Another night spent listening to the groans and creaks of a glacier, although this time we also had the gentle lapping of the lakeside to mix in. Sure beats listening to traffic driving past and construction workers in a battle with your alarm clock to see who can annoy you the most before 7am!
I give up trying to sleep and slip out early, leaving Jess to continue on dreaming, and walk along the shoreline, searching for beached icebergs that might suit a good sunrise picture. Nothing I find quite fits with what I had in mind but it’s definitely one of the more interesting sunrises I’ve seen in some time. We pack up early and head back along the lake towards the main Refugio. Again the walk is exhausting but this early in the morning we still have our energy with us and make the journey back today an hour or two quicker than yesterdays hike in the opposite direction. We make our destination with no major distractions and sit down to a well deserved round of beers and chocolate while we wait for the boat to take us across the Lago Pehoe and out to the extraction point.
The bus-ride out of the park takes us out on the opposite shoreline of Nordenskjold and from here we can see the full extent of the trek we’ve made. From this distance we can see the entire sweep of the Torres laid out, separated from us now by the blue-green waters of the lake. We pass a few small herds of wild vicuña (large alpacas) and as we sink into the plush comfort of the beat-up mini-van we reflect on what a truly remarkable and beautiful corner of the world this really is. We’ll definitely mark this down as a highlight and hope that we come back one day to do it again.
