18 Julio 2009
Ahh my primera el fin de semana … first weekend… en Patagonia! I went on my first over night hike with my friend Fipoo …. Philip deSwise ….. up to refugio frey. Ahh it was absolutely wonderful! I really feel so free and happy completely enclosed by nature in the winter time especially. We hiked 5 1/2 hours with our packs first around the bottom of the mountain over looking a huge lake I cant remember the name of. Haha lo siento. It was quite windy and a decent amount of the hike was through mud and creaks. Very fun! As we ventured up the mountain into the clouds, the mud turned to ice, which made it a bit difficult to hike. The bamboo sticks turned into very helpful walking sticks. The ice eventually turned into deep, hard packed snow which was more fun to hike through. It felt really great to hike for so long in such conditions. I enjoy walking in the winter with the right gear compared to the summer time.
The refugio at the top was so cute! Haha I want one! A small stone hut with a kitchen, wood stove, kitty, mountain man to maintain it and bunk beds in a solo room upstairs. The bathroom was outside in another stone building. Haha I never used such toilets before. There was a plastic platform on the floor with footprint to stand on. You squat and relieve yourself into a deep, plastic hole that goes into the ground. You bring a bucket of water with you to “flush” the hole with. Haha it was awesome! It was completely white at the top of la montana and the hut was next to a frozen lake. Enormous, staggering rocks surrounded the refugio.
Fipoo and I made lentils y sauce tomate for dinner. Soon other hikers arrived to stay the night with us from California, Argentina, Canada and France. We all ate, talked and drank vino rojo which…. you can get a bottle made in Argentina for 7 pesos, equivalant to 2 us dollars! ow ow! Mmm its so good!
In the morning we hiked down a different route. It had snowed that night, thankfully, so the ice was padded for our descent. Haha it was still very slippery so I kept falling. Fipoo didn´t help with his constant funny jokes. My legs turned to jello for a bit and haha we had a blast! We ended up hiking the rest of 4 1/2 hours with a few Argentinians. When the slush came, haha they would slide down on their butts. Once of that was enough for me. We walked over waterfalls which you could drink from and muddy creaks. Thank goodness for my balancing skills, let me tell you!
Such a great weekend! I really want to get into backcountry. This is only the beginning my friends. Haha that was your camp counselor in trainng!
