W Trek - Day 5 - 11km - 5.5 hours

Woke up at 7am and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. This boded well to get good pictures.  Earlier in the morning we heard the trekkers leaving at 4am to be at the lookout for sunrise.

From the refugio we watched Los Torres turn red with the sunrise.  We quickly ate our breakfast, and started our ascent to the lookout shortly after 8am.  I was worried that clouds would roll in at any moment, and with just a day pack, we had a very fast pace.

It was a strenuous climb, ascending from 400m to 800m, but not very technically difficult.  The last few hundred metres was over rocks, but well-marked.  We must have had a big adrenaline kick because the map said it should take 2:15 hours but we reached the lookout in 1:25!

Los Torres is simply amazing.  We were very lucky that the weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky (we had prepared ourselves to wait for a couple hours to get a glimpse, based on blogs we read beforehand). Also, the sunrise people had descended, and we were the first post-breakfast people to arrive, so we had Los Torres to ourselves for almost an hour! We sat on a big boulder the size of a minivan and took in the views for almost 90 minutes.

We went slower on the descent, to take it easy on out knees, and also because there was no rush any more.  Most people take the bus back to Puerto Natales the same day, but we had chosen to stay at Las Torres Hotel, our splurge for the trip. It's a very nice place, we were glad it was at the end of the trek and not that start (some people go east-west;  I think west-east is better because you finish with the highlight (Las Torres), and there's great views of Los Cuernos along the bottom part of the W.

The weather forecast posted in the hotel showed a high of 23C for today! -- we had packed clothing for 5C :)

Over the five days we trekked 70km, almost all ups-and-downs, over uneven rocks.  We had no rain on four days, and just a sprinkling on the other.  As well we didn't get the high winds that we'd read about.  Our gear held up pretty well, and so did our bodies.  We were very impressed by both the quality and quantity of food, although with all the walking with packs we both lost weight (at least, out clothes are fitting much looser).