Shorthand Patagonia - Day 5
January 20th
7:00am - alarm again.
7:30am - actually awake. cooking? nope, too lazy; cold oatmeal mixed with raisins and Nesquik is surprisingly good.
8:30am - on the trail to valle francés with just our daypacks to weigh us down. we reach campamento británico in record time (1 hour 45 minutes instead of 2 1/2 hours), and then push on toward the mirador. 15 minutes later we find ourselves at a huge boulder with a view of the entire valley. sweet. we keep walking, but once we reach the 85% grade of a wall of loose sand, we decide that mirador #1 was sufficient and head back down for a snack with a view. one of our knives becomes a casualty of our apple and peanut butter break when it slides off our boulder and we forget to collect it on our way down, but both the apple and the view are well worth it. plus, it makes our load all that much lighter. on the way down i manage to fall head-first and roll over a few rocks without major injuries. we pass Sascha coming up as we hike down through británico.
12:30pm - back at camp, we take some time to rest and have lunch in our tent before breaking camp and heading on to Los Cuernos. halfway along the 2 hour trail we stop at a rocky beach on a huge lake where various hikers are breaking to take in the warm sun and to show off their stone-skipping skills.
4:30pm-ish - we ramble in to the Los Cuernos campsite and are greeted by a friendly refugio worker eager to show us his prime camping spot complete with tree, picnic table, and view, and who then charges us half price as he flirts with gras. we also meet a middle-aged couple from palm beach, florida who give us their extra bags of trail mix after we agonize over wheter or not a $16 hot dinner in the refugio can really be justified on a student budget. later, after settling for beans and fresh-baked bread we buy from the kitchen staff, we decide we've made the right decision as we watch 40 people be served something grey and square along with their potato puré. we see the father and son pair eat their grey squares. we pass the rest of the evening playing Uno, talking with the refugio workers (who invite us to drink with them, though sadly after the ungodly hour of 11pm), and socializing with/stealing food from Sascha and new-friend Daniel from Switzerland. then it's another still-light night to prepare for the purported 7-plus hours with the packs tomorrow.
7:00am - alarm again.
7:30am - actually awake. cooking? nope, too lazy; cold oatmeal mixed with raisins and Nesquik is surprisingly good.
8:30am - on the trail to valle francés with just our daypacks to weigh us down. we reach campamento británico in record time (1 hour 45 minutes instead of 2 1/2 hours), and then push on toward the mirador. 15 minutes later we find ourselves at a huge boulder with a view of the entire valley. sweet. we keep walking, but once we reach the 85% grade of a wall of loose sand, we decide that mirador #1 was sufficient and head back down for a snack with a view. one of our knives becomes a casualty of our apple and peanut butter break when it slides off our boulder and we forget to collect it on our way down, but both the apple and the view are well worth it. plus, it makes our load all that much lighter. on the way down i manage to fall head-first and roll over a few rocks without major injuries. we pass Sascha coming up as we hike down through británico.
12:30pm - back at camp, we take some time to rest and have lunch in our tent before breaking camp and heading on to Los Cuernos. halfway along the 2 hour trail we stop at a rocky beach on a huge lake where various hikers are breaking to take in the warm sun and to show off their stone-skipping skills.
4:30pm-ish - we ramble in to the Los Cuernos campsite and are greeted by a friendly refugio worker eager to show us his prime camping spot complete with tree, picnic table, and view, and who then charges us half price as he flirts with gras. we also meet a middle-aged couple from palm beach, florida who give us their extra bags of trail mix after we agonize over wheter or not a $16 hot dinner in the refugio can really be justified on a student budget. later, after settling for beans and fresh-baked bread we buy from the kitchen staff, we decide we've made the right decision as we watch 40 people be served something grey and square along with their potato puré. we see the father and son pair eat their grey squares. we pass the rest of the evening playing Uno, talking with the refugio workers (who invite us to drink with them, though sadly after the ungodly hour of 11pm), and socializing with/stealing food from Sascha and new-friend Daniel from Switzerland. then it's another still-light night to prepare for the purported 7-plus hours with the packs tomorrow.
posted by Emily Schulman | 7:45 PM
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