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Valle Franc�s

The Cerro Paine Grande displayed the biggest glaciar we had seen so far (see above). The sun was as strong as it could be in this hemisphere of the globe (December 21) and the ice started melting. The sounds from the glaciar when great chunks of ice came loose and made their way through the valley were thrilling. Anna was quite excited. I was happy too. The views of the monstruous Cerro Fortaleza and the needlelike Cerro Espada towards the north were also great (see right part of picture below).

The sun was strong though, and we hadn't brought any sun protection, so we decided not to go further up in the valley. Instead we ceased the day to see yet another path of the 'W' (the leftmost one). We picked up our tent and went further towards the southwest. This is when we realized why the 'W' preferably should be walked from west to east. The views of the Cuernos del Paine in our back were tremendous and we had no rear view mirror. But there was no time to loose! We wanted to reach the Grey glaciar before dark.

Glaciar Grey

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