So now my first day of hiking is done. First, some facts: I walked for about 7 hours, covering almost 20 km. Unfortunately, my map has no information about the altitude differences. Maybe I'll look it up some time.
I started in the morning with a bus from Puerto Natales to the national park entrance, and then on to Pudeto. There I changed to the catamaran that crosses Lago Pehoé. This way I arrived at lodge Paine Grande at about 1 pm. After lunch I set out on the 11 km hike to Refugio Grey where I had a bed waiting for me.
The hike was really amazing. The views throughout were stunning:
Another great aspect was the availability of water: all water sources in the park are drinkable! No need to carry a huge water supply. I only brought a 600 ml coke bottle, and it was definitely sufficient.
I really loved the smells on the trail. Some of the plants smelled really really lovely and made me wish that I could just inhale all the time author having to waste time on exhaling ;-)
Needless to say, you saw it on the pictures already: the weather was perfect. It wasn't even windy which is supposed to be super rare here. And this on the only party of the trek that has symbols for "heavy wind" on the map... I'm grateful!
I made it to the refugio in a little over 4 hours. After dinner, I went a little further to Campamento Guardas. From there you can get a much better view of glacier Grey:
Afterwards, I fell into my bed at about 10pm. I thought the other people in my dorm were a bit funny: I got there at 9, and everybody was already sleeping. Went to take a shower, everybody still sleeping. Woke up the next morning at 6:30, everybody still sleeping. Went to eat breakfast, then packed and left at 7:15 - everybody still sleeping. Seriously, I wonder if they're still there sleeping... ;-)
I started in the morning with a bus from Puerto Natales to the national park entrance, and then on to Pudeto. There I changed to the catamaran that crosses Lago Pehoé. This way I arrived at lodge Paine Grande at about 1 pm. After lunch I set out on the 11 km hike to Refugio Grey where I had a bed waiting for me.
The hike was really amazing. The views throughout were stunning:
Another great aspect was the availability of water: all water sources in the park are drinkable! No need to carry a huge water supply. I only brought a 600 ml coke bottle, and it was definitely sufficient.
I really loved the smells on the trail. Some of the plants smelled really really lovely and made me wish that I could just inhale all the time author having to waste time on exhaling ;-)
Needless to say, you saw it on the pictures already: the weather was perfect. It wasn't even windy which is supposed to be super rare here. And this on the only party of the trek that has symbols for "heavy wind" on the map... I'm grateful!
I made it to the refugio in a little over 4 hours. After dinner, I went a little further to Campamento Guardas. From there you can get a much better view of glacier Grey:
Afterwards, I fell into my bed at about 10pm. I thought the other people in my dorm were a bit funny: I got there at 9, and everybody was already sleeping. Went to take a shower, everybody still sleeping. Woke up the next morning at 6:30, everybody still sleeping. Went to eat breakfast, then packed and left at 7:15 - everybody still sleeping. Seriously, I wonder if they're still there sleeping... ;-)
