The “W” trek – Ref. Los Cuernos to Refugio El Chileno

We’d expected this section to be a bit of a breather after the massive 17+ miles the day before.  Though the unknown was the “shortcut” – various posts about the “W” had talked about a shortcut, but none of the trail maps showed the shortcut as a trail alternate.  No problem, the total distance, sans shortcut, was a bit less than 20Km (maybe 10 miles) – a bit day, but not nearly as much as the day before.

Breakfast in Los Cuernos was a self-serve family style – eggs, yogurt, uncooked oatmeal, and the always-present slices of ham and cheese, oh, and of course, some coffee (yeah!).  Some quick goodbyes to our trail buddies, packed, and we were off shortly after 9am.  After the mostly cloudy day for our French Valley section,  the skies looked promising, like they might clear later in the day.

Basically, picking up where we left off – again, we were following Lago Nordenskjold.  Not quite on the water’s edge, but inland a bit, still in the bowl carved out by some glacier eons ago.

We’d already crossed a few ‘streams’ up until this point, though the TDP version of streams is FAR more aggressive than what we’d been accustomed to in New Hampshire’s Whites.  Maybe “river” would be a more apt term.  It being mid-to-late summer, the water level was fairly low – but even so, quite a bit more water than expected.    You can just imagine what late spring looks like, with all the winter runoff. Thankfully, yet another bridge.

Because there weren’t any maps that showed the “shortcut”, we really didn’t know how far before the signage – if there was any signage at all.  Images of shortcuts being something like a “herdpath”, that might not be immediately obvious.  Fortunately, it was really obvious once we arrived – sure looked like a regular trail junction – with a fancier sign than we’d seen at many of the other trail junctions.   Easy enough and with that we began to pick up elevation, as we traversed further inland (moving uphill, away from the lake).

Eventually, rejoining the trail from Hotel Las Torres, we began heading into the Valle Ascensio, meeting up with day trippers from the Hotel.   As we’d gained a bit of elevation on the shortcut, we eventually moved from grassy, into more of an alpine look, with scree from the nearby summits.    Someone had a bit of laughs with the signage.

We’d both been fighting some sort of head cold on the earlier few days – initially thought to be allergy related, it was clearly something more – catching up with both of us today.  Maybe the result of yesterday’s mileage, we got to the Refugio and basically collapsed for the afternoon.

With 20-20 hindsight, this day’s weather was the pick of the week – had we had the energy, we might have pressed onward with just day-packs deeper into the valley to see the TDP Towers – the showcase for much of the park – but, we have to respect what our bodies tell us.  We’d already completed nearly 40 miles with full packs. Good stuff.

Chileno was the first time we ran into another odd culturism – stickers.  The windows were plastered with them – kind of fun, actually, they were from all over the world.   And sure enough, there was “Mad River Glenn” and “Sugarloaf”.  What’s the thought process?  I’m going to the tip of South America, maybe I’ll bring a bumper sticker with me?   Anyway, a bit of fun reading!

The afternoon done and the evening dinner passed quietly.  For us, early to bed, with hopes of making it to the towers the next day and then leave the valley for Hotel Las Torres (with its spa services :-)).

Read more: Hotel Las Torres