Day 28: The Grey Lake

Mood: Achey but happy
Music: Lots! Ending with Deadmou5 - For lack of a better name

Today's trek left the hotel at 8:15am so I was up in plenty of time. Unfortunately I missed breakfast due to spending far too much time trying to fix my gps tracker (broken by dropping it on the floor, it no longer charges the battery while plugged into USB) or at least trying to find something to charge the battery. Sadly I couldn't do this and so I was forced to leave without it for only the second day since I left.

I'm going to work out the best way of sharing the KMZ file generated by my logger giving the places I've visited so far in Google Earth. The GPS logger on my mobile phone seems to have magically removed itself and as I'm having issues connecting my mobile to the wifi here, I'm struggling to get it back. I'll see what I can do before I set off for Cape Horn but I'm not overly hopeful.

The start of the trek itself was a bus ride and a boat ride away. This took until 10:15am at which point we started walking up the marked track. The weather was lovely and the wind virtually non-existent. Our guide said that this was the best weather he'd ever seen the valley in. One of the mountains in the distance he had only seen once before as it is normally shrouded in cloud.

The first half of the walk was slightly uphill but overall very flat. From here we reached the viewpoint at which Rolf was pictured. You can't see it very well but his badge is starting to look very worn. I was half tempted to see if I could get a new one made up to be brought out to me... I'm not sure I've got enough time left now though.

The second half of the walk was more challenging, with many steeper sections going both up and down over the next 90 minutes. This seemed much harder then yesterday's climb and I really wasn't looking forward to the return leg at that point. Once at the view point at the end of the path we sat down and had lunch.

David, the other Brit with whom I was also walking yesterday, had set out a little ahead of the rest of us, with the intention of "walking slowly". I set out after him with my macro lens on the camera, keen to snap some of the flowers I had passed on the way out.

I kept up the pace, with the intention of catching David, stopping for a few seconds every now and then to take a few more photos. Sadly at the top of each little peak on the trail he was nowhere to be seen in the distance and so I kept on walking faster, music blaring into my ears driving me onwards. All of a sudden a stag walked out of the bushes in front of me, ambled forwards a bit, pausing only for me to take a photo of it before disappearing over a ridge.

After this I saw the viewpoint that I mentioned earlier and eventually spotted the tall figure of David in front of me on the path. I eventually reached him and we both sat for a few minutes to wait for the others to catch up. Once they had done I set out on the long downhill stretch for home. With music once again pounding in my ears I tore ahead of the others, eventually arriving at the starting point of the trek a full 15 minutes ahead of the others. I'd done the return leg of the 3.5hr each way trek in 2 hrs.

David bought us all a beer in the refuge while we waited for the boat to return to take us back towards the hotel. Here we discussed a huge range of topics with the two American's we had spent the day with, everything from soccer and rugby through politics and history.

The rest of the day was fairly dull, with only a bus ride and a slight kerfuffle regarding my last day's trekking to sort out. I had decided to do the third leg of the W trek here in the park tomorrow. Sadly they didn't have that trek arranged for tomorrow and as such I'm signed up for the same route as today. I'm just going to do the leg I've missed on my own as they both start from the point where the boat drops us off.

I'll let you know how it goes, but I've a feeling they are charging me full whack for a day's guided trek even though I'm not going with a guide. I've a feeling I might raise this with them in the morning... All I ought to be paying for is the packed lunch, the bus ride and the boat fare. I'm sure this shouldn't cost almost £65...

Anywho... time for bed for me! Night all!