April 8th, 2019
We woke up at 2:30 am for our last hike up to the base of the towers for sunrise. We would go there and back and then take a bus out of the park to go back to Puerto Natales tonight. The hike was estimated at 4 hours there, and 4 hours back… but it ended up taking us 12 hours in total. After 4 days of hiking, Taylor’s hurt ankle and knee were causing severe pain. She considered turning back a few times because of the pain, but she didn’t want to miss being at the top. I have no idea how she pushed through and did it, but about five hours from when we started, she made it to the top! The last 3rd of the hike up was fairly strenuous climbing up big rocks of a river bed that kept going and going. Today was cloudy and a little drizzly so we did not get to see the brilliant colors of sunrise on the towers, but I did feel fortunate that the clouds were not covering the towers and we got to see them up close and get pictures.
After hanging out at the top until we got too cold, we started the long trek back down. Now that it was no longer dark, we got to see all the scenery we missed hiking up.
It was so beautiful and was the main hike where we got to see incredible fall colors. This last day ended up being our longest day of hiking and we were all totally exhausted by the end. We returned and packed up camp and took the last bus out of the park. The bus ran late so we ended up getting back to our hostel after 10 pm. It seemed funny that after we did 55 miles of hiking on the W, the ten-minute walk from the bus station to our hostel was just too much! It was raining and cold and we didn’t want any part of that, so we got a taxi! We dreamed and talked about our victory dinner and beers when we got back to town after the past five days, but we were too tired to do anything besides crawl into our beds at the hostel.
Feeling pretty guilty reading about your incredibly strenuous journey while sipping red wine and munching on a bread and cheese platter… Cant wait to read about your Victory Dinner!