Pehoe
Irish
Crippled ?
I decided to attempt the W trek as I do not want to return from this trip with any regrets of 'ooh I wish I had done that!'. Got the ferry across Lago Pehoe and arrived at the first Refugio camp. Due to my non-existent fitness I went for the cushier 'carry a large day bag and sleep in proper beds' option. Seven hardier souls chose to camp along the trail. Incredibly they opted to carry large rucksacks, tents, camping stoves, food, sleeping bags and roll mats. I doff my hat to them - insanely crazy but awesome people!
My base for the first night was Refugio Paine Grande. On disembarking from the ferry we learned that the rooms weren't ready so Jeanne, Ken and myself made the 22km round trip to Glacier Grey. The terrain was uninviting and I dreaded all the downhill slopes that we navigated on the way there for it only meant that we had practically an all uphill slog ahead on the return journey. The beautiful scenery and jovial company made the time pass amicably. We returned to the Refugio after about 7 hours and were treated to a carb loaded dinner. My quarters for the night was a 6-man room with bunks. Turned out I was sharing with Tony and Geoff, two of the chief snorers! Still, I had a highly potent Pisco Sour to help send me off to the land of nod quickly.
Day two had us setting off to Refugio Los Cuernos. First, we had a 7.6km trek to Campanento Italiano. Here I ditched my bag and made a boulder scrambling assent up the valley to see Glacier del Frances. We did about 3.5km and decided that due to low cloud cover there was no point continuing the final 5.5km as the view would be no better. About turning we headed back to Camp Italiano and set off to Los Cuernos. Along the way I played football with many immovable rocks. At one point I kicked one so hard I felt for sure that I had broken my big toe. Turns out I don't walk properly, instead I lift my right leg and slide the left one along the ground. Lost count of the number of times I stubbed my toes. All my own fault for gazing at the pretty and not watching where I was putting my feet. After walking 20km we reached Refugio Los Cuernos. Here I stayed in real luxury as due to overbooking I was upgraded to a little two bed chalet, which I had all to myself. There was a hot tub outside to the right and a cascading waterfall on my left, plus a snow capped mountain view outside the door. Seriously folks, it was like a slice of heaven - life doesn't get much better than this! Only downside is I think I might have lost my big toenail, as it seems to be too wobbly for my liking - will strap it up and forget about it for the next few days.
Day three was a short 16km relaxed day. It mainly involved uphill climbing, but that suited my toe perfectly. The decent down to Refugio Chileno proved interesting as I had to adapt a sideways shuffle to traverse the terrain in order to relieve pressure on my toes. While trekking it is customary to greet people with 'Hola' or 'Hello' and if they step aside, say 'Gracias' or 'Cheers'. Strangely enough you get fairly miffed if people do not acknowledge you. Getting bored with EN and ES salutations, I used vary it up with a bit of FR ad DE. I even tried Irish a few times but just got blank faces in reply. But no matter where you are in the world there is always Irish about and one of my 'go raibh maith agat' responses, got a 'failte romhat' reply. Turned out my fellow trekker was from Gorey in Wexford and was attempting to do the entire Torres del Paine trail. We rolled into camp early afternoon and chilled out. I got talking in German to some hikers who were playing Shithead. Think I accounted myself well, as they were impressed with my attempts. Accommodation in Chileno was a 9-man room, and I had a sky-high third storey bunk. Was again sharing with Geoff, Tony, and this time Ken. Geoff got great amusement watching me trying to figure out how to get the hell down from the bunk when posed with a tiny ladder, steep slanted roof and zero coordination. Plus with sore toes it's very difficult to manoeuvre yourself. There was also no safety rail so I firmly planted my back to the wall and breathed a sigh of relief that I do not move an inch once asleep. I did however place a stack of items between me and the edge so if they fell off I might wake to the noise before following them off the bed.
The fourth and final day saw people arising at 3am to make their way up to see Base de las Torres at sunrise. Having seen the cloud cover over the past two days I made a judgement call to go after brekkie. Plus I didn't think that trekking in the dark would go down well with my toe, who would have been stubbed to death for sure. Group of six of us made the 5km hike and half hour boulder scramble up to see the towers. The views were spectacular, we all stood in awe after climbing over the final boulder gazing upwards. I was delighted to see that we were practically alone at the top, there were just three other Trekkers there, so we had it all to ourselves. After spending quite some time at the top we slowly began the 14km descent to the meeting point - this was gingerly undertaken on my part. Taking a sneak peek at my toe revealed a massive blister at the base of my toenail, caused due to the chaffing of the bandage and sock. Thought about uploading the gruesome pic, but I really don't need to share everything!!
