plan for day two:
be well rested
pack up camp (we had to carry all our gear to the next camp ground)
hike 11 km (~6.84 miles) to Campamento Los Cuernos
i thought i'd throw this map in here again:
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| day 2: hike from refugio/campamento las torres to refugio/campamento los cuernos |
how the day played out:
wake up at 8:30 am, if you can even call it waking up since i never fell asleep that night
quick breakfast but didn't leave until 10:40 am
pretty even terrain, more or less at the same elevation the whole trek
on the trail we somehow (jules was wearing his Cal Berkeley sweats the entire trip so everyone we saw who was affiliated with Cal or Stanford ended up talking to us) met a man (UCSB Alumnus! Ole Ole Ole Ole) who was waiting for his UC Berkeley alumnus friend to catch up to him. he told us he had met a girl from UCSB studying abroad in Santiago the previous day at camp who was originally from Berkeley. after about 5 seconds we all realized exactly who he was talking about - our friend Louise! who we ended up running into an hour later on the trail, along with 2 other girls from our program Hazel and Rebecca.
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| ahead of us |
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| behind us |
taking pictures of myself while hiking... sort of embarrassing.
after about 2 hours, my left knee started hurting really bad when going uphill, thus i had to walk extremely slow
most of my group went ahead, while rachael stayed behind with me :) we really got to take in the beautiful scenery since we were walking so slow, but i couldn't complain since the massive lake the trail surrounded was amazing
i find out that jules went ahead of everyone to put his pack down so he could come back and carry mine
had to go up this HUGE hill, really steep with rocks. that was fun. especially with 30 pounds on my back and not being able to bend my left leg
i really struggled getting down this uneven ledge by a creek because i couldn't bend my knee, a huge line of hikers who had caught up with us formed behind me and i became very flustered when an awesome lady from Boston offered me her hiking pole to use which helped tremendously and i eventually made it down the slope and across the water. she then asked me if i needed anything and offered me an ace bandage to wrap my leg with. i surprised my stubborn self and gladly accepted the offer
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| this picture is at a weird angle so you can't really tell, but this is where i was stuck |
the bandage helped so much and allowed me to move a lot faster along the trail. i could bend my knee more going up hills due to the increased resistance from the bandage and i didn't have much of a problem the rest of the way
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| "los cuernos del Paine" - "the horns of Paine" |
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| snow! |
we run into jules an hour before we reached camp and he kindly took my backpack for me, which really was perfect timing because the last hour of hiking each day proved to be brutal every time. the last stretch of trail to camp consisted of loose dirt and rocks and a pretty vertical downward slope - the worst. i definitely was struggling without carrying my pack, so if julian hadn't came to help me i probably would have ended up letting my pack slide down in the dirt the whole way
we were instantly greeted by this lovely site upon finally reaching Campamento Los Cuernos:
keelin and natalie PTFO in the sun
the campground at los cuernos might have been my favorite for multiple reasons:
1. gorilla pods (...for some reason each little area for a tent reminded us of gorilla nests)
2. there was a very nice lodge where we could buy definitely bought boxed wine - "clos"
3. we were right under los cuentos Los Cuernos del Paine *rapha accidentally called "los cuernos" (the horns) "los cuentos" (the stories) and it was pretty hilarious*
4. "presenting Los Cuentos, by Clos"... video to come ...
Los Cuernos are one of the most famous mountain formations in the park and have stood there for more than 12 million years. they were formed by huge glaciers that eroded away the outer sedimentary layer of rock, exposing the inner core of granite
^ i may or may not have copied that explanation from a post card
our view from camp of Los Cuernos:
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| tiny waterfall running down los cuernos |
we made it to camp before dark this time, the hike took about 6 hours.
we also successfully borrowed someone's cocinilla to cook pasta again
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| dinner time! |
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| pastaaa |
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| cool tent - for the people that work at the campamento |
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| one of our gorilla pods |
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| this gnarly caterpillar ended up on one of our towels |
pouring the infamous "clos" boxed wine into our very classy mix of glasses
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