Another night for the books. We all got fantastic sleep after our first outings and awoke reenergized. Today was to be much harder. With a total of 16 miles consisting of an altitude trek in the middle without packs followed by 3 more miles with packs. After a light breakfast we set out full of joy and excitement. The initial part of the trek was level and filled with prairie scenery. The only down side was the 40 mph winds the nearly blew us off the trail. We hiked by lakes that seemed to glow iridescent turquoise. Again we were surrounded by immense mountains with 1000’+ waterfalls. It was amazing. Finally the winds died down. The first part of our trek went smoothly and we reach the lower campsite where we were able to drop our packs and resume the Britanica lookout hike. This was a beast. There was bouldering, steep climbs, stream crossings, and generally a long trek. There where two lookouts. The first lookout was Frances lookout. Here was were able to rest our bones and stare at glacial cut mountains with a few glaciers clinging to them. What made this spot amazing was that every few minutes there was a ‘BOOM’ from the glaciers and pieces of ice would tumble off the mountain. We enjoyed a boxed lunch admiring the clouds rolling over the thunderous glaciers. We continued, again it was a challenging hike. But we finally made it to the Britanica lookout which was truly awe inspiring, 360° panorama of mountains including the Torres del Pain, the turquoise lake, and the glacier mountains. The sheer geology of the place was a spectacle. The ‘towers’ look as if the glaciers of old nearly covered them but not quite as their peaks were craggy black rock that abruptly transformed to a smooth tan color. We turned around and started the long trek down. Unfortunately, most of the trail is small to medium sized rocks which are murder on your ankles and feet. This was made worse by the fact that the last few kilometers were on a small rock beach. Ben is insanely fit and could hike for days, dad and I nearly reached our physical limit as we could barely lift our feet for the last 2 miles.
1 comment:
So proud of the 4 of you! Grueling but oh so worth the effort. Nick, thanks for your description of you trek. You make it come alive!
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