Day 25 - up and over Paso John Gardner, and Grey Glacier

December 8  - Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

We woke up relatively early as the Park Ranger demanded we start hiking by 7 AM if we were planning on making it to our next camp. We were slightly late but we got hiking by 7:15 AM after eating breakfast.
Quickly after leaving Los Perros we started to climb again, through trees and what seemed to be never-ending mud.

After emerging from the trees we could really see the valley that we were climbing up, and many times off in the distance we could see a few other hikers that started earlier than we did.
The view also showed where we were headed- Paso John Gardner.
We just kept walking along, walking through trees, then large rocks and crossing streams when required. Nothing too crazy. As we got towards the end of the valley we realized that part of the climb was going to include SNOW!!! We didn't bring any special traction along but we figured we would be fine, and we were. We took a break before climbing the snow field and while we rested and snacked, a young man from Scotland wearing shorts and a t-shirt passed us in true Highlander fashion. We couldn't let him upstage us to we quickly followed.

We climbed and climbed and finally we made it to the top! Even better- it wasn't crazy windy!!! How lucky are we?!

We spent a pretty long while at the pass enjoying the view;  the photo taken above actually was taken from the guy from Scotland- very nice guy. After that we started the big descent towards Campamento Paso, then on to Glacier Grey.
The descent seemed to take forever, and on tired legs from the previous day it really was a grind. We finally made it to Paso 4 hours and 10 minutes after leaving Los Perros. OOOOOOF. We paused at Paso for lunch - again some soup augmented with couscous tasted mighty fine - and then proceeded on to Glacier Grey.
The entire walk from the time we got over the pass was dominated by out of this world views of Grey Glacier. This glacier is part of what is called the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, which sounds really cool but it even cooler. You can see this giant field of ice from space. It is the world's second largest contiguous ice field outside of the poles. Truly awesome.

From Paso, we made it to Glacier Grey campground in 2 hours 40 minutes. We arrived at Glacier Grey and splurged at the little market and bought a pack of cookies, a small package of stew to augment our meal, and   - classic - tortillas.  We enjoyed a delicious hot meal (rice, lentils, stew) and conversation with a couple of Chileans and Germans.  We even had a beer/glass of wine at the Glacier Grey Refugio Bar. Not exactly rouging it anymore, which was nice considering the couple of long hiking days.


The cherry on top? It was definitely the HOT SHOWER we enjoyed at the campground before eating dinner. Nothing like washing three days of dirt off your body.

Also really fun was that we got to know a couple from Santiago Chile. They were so nice and graciously gave us a very comprehensive list of places we should consider visiting on our way North.

(Evan)