Our Great Adventure: Torres del Paine/Los Cuernos Day 215 21/04/2015

We were up for breakfast at 0720 as we wanted an early start as we had 8 hours of walking to do today. We hit the trail at 0810, using our headtorches for the first 20 minutes until it got light. We went back down the same path we were on yesterday and the view was just as spectacular in the reverse direction. Whilst it was still windy, it was less than the day before and with the wind behind us we arrived back at Paine Grande 30 minutes quicker than yesterday. We were glad to have our walking poles with us to act as stabilisers and help break against the wind. After a short detour to the Park Rangers hut (we were trying to locate where we had camped when we were here last 12 years ago), we regained the path, which headed north east towards Camp Italiano and the Cumbre Bariloche mastif. As we started to walk past the shores of Laguna Scottsberg, we were sheltered from the wind and soon it became quite hot with the sun on our faces. The wind break was mainly provided by the abundance of trees that had not been victims of the 2011 fire and we could see and hear how effective they were by the many small wind skerries on the lagunda and the animal like howling noises on the water. After a couple of hours pleasant hiking, often peering up to the huge jagged peaks on our left, we came across the noisy, thrashing waters of the Rio Frances. Following the path we turned left and headed up the right hand side of the river, hoping there was a bridge so we could cross it. After 10 minutes we were relieved to find there was one and we crossed the decidedly looking wonky and long swing bridge to reach the other side. There was a sign saying 2 people max but we decided to be risk adverse and crossed the wild, angry waters just a few metres below us one at a time. On the other side is Camp Italiano and, as it has no refugio, it meant we needed to go another 5.5km west along the banks of Lago Nordenskjold to our destination of the refugio at Los Cuernos. We had contemplated walking up Valle Frances but noting it was going to another 5 hours for the return trip we didn't have enough daylight to do it; however we decided to come back and go up it tomorrow. We settled instead to have lunch by the river with fantastic views upstream across to the Glacier Frances, with the steep high cliffed mountain range behind, towering over 3000m above us. Back on the trail we were soon greeted by first class views to the right and left of us. To the right was the long thin Lago Nordenskjold, 15km in length and 28m squared in total, with small rounded peaks behind it. To the left were 1000m plus sheer cliffs that stretched up to the many steepled summits across the Los Cuernos range. From there we saw over a half dozen condors soaring above us, majestically cruising the air currents looking for food and occasionally landing on the small clefts in the cliffs. Whilst close up these birds are quite ugly with huge beaks and long, pink necks, designed to quickly tear into dead carcasses, but flying at a distance they were very graceful and beautiful. We arrived at the refugio in just under a couple of hours and after checking in, we were glad to have been so quick as the wind changed direction and started to pummel the side of the refugio. We were especially glad we were indoors as we saw people arriving either battling into a head wind or if they were travelling from the other direction, trying not to take off. The forecasted 100 kph gusts of winds had arrived with earnest. As the refugio is mid point on the 'W' walk we met people who had got off our bus at the Laguna Amarga park entrance the day before. We roomed with an Irish couple, David and Tracey, whom we had seen on the Navimag ferry a few days before, and who were travelling back to Ireland from Sydney. They had lived in Oz for 7 years and were spending 4 months in South America before going back to Dublin for a friend's wedding with a view to living back on the Emerald Isle again. We got the impression that David seemed more keen on the idea than Tracey as we chatted, sharing travelling stories over dinner. We went back to our dorm (Simon is getting a schoolboy thrill of being on the top bunk!) and hoped we would get some sleep as the fierce winds were joined by heavy rain, which crashed and banged outside our dorm window.