Hiking Torres del Paine: Day 2

No more than an hour after waking up on Day 2, we found ourselves on a rickety wooden bridge overlooking the beautiful Glacier Grey.

If the above photo was a video you'd hear moving water, more wind than even Aeolus could conjure, and not just a few curses from Rachel.

And now let me back up a bit...

This is the trail that we hiked on Day 2. The purple line is our path. Where we finished on Day 2 is actually where we began on Day 1. [Rachel's note: Nothing is worse than hiking for 2 days only to end up exactly where you started.]

It rained through the night, but when we woke up at Refugio Grey there was a lull in the storm so we packed our things quickly to take advantage of the temporarily forgiving weather.

We lugged our gear over to the cooking shelter and fired up the propane burner to boil water for oatmeal and cappuccino packets (with the addition of Nestle Quik). We talked with two young Chileans we'd played cards with the night before, had a few sips of their mate (a very bitter tea best enjoyed in a wooden cup and through a straw), and then left our bags at camp to continue up the ravine to catch a glimpse of Glacier Gray before retreating back the way we'd come.

Where Grey Lake meets Grey Glacier

My head blocking the view of the glacier

Blue ice in the water

Seeking a better view point

Bridge, Capacity 4 (we decided not to test this and pretended it was Capacity 1)

Glacier meets lake

Filling our water bottles from the glacial run-off

A field mouse. Surprisingly, the only bit of wildlife we saw aside from a condor.

We picked our packs up at Refugio Grey at around 2 o'clock PM and continued down the mountain the way we'd come the day before. The sun was now out and it was a beautiful day for a hike.

Paine Grande -- campsite on the second night

Although the clouds lingered in the early morning, we had another full day without rain, and for that we were incredibly thankful. At Paine Grande (our second campsite), we set up our tent, rolled our our bags, and went to the cooking shelter to boil some more water. Soup packets again... and mashed potatoes.

Like the first night, we slept pretty well.

Cheers,

Tom