Torres del Paine: Day 3 - Lago Grey and Glacier Grey

Saturday, March 7

Daniel and I didn’t get much sleep last night because of the strong wind and rain. The tent held up fine, but it was really loud and my thoughts were engrossed with hiking in the rain when we woke up. It was still raining when we packed up the camp, and it continued to rain for about an hour as we pushed on to Refugio Pehoé. The scenery did not disappoint as we followed the shores of Lago Skottberg. Massive gusts of wind shot down from the jagged peaks in Valley Frances and swept across the surface of the lake with eye-popping force. We had never seen patchy gusts show up out of no where with such power and blow mist right off the surface of the lake up into the air. The only thing I can compare it to are the gusts off of the Logan Airport runways from jet engines when landing. These gusts, however, were unpredictable and 10 times as strong. They could easily snap the mast of an N-10 or laser.

We arrived at Refugio Pehoé just after noon and sat down for an early lunch. Salame sandwiches again. In order to keep on schedule, we were back on our feet after 30 minutes. We passed through the valley on our way up to Lago Grey with bright blue skies ahead of us. As soon as we turned the corner at the ridge in the mouth of the valley we were hit by the same gusts that we thought we had left behind at Las Torres two days earlier. Apparently the far side of the “W” is as well know for wind as the near side because gusts build up throughout the day and sweep down the glacier across Lago Grey. Luckily, the sun was so warm that the wind didn’t bother us very much. It was more of an obstacle to our balance than it was to our body warmth. It was so bizarre, however, to be warm and see huge icebergs floating by in Lago Grey. Even still, the icebergs were a welcomed sight because it meant we were close to the glacier.

Two hours in and we saw the mouth of Glacier Grey. What a beautiful sight. None of us had seen a glacier before, and we were blown away by the beauty (and the wind). The sun sparkled off of the jagged peaks and crevasses of deep blue as the glacier rose up into the mountains. Glacier Grey was fed by massive amounts of snow from the mountains to the north, and the glacier itself served as one of the exits for the snowy build up of Campo del Hielo Sur (the southern ice fields). We were still about an hour from Campamento Grey and the dwindling daylight told us to keep moving.

We made it to the campsite in no time and were now face to face with the glacier. The deep glacial blue from the crevasses was mesmerizing. I always thought the Glacier Ice flavor of Gatorade was a joke because it was so bright and neon, but that was the actual color in Glacier Grey. I had never seen such a vibrant blue, and we could see it from miles on the mirador just above the camp. We made a new friend at the mirador to help take some group pictures, and he turned out to be a really interesting guy. His name was Dan and he was a venture capitalist from San Francisco. He was hiking through Torres del Paine by himself as part of his 2 week tour of Patagonia. We invited him to have a salmon pasta dinner with us and he happily obliged.

The dinner was quite good and we made so much pasta that both Daniel and I were in heaven. It was the last night so we could eat as much as we wanted knowing that we didn’t have to save anything for another night. Also, it meant that my backpack would be significantly lighter as I had been carrying much of the food throughout the trip. As the sun set over the mountains, a bright red color emerged from the horizon and served as a beautiful contrast to the blue in the glacier. What an absolute gem of an evening, and a welcomed way to spend our final evening in Torres del Paine.