Torres Del Paine - EcoCamp

French Valley & Returning to EcoCamp 

Thursday January 10, 2008

Day two was to be the longest hike of the trek - up to 25 kilometers if the weather permitted. The forecast scrawled on a white-board near the Hosteria Pehoe predicted colder and wetter weather than the day before, but of course (and luckily for us) things turned out the opposite. 

During the morning, we hiked northeastward between the southeast side of Paine Grande and Lago Skottsberg.

Lago Skottsberg.

Anna and Rolf along the trail.

After lunching at Camp Italiano, we headed northward up the French Valley, ascending steadily along the way

As we climbed up the trail, we got better and better views of the several lakes located to our south. This is the western end of Lago Nordenskjöld.

And on our right side, the cuernos "Cuerno Principal" (on the right) and "Cuerno Norte" (on the left).

Sometimes we walked through a dense forest of deciduous Beech trees - sometimes it snowed...

But more and more, as the afternoon progressed, it was sunny and warm,

and we continued to marvel at our changing perspective and viewpoints of the cuernos. 

The view of Paine Grande over on the left side of the valley wasn't too bad either.

And straight ahead, the back of the valley was framed by a peak called the Fortaleza (Fortress), with a sharp granite spine Aleta de Tiburon (Shark Fin) sitting in front of it.

Near the end of the trail into the valley, we could see the northern end of the ridge of the cuernos.

After hiking all the way up into the valley, we turned around and retraced our steps back down to the Italian Camp, turned left, and hiked for another couple of hours to get to Albergue Los Cuernos. This night we got another hot meal, not so hot showers (freezing, actually), and beds in two-person cabins that cut down on the snoring problem significantly.

Cabins at Albergue Los Cuernos.

The next morning we slept in, ate breakfast late, and started hiking around 11:00 am. All we had to do was hike on the fairly flat trail along the southern face of Almirante Nieto back to Eco-Camp, and we finished up shortly after 4 in the afternoon. It was time for our reunion with Lynn, and hot showers followed by tea and cookies (and beer for some). 

Looking back at the "other side" of the cuernos as we walked eastward.

Now we had great views of the eastern side of Lago Nordenskjöld.

Almirante Nieto (the eastern-most mountain).

The Rio Ascencio, not far from Eco-Camp.

What had Lynn been doing? After her day one excursion and hike, she was tired and almost without a voice on day two (Wednesday), so she spent a large part of that day resting. On Thursday, she had walked around the camp a bit and taken more pictures, including the following pictures of the camp and the Torres.

Sunset (and later in the day) on the Torres.

The good news was that she had been well taken care of by the Eco-Camp cooks and staff, but the bad news was she still wasn't quite recovered. We all hoped she could hike the next day with us, but whether or not it would happen we'd have to wait and see.  

-Rolf