The Steep Hike

On our forth hiking day we were heading for the famous Towers. The granite towers are the ones you see on most pictures from the national park Torres Del Paine. We saw them from Eco Camp, but now we were going to see them up close. The hike from the camp up is 22 km and the elevation is around 1000 m. Our guide Roberto described it as a tough hike, so I was prepared for the worst. 

As everyday, we started the hike in sunshine. The weather shifted a little during the day, but mostly it was sunny. The first part of the hike was quite steep uphill, but not worse than most uphill hikes I have done. Just before we came to our first stop, the Hosteria Las Torres, it was a long downhill. It is always annoying to walk downhill, when you know that you are heading for the top of the mountain. All the elevation you have gained is suddenly lost. 

After the Hosteria we walked through the forrest. It was a nice and easy trail. It was even easier today than any other day, since I had taken out most of the things from my back pack. It now weighed only 4.5 kg instead of nearly 10 kg as it had done on the previous 3 days. I usually don't mind to have a little bit heavier back pack. It makes the hike a little bit tougher and I like that. The problem this time was that I had back pain. For the first time ever during a hike! Anyhow - it felt extremely easy with the light back pack.

We were told that the last part of our hike would be the toughest one. It would be steep uphill and also a difficult path. I was prepared for the worst. Again - I was happily surprised. Yeah, it was quite steep uphill, but it was not as tough as some of the hikes I have made. (The toughest one I think was Mount Rinjani on Lombok). We reached the top without any problems and got this beautiful view.

But again - it was so windy. I put on all the clothes I had brought with me and put myself out of the wind and still I was freezing. So the lunch break on the top was a lot shorter than all the other days. It was just too cold.

On the way back down to the camp I felt that my knees were hurting a bit, so I decided to take it easy. Together with Todd from the group we walked down nice and slowly. When we finally reached to camp we went directly to the bar and enjoyed a beer. There is nothing that taste as good as a beer after a hike.