Torres Del Paine- days 3-9

When we woke the third morning the sun was lightly poking out. Unsure how to handle a beautiful day we layered in all our usual gear and packed up. Shortly after climbing the first leg of the W we had to strip down a few layers. The sun kept shining, what a beautiful day. Michael brought a very positive addition to our group by always having chocolate during the dreary parts of the hike. We didn't even need the chocolate on day three. The guys took more pictures the first 20 minutes of our hike than they had the previous two days.

The next few days while Michael was with us we saw most of the major sights, with omission of glacier grey. We spent a night at the horns campsite where mice got into Dusty and Mike's food bags. We saw a cute little owl- probably waiting for those mice that came later in the night. The guys hiked up the French Valley while I read by the raging river. We cooked pasta with red sauce or rice with tuna every night, but usually bought a bottle of wine from the refugio for after-wards. On Michael's last night we splurged on supper at the refugio, a nice change from the usual.

Sadly the next morning, he left on the boat and then back to Puerto Natales as his plane departed the following day. He left us a lovely chocolate bar in my pack though, always the sneakily generous friend. Thank you Michael!

Dusty headed off early with a French gal we had met to hike to the Glacier Gray campsite. After we said our goodbye to Mike we too set off that way. The hike was nice with some beautiful flowers in the valley and condor sightings. Glacier Gray was neat, but of course took a second seat compared to Perito Moreno in Calafate, Argentina. We spent one night at Glacier Gray then headed back to the camp where we departed from Michael.

At this point the plan was to take the boat back to Puerto Natales, However plans changed and Josh and Dusty really wanted to re-hike the W. I pitched a bit of a fit, but got over it and went along with the hike. Day nine we were planning again on hiking up to the towers to see the classic postcard picture, however again it was raining. We hopped on the 2pm bus to Puerto Natales later that night.