Las Torres

We enjoyed our night of glamping at Pehoe--we had beautiful clean bathrooms only steps away with warm showers, and even lovely dish sinks with warm water and drainboards to clean up after meals--I've never seen any campground in the US that has anything like it.

In the morning we packed our backpacks for our first trek, up to the Torres.  There are several valleys you can hike in the park that tuck between the various mountains that you could see from our campground.  One of the most popular trekking routes in the park is called the W, because you hike up all three of the major valleys in turn, thus creating a W.  The hike to the Torres is the valley to the far right and often people hike the other valleys first, leaving the Torres as the grand finale.

We decided to do Torres first because, you know: life is short, eat dessert first!  The real reason is because Bear has been having a weird twinge in her ankle and it sometimes flares up after she walks a lot so we weren't sure if she'd be able to do even one big hike, let alone several.  We found her a nifty ankle brace to help it hold out, and I guess it did the trick, as she was a real trooper.

Our first view of the Torres from the road as we drove to the trailhead

We had a huge runaround to do this hike at all: you have to make reservations at a particular place down below in order to camp at either of the backpacking camps up on the trail.  One of the campgrounds is run by the park and the other is run privately.  They inform each other whether their campgrounds are full, but you can't call to make reservations for either place--you have to physically go to the actual office of each.  Some websites said you couldn't make the reservation more than one day in advance, so we weren't too worried.  As it was, we got sent on a wild goose chase, ending up at something like six different offices or ranger stations, and being told different things at each one, ranging from:  "You can't do this hike at all this week because all the campsites are booked until next Monday" to "You can't camp at the high campground (Torres), but you can maybe make a reservation for the lower campground (Chileno) for three days from now" to (finally, the answer we wanted to hear, from the good folks at the Refugio Las Torres): "Ok, head on up the trail--you have to pay when you get up there, but they are expecting you."  By that point we were two hours into the roller coaster of not knowing if we would even be able to do the hike so at that point we let out a few choice hoops and hollers and scurried on up the trail.

Setting off from Hotel Las Torres

We must have been pretty focused on arriving at Chileno before dark, because we have no more pictures until the next day.  Oh, I guess the other reason is that as we neared the campsite we had a little bit of a drizzle, so we had our cameras safely inside ziploc bags.  After we set up the tent we had an honest downpour for a short time.  We stayed cozy in our tent and when it let up we took our cooking supplies up to the refugio and cooked and ate there with the rest of the backpackers.  There was a fire roaring in the stove and salsa music blasting and everyone crammed in at the various picnic tables inside the hut, having a fabulous time.  Very fun, although completely different than our normal backpacking experience (which is several decibels quieter!)  :-)  

At this campground we also had bathrooms with running water in the backpackers' hut--although from our tent site we had to scramble down an embankment, cross a stream on stones, and hike about 500 yards up the trail to get to it.  I managed to not have to do the trek in the middle of the night.  Phew!  There is a more upscale refugio right next door to the backpackers' hut: you can reserve a room there and sleep on a bed (bring-your-own-sleeping-bag) and eat in their tiny restaurant.  The supplies for the restaurant are brought up each day by horseback and then for the sum of $90 you can pay to ride the horses back down to the bottom if you're tired.  A clever business plan, although we did not take advantage of any of it.  It was funny, though, to be backpacking out in the middle of the back-country, and to look through the large picture windows of this refugio and see people chatting at the tables, wine glasses in hand!  

Our tent was on a slight incline so we put our heads in the uphill direction and went to sleep.  Sometime in the middle of the night I awoke with a start because I could hear crying from outside the tent.  It sounded like a kid, but I hadn't seen any other kids up there besides ours.  As I continued to listen, I could suddenly and unmistakably tell it was Bugs.  I first thought J must have taken her up to the bathroom, but when I turned around, he was still snug and asleep in his bag.  I reached over and confirmed that Bugs was indeed not in her sleeping bag, and I shook J, trying not to panic thinking about her wandering around sleep-walking in the pitch dark outside the tent.  By that time J and I were both calling to her and scrambling to get out of the tent to find her, but by the time we got the tent flap open, she was standing right there and crawled in.  Next we couldn't find her sleeping bag, and I was again completely mystified until I saw a corner of it out the bottom end of the tent.  Turns out we had inadvertently left a bit of the zipper undone at the bottom "foot" end of the tent and she had slid/wiggled that direction and just continued right on out of the tent!  

Eventually, after assuring ourselves that the zippers were positioned in a way to keep that from happening again, we all calmed down and got a few more hours of sleep before the big hike.

The next morning the wind had blown away the cloud cover from the previous evening and it was a glorious day, just as had been forecast--the perfect day to hike to the top and see the Torres.  

We left our tent pitched, stashed all our gear inside it, and headed up with just a small day pack.

As we neared the top we had to make our way completely around a boulder strewn knoll and the Torres didn't come into view until we were basically right on top of them.  So dramatic!  Here's what we saw as we rounded the last bend.

We had some fun up there--hung out for a bit, ate our lunch, and even met some fellow Yinzers who pegged us due to J's UPMC Pittsburgh Marathon shirt.

After a nice rest we headed back to our campsite, broke camp, and hiked the rest of the way down to the car.

Here are the girls, triumphant at the end of our big trek.  

They both thought the whole hike was spectacular, and kept commenting about it endlessly.  There are few things more gratifying in life than having your kids appreciate nature and beauty.  Such a gift!