3. A Long Hike
DAY 188
It is partly cloudy outside, and it is time for some exercise. I’ve had a decent sleep in my little cabin, so I'm well arrested. I packed my little backpack, put in some extra clothes, a few energy bars, and a thermos with an orange juice.
I would like to find some locations where I can take some pictures of Mount Fitzroy. I have an exact composition in mind, now I have to find the spot. I followed the trail towards Mount Fitzroy. The trail starts climbing right at the edge of the town. The trail is in the forest, so for most of the time you are sheltered from the wind, which is incredibly strong at this place. There are lot of people on the trail, it is incredibly busy. You can hear the languages from all over the world. A lot of hikers from Chile, Argentina and Brazil. But most of the hikers are from Europe. And from all the people in the world, I get stuck behind large group of Russians. And they are very loud as the Russians normally are. From all the topics they can talk about, they talk about the war in Ukraine. And they're talking that the only way to end the conflict is to kill all Ukrainians. A very strange attitude especially when they are obviously not exactly poor when they're able to pay for the trip to 10,000 km away from their homes. Of course they have no idea that I can understand what they're saying. And takes a lot of self discipline for me not to grab nearest rock and beat the crap out of them. As that is usually frowned upon, I quickly pass them so I don't have to hear them. Man, I hate them so much.
Back to hiking. The trail is nice and fairly easy up till now. Pretty soon I get to the first viewpoint of Mount Fitzroy. It would be a great picture from here but, unfortunately, all upper half of the mountain is in the clouds. The trail goes through nice valley, which continues all the way to the mountains. There's a small river coming down through the valley, which would be a perfect foreground for the picture. That's the classic picture of Mount Fitzroy, which is in most of Patagonia brochures. After two hours of hiking, I found the perfect spot by the river. Except it is still cloudy and actually starting to drizzle. I marked the position on my phone map so I can get to it faster if conditions improve. So this was the goal for today. But it is still too early to return. I continue hiking up the valley, flowing the trail. I don't have any final destination, I'm just enjoying the incredible scenery. Around the corner, I can see a huge glacier coming down from the mountain. I keep hiking farther and farther into the valley, and after about 12 km I started to realize that I still have to go back the same distance. This is going to be painful. But I might as well go little bit farther and take a look at that glacier. After four hours of hiking, I finally get there. The glacier is only tiny part of a huge icefield, which stretches hundreds of kilometres north south and west into Chile. It is very impressive. And while am I taking a break and watching the scenery, a huge part of the glacier starts coming down. I quickly grab my camera and I caught a part of it. Pretty cool.
It is time to go back, I've already hiked 12 km coming up here. All the time I haven't seen the summit of Mount Fitzroy even for a few seconds. Too bad I didn't come here yesterday when I could see the whole range. Hiking back is somehow faster in my mind. I guess because I know where I'm going. There are 100s of people still coming up and many coming down. A lot of backpackers going to different campgrounds along the way or they are just a day trippers like me. At one trail junction, I hear some people speaking Slovak. I start talking to them, and they are three climbers who are returning from their attempt to climb Mount Fitzroy. They didn't make it, they had to retreat because of the bad weather. They said it was snowing heavily at higher elevation. They were going back to El Chalten so I tagged along and we were chatting all the way to the town. It was pretty cool to speak the language again. It was also good to keep my mind of the pain I was feeling in my legs. They were young guys full of energy. They were going pretty fast even with their backpacks full of climbing gear. I had to work hard just to keep up with them. But the trail went by very quickly and we were back in town fast. We said goodbyes and went to our separate places. That was cool.
I got to my place and I could feel my legs. Actually, I could feel my whole body. I was tired, thirsty, and hungry. I didn't feel like going to a restaurant, so I stopped in the grocery store on the way in. Bought some stuff for dinner. Looking at my phone app, I hiked 25 km today. Eight hours of hiking. I will be very sore tomorrow. The weather forecast doesn't look good for tomorrow anyway so I will have time to recover. Now I am looking forward to bed to give my legs and my whole body a break.
DAY 189
The last night was better than expected. I thought I am going to be tossing and turning the whole night and getting cramps to all those muscles I forgot I have. I slept pretty well. I looked outside in the morning and as predicted it doesn't look too good. I can see the rain in the valley and the sky is overcast. It is a good day to rest and that is my plan for today. And that's pretty much what I was doing the whole day. No pictures today so I don't need to edit anything, just try to blog about yesterday. Easy. I booked a place for my n ext overnights so I don't have to look for a place to sleep when I get there. And it's all my accomplishment for today. The Internet sucks in this campground. I cannot upload anything on my website. I can send and receive messages only on my cell phone. Hopefully the next place will have a decent connection.