Summit Series (Day 21)

My pre-dawn summit to Laguna de los Tres was a bit of a bust. I woke up just before 6am (along with everyone else thanks to a really obnoxious group who had similar plans for an early summit) and headed out. There were stars in the sky and clear enough that I was able to turn off my headlamp for most of the hike. Unfortunately, about 5min before I reached the top, the clouds and rain came in. I hung around at the top in hopes that the clouds would leave, but only really succeeded in getting cold (and a little cranky at my obnoxiously loud companions). All the same, I still had a pretty stellar view of the glacier.

After breakfast, I chatted with a group of retired ladies tented closeby, who travel and trak together, all over the world. How cool is that?! We traded some trail suggestions and I opted to try out Laguna de Sucie- an undesignated hike into the canyon of one of the three lakes at the base of a glacier. The walk in wasn´t quite as well marked as the trail the day before with cairns a little less prominent and plentiful, with a short scramble up the canyon face and I did have to navigate a slightly questionable river crossing- but I finally made it into the lake.


If the view had been better this morning, I would have been able to see Sucie from atop of the Laguna de los Tres summit, some 750m elevated from where I was sitting. I have to admit that I was disappointed I didn´t get both views of this beautiful lake and secretly considered re-summiting Los Tres. When I got back to camp, I decided to pack up and see how the weather looked. Things change really quickly around here, as you can imagine. By the time I was done and had a bite to eat, it looked like the clouds were moving out. So, at the last minute, I ran off to make another go at Los Tres. This time was all about getting to the top- no looking around, just get up there, and trying to hang on (I guesstimate the winds must have been about 70km/hr!). And I made great time and was rewarded with a much, much clearer view than earlier.


As well, I made the trek around the lake, so I could look way down at Laguna Sucie, where I had been just a few hours earlier. Pretty incredible.


On my beetle back down, I also noticed a great view of where I was headed, along three other sequential lakes- Madres, Hija and Nieta (Mother, Daughter and Baby Girl?).


By the time I got back to pick up my pack, it was just before 4pm, with a three hour hike ahead to the next camp area. I trotted off, past this really cool deadland forest (like something out of Narnia)


then past the three lakes I had seen early on my second trot down Laguna de los Tres


through more twisty forest, an open meadow and back into a forest of woodpeckers.

(Sidebar: I also wanted to mention that I have also been lucky to see guanacos- llama cousins, rhea: the ostrich-like silly birds here, and these really fun min-geckos). At this point, I started to get really, really tired. My aching back and burning feet (who had been thoroughly abused today) were snarling at me. As I walked, I figured I would probably put in close to 20km today. When I hit the last section of trail, I broke down and had a rest. It wasn´t until I pulled out my map that I realized that it was in fact just over 25km total, not including the 750m altitude gain and loss, x2. It was all I could do to drag myself into the camp area (thankfully much cleaner!). I set up camp, made supper and fell asleep before the sun. But, to do it again, Í would still have chosen the second summit- it was that worth it.