April 7th, 2019
Today was the day we had to hike the furthest with our bags. Fortunately, they were a little lighter than when we started since we had been eating the food along the way, and they still felt heavy. We woke up to another fantastic day of sun and NO wind. This was the first day we experienced without wind, and it was so peaceful.
This was one of my favorite hikes of the trek. We went up and down and through valleys, next to lakes, all with stunning mountain views. I thought that the whole W-trek was mostly going up and down which I liked. It wasn’t really just a continuous up and then a long way down. It just gently went up and down making it really enjoyable hiking, at least for me. When we climbed the volcano in Guatemala it was so difficult because it was so steep, and up for so long followed by the same steepness, and then down forever. This day was amazing, but by the end of 10 kilometers my shoulders were killing me from my pack. Like I said, I had never gone so long carrying weight and this was truly the most challenging part for me. Made me realize I needed to be better conditioned to carry a heavy pack for other multi-day treks we may want to do. Anytime I took my pack off to rest, I actually felt like I was floating walking around and my legs were very light. After a full day of hiking, we made it to our final campsite. Before we got to where we pitched our tent, the first thing we came to was a huge resort- type lodge. This was the camp at the end of the W (or at the beginning depending which way you hike it) and it was accessible by buses. We were told this is where we would stay on a honeymoon as it is extremely nice and very expensive. I think a lot of people come here and stay at the lodge and just do a day hike or horseback ride up to the base of the towers to get an iconic Patagonia view and then go back to the resort to rest in comfort. I might have been a tad bit envious when we saw ladies with their hair done and complete face makeup, leisurely riding on horseback that had a fluffy, white, super soft looking animal skin covering over the saddle. I know at this point, I may have looked and smelled more like the horse who was weary from the trail than anything else. After hiking past the Lodge, we finally made it to the back 40 of the resort grounds where any campers or tents would be fully obscured from the view of the resort guests. Right before making it to the campsite, I threw my bag down and took off my wet hiking boots and put on my flip flops. It was like I reached a point where I could not go one more step in my wet shoes and socks. As soon as I did that and put my pack back on we turned a corner and had arrived to where we check in. We met a friend, Aaron, from Austin Texas who we first met back in Punta Arenas. He was camping here tonight and was going to do the last leg of the hike with us tomorrow. We pitched our tent next to his and made some more instant rice for dinner.
Taylor and I hiked back to the resort lodge where they had a little snack shop out front and got a soda and some cookies to bring back to camp. While we were gone, Brendan and Aaron got to see a Puma! We were so bummed that we missed seeing the big cat, but Brendan got a couple of nice pictures. There were also horses grazing on the hill in front of us with spectacular mountain views behind them. It was a very pretty evening.
One of the popular things to do is to hike in the dark before the sun comes up to the base of the towers so you can be there for sunrise. The sun rising on the towers turns them beautiful shades of pink. During the entire trek we were not sure if we wanted to hike in the dark the 4 hours before sunrise in order to see this, but tonight we decided to go for it. Taylor and I crawled into the tent while it was daylight, and tried to get some rest before our 2:30am wakeup.