not go down. I think about it, and decide to keep descending and after some meters I am literally the only person that is walking down. I´m not sure how long I descended, I just know that it was 6am as I found my jacket, just behind the last hikers. This was the approximate time that I should have reached the top.

It is still dark, but I still look up, wondering how much I have descended and consequently how much I have to climb up again. At 6:45 I reached the top, and was happy to see a worried Micha. Nobody had told him about the crazy turquoise jacket lady!

This was the start to my day, with some extra 600m hike, and a 12km trekking route to the next camp to see the Cerro Torre ahead.

The day could have started a little better, but it was definitely the day´s highlight. The “connection hike” to the Laguna Torre was not really enjoyable.Read more