“W” Hike – Torres del Paine – Day 3

Refugio El Chileno – Domo Frances – Glaciar Lookout – Domo Frances, 16.5 km

…with Olga

…with Chantal

The strong wind was howling the whole night and shaking our whole hut. Olga said in the morning that she was afraid that the refugio would be blown away.

So we woke up to the foul, true Patagonia weather. Yesterday Philippe and I were talking about the Patagnian wind: we hear so much about the gusty wind in Patagonia, but where is the wind?

Here we are – our first encounter with the infamous Patagonian weather. Gusty winds up to 80km/h. Looking out from the window, wind-loving Philippe screamed with excitement, while traumatized-by-tornados Yasuko was scared to be blown away by the gust. During the breakfast, it rained, the wind howled, the rainbow came out.

After the rain slowed down, we decided to brave into the wind with a full rain gear. The gust was so strong that the wind scooped the lake water and smashed it to our face with full speed. Everytime it happened, Philippe said to me, “Duck!” behind the trees, we contniued this exercies for half an hour. It was not easy to do this with a backpack of 11kg : ((

The trail at the lakeside was so exposed that the gust came in a full swing and I could see two men almost knocked into the bushes… Scary!!

After fighting through the heavy headwind and rain for one and half hour, we were relieved to arrive at the Domos Frances, the next hut.

We decided to wait for better weather at Domos Frances. in the meantime, Philippe had a nap, in a dome-like room with plenty of space.