Since there was no hope of leaving before 9:30 and we didn't have to take down our tent, we slept til 8, ate a hearty oatmeal breakfast and were ready to go when we got word from the rangers that we could thankfully continue. It even seemed like the sun was trying to peer out so we were optimistic that the weather would cooperate today. We hiked up through more mud though this time we were prepared with gaiters and all our waterproof gear on. We soon reached treeline where the path was only rocks up to the pass. Thankfully we could see in the distance so continued but soon the snow started falling and the wind was wiping it around us. As the snow began to rise with every meter we gained in altitude, we were thinking to ourselves that on a Colorado hike we would have already turned around. But on this hike, the promise of a warm, dry bed on the other side kept us moving!
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| The clear skies quickly turned in to snow! |
We made it to the top about 2 1/2 hours after we started, paused for a very quick photo and then worked our way quickly down out of the wind.
As we lowered, the snow and clouds subsided and finally saw the ginormous Glacier Grey spread out before us. It began in the clouds to the right and extended all the way to our left. Just phenomenal!
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| Even the panorama option doesn't do this glacier view justice! |
Soon we reached a very steep downhill descent through the trees and reached Campamento Paso 4 1/2 hours after we left Los Perros. Though we planned on staying here, this free camp spot looked wet and baren and only a windshield (versus a shed) to cook in so we ate a quick dehydrated meal and kept going. However, we did have the camp ranger radio ahead a Refugio reservation because I decided this day was the perfect excuse to splurge a little for my birthday! Another 3 hours or so of hiking along the glacier and over 2 very long and somewhat scary suspension bridges (reminded me of Nepal) led us to Refugio Grey.
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| That's a long ways down but the view next to the glacier was phenomenal! |
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| Looking back at the glacier edge as we neared Refugio Grey. |
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| Finally a place to dry our clothes (and selves)! Slept like a queen! |
At the Refugio, we were shown our room with 3 empty bunks and immediately started laying stuff out to dry. After a hot shower, I felt like a new woman! We cooked our delicious chicken teriyaki dehydrated meals in the camping cook area and followed it with desert of the Nutella wraps heated up in our pan. We enjoyed conversations with Spanish and Chilean hikers and finally fell asleep in our quite and dry Refugio beds (we ended up with the whole room to ourselves even). This pre-birthday splurge was exactly what we needed!
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