Day 157 – Thursday 23rd February 2006
Having been ill the day before I was a little bit concerned about overexcerting myself and making myself ill again, so I decided to take it a bit easier. It being the 4th day as well my feet were beginning to feel the heat. Thus the first hour was slow and steady loosening up.
The walking for the day was basically to be to the next Refugio, from where I could hike to see the Paine towers and the mountain lake in front of it. After 5 hours hiking with my pack to reach the Refugio I was thinking about not doing any more hiking in the afternoon, but it being such a nice day, and me feeling pretty fresh, I decided to go for it.
The main factor was the weather. All week I had been really lucky and it had not rained, but I didn’t want to push it by waiting until the morning, which had tended to be a little more overcast at any rate. Therefore I left my bags and started the two hour walk up to the Torres. The first hour was up and down but pretty easy going, but the second hour rose 600m over about a kilometre, so it was a lot tougher going, especially scrambling up over giant boulders and loose rocks. I started to feel the effort at this point, and it took the full hour to get up, but I made it and it was well and truly worth the effort.
The towers were visible in their entirety, their sheer walls towering above the turquiose lake. It was a moment to just sit and recover. Nothing needed to be said, just sitting and looking were enough. Then it was time to make the long walk back down to the Refugio, which turned out to be quite enjoyable in the evening sun. Making it back for dinner I didn’t do much else just read and then had another early night.
