13th December 2024

The alarm went off at 04:00am. We woke quickly and packed up our sleep system by torchlight. Dan then went into the mess area to make coffees and breakfast, while I packed away.

Despite the early hour we were not alone for breakfast. The majority of the camp sat in the dark mess room cooking by headlamp, all anticipating the tough day ahead.

Dan and I hit the trail at 05:30am and ascended a dark wooded hill, only needing our head torches for another ten minutes until we emerged from the woods into that delicate morning light. The trail had become boggy so we hopped across rocks and branches like tightrope walkers to avoid getting our trail runners wet.

We continued on and came out into the open valley. The mountains here were irregular and aggressive with sharp pointy spikes, glaciers sat precariously on steep mountain sides and compact snow formed like blobs over the trail. This was by far the most technical trail we have navigated. 

At the certain point a small strip of grey could be seen just over the summit of the John Gardner Pass. The higher we climbed the more the cloud lifted and the more of Grey Glacier came into view. This glacier was much bigger than the other ones we had been exposed to. It sat in the basin of the valley and extended backwards eventually joining up with other glaciers which makes up the Southern Patagonian Ice Field.

We continued down a steep dusty path, following the edge of the glacier through yet more woods and then an exposed path with some large boulder climbs. To cross rivers we trusted rickety rope bridges which hung about fifty to one hundred metres up in the air. The first of which had an unnerving, dangling broken plank which didn’t exactly fill us with confidence.

We descended into Camp Grey and were immediately shocked by how busy it was. Since the visitor centre it was the first time we joined the W and day trekkers. We had been spoilt having the trail to ourselves for the past four days and none of us felt particularly keen to share it.

After setting up our tent and sleep system we stocked up on Pringles and Gatorade from the minimart and headed to the glacier viewpoint with some of the other hikers. Mouths full of Pringles we chatted happily towards the windy spot where you could stare at the glacier head on. Chunks of icebergs bounced on the waves white at the top with a dense electric blue glow at their base. 

After a dinner of vegetarian pizza, we joined the rest of the O circuit gang, who were now huddled together in unison on a long picnic table too small to host us all chatting loudly, unified by the sudden exposure to strangers.