March 14 Day 27 Day 2 of "W" hike
You'd think that this would have been the easiest of days, since we were just retracing our previous day's hike to form the first line of our "W". Problem one was that neither of us slept particularly well and so got a fairly late start. We still had lots of company for breakfast but many ambitious types were long gone. The outside of our tent was crusted with thin ice and Meg had trouble staying warm through the cold night.
After breakfast we decided we weren't going to do the long hike to a hanging bridge to check out the view as we weren't up for adding hours and hours to our hike. Instead, we took a closer trail which led us down to the side of a lake close to the glacier. We had a great view, could almost touch the little icebergs and had almost perfectly still water. It was one of the most magical places on our hike.
Back at camp, we struck our tent, packed our bags, made our lunch and used the facilities before going. I returned to our table first and was taking pictures of a bird in the tree when some French guys came over and told us that this bird had taken our bread. We knew that the loaf of bread was in our backpacks but then remembered our sandwiches, which were no longer on the table. Fortunately, the guys had seen the bird take them and drop them under a tree. Our lunch was recovered, intact. Even scavenger birds aren't fans of pbj sandwiches in ziplock bags.
Overall, the food we brought was probably insufficient. Most breakfasts were: a piece of bread, a piece of cheese, a hard-boiled egg and instant coffee. Lunch was our sandwich. Dinner was a boil in the bag main with some chocolate bar or cookies and a tea. Trail mix was the snack on the go for the whole trip. By the third day our belts were no longer keeping our pants up, probably an effective short-term diet plan. Try it and let us know how it works for you.
It was a bad day for me, The cold had left me with no appetite and meals were choked down with little pleasure. On top of that, the backpack felt heavy from the moment I put it on, knowing it would be a solid 5 hours before I could drop it for the day. My strategy was to take it off during hourly breaks, which felt good but made it really hard to get it back on. At least the weather was on our side, as it was warm and sunny, causing us to break early to take off any warm layers of clothing.
For our journey, you could just take yesterdays description and play it backward. The tough bit going down was relatively easy going up and we had to turn around to get the best views. The number of people was still large, most of them going much faster than us.
Today it took 5 1/4 hours to do the 11 km the map said would take 3 1/2 hours. We stumbled into the palacial Paine Grande camp with little left in our tanks and set up our tent close to the washrooms. The sun heated and dried our habitat nicely while we waited for the showers to open at 6 pm. I saw a fox not too afraid of all the people and wandering close to the dining hall, not a good sign on the food protection front.
I got in the first shift at the shower and after a wait for the water to get turned on, the hot water did the trick. I was lucky, as Meg tried an hour later and had to settle for cold water.
Again exhausted, I headed to bed right after dinner. it got quickly dark after 8 and cloud cover meant that there was no star show tonight. A few people had distant music or loud voices but by 10 it was quite peaceful. We were lucky again, as this camp had a reputation for high winds with many windbreaks throughout the site, but we had barely a breath of the stuff.
You'd think that this would have been the easiest of days, since we were just retracing our previous day's hike to form the first line of our "W". Problem one was that neither of us slept particularly well and so got a fairly late start. We still had lots of company for breakfast but many ambitious types were long gone. The outside of our tent was crusted with thin ice and Meg had trouble staying warm through the cold night.
After breakfast we decided we weren't going to do the long hike to a hanging bridge to check out the view as we weren't up for adding hours and hours to our hike. Instead, we took a closer trail which led us down to the side of a lake close to the glacier. We had a great view, could almost touch the little icebergs and had almost perfectly still water. It was one of the most magical places on our hike.
Back at camp, we struck our tent, packed our bags, made our lunch and used the facilities before going. I returned to our table first and was taking pictures of a bird in the tree when some French guys came over and told us that this bird had taken our bread. We knew that the loaf of bread was in our backpacks but then remembered our sandwiches, which were no longer on the table. Fortunately, the guys had seen the bird take them and drop them under a tree. Our lunch was recovered, intact. Even scavenger birds aren't fans of pbj sandwiches in ziplock bags.
Overall, the food we brought was probably insufficient. Most breakfasts were: a piece of bread, a piece of cheese, a hard-boiled egg and instant coffee. Lunch was our sandwich. Dinner was a boil in the bag main with some chocolate bar or cookies and a tea. Trail mix was the snack on the go for the whole trip. By the third day our belts were no longer keeping our pants up, probably an effective short-term diet plan. Try it and let us know how it works for you.
It was a bad day for me, The cold had left me with no appetite and meals were choked down with little pleasure. On top of that, the backpack felt heavy from the moment I put it on, knowing it would be a solid 5 hours before I could drop it for the day. My strategy was to take it off during hourly breaks, which felt good but made it really hard to get it back on. At least the weather was on our side, as it was warm and sunny, causing us to break early to take off any warm layers of clothing.
For our journey, you could just take yesterdays description and play it backward. The tough bit going down was relatively easy going up and we had to turn around to get the best views. The number of people was still large, most of them going much faster than us.
Today it took 5 1/4 hours to do the 11 km the map said would take 3 1/2 hours. We stumbled into the palacial Paine Grande camp with little left in our tanks and set up our tent close to the washrooms. The sun heated and dried our habitat nicely while we waited for the showers to open at 6 pm. I saw a fox not too afraid of all the people and wandering close to the dining hall, not a good sign on the food protection front.
I got in the first shift at the shower and after a wait for the water to get turned on, the hot water did the trick. I was lucky, as Meg tried an hour later and had to settle for cold water.
Again exhausted, I headed to bed right after dinner. it got quickly dark after 8 and cloud cover meant that there was no star show tonight. A few people had distant music or loud voices but by 10 it was quite peaceful. We were lucky again, as this camp had a reputation for high winds with many windbreaks throughout the site, but we had barely a breath of the stuff.
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| This is the bird that stole our sandwiches! |
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Meg close to the Grey Glacier. |
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| Meg with some stunning local scenery. |
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