Relaxing Morning

Despite the late rain, the night went well. 

Plus, today was more of a rest day...at least in the morning. 

Since the first day of hiking, we had to be on the trails by about 8 AM. Instead, we hung around the dinning area after breakfast.

Kayaking Option

Some of us reserved a kayak trip see the Gray Glacier up close.

Unfortunately, the kayak reservations sold out eariler in the year. Only 2 from the Connecticut family went. The rest of us had the option of doing a short hike to a lookout point, seeing Gray Glacier from a bottom to top viewpoint. This is different than the day before, when we saw the Glacier from the side.

Gray Glacier

I think this hike was under an hour. When we arrived, it was extremely windy. I thought I took pictures demonstrating the wind. They were just simple selfies, and some view of the Glacier and broken up ice that floated away from it.

Back on the Trail

When we got back, the 2 people that went on the Kayak trip were back too. Then we set off.

On this segment, I took more pictures and stopped a lot. This caused me to fall behind a bit. A few times, I lost site of the head of the group.

Also, we stopped waiting for the slowest of the group on our breaks.

Emilio didn't lead the group this time. Instead, Yvonne lead and Emilio stayed in the back.

Forest Fire 

One of the biggest and noticable parts of this hike, was all the burnt down trees. About 10 years before, a camper didn't follow the rules, and decided to setup camp outside the designated camp sites. They built a fire, the wind picked up and sparked the adjoining brush. This quickly spread, and miles of trees and other vegetation burned. The park was closed for months.

You can see in my pics, the continuing devestastation, how fragile the eco-system is and how it hasn't grown back, 10 years later.

In person, you can definetely see the path the fire took, and in some places, where it turned and took different paths.

Remember kids...only you can prevent forest fires!!! I guess this person didn't grow up with Smokey the Bear!!

Lakes

We were also seeing more lakes and they were of various colors. Even though many of the lakes were connected, the colors changed depending on their mineral content and depth, and the minerals the rivers flowing between were carrying. It was only of the most beautiful color variations I've ever seen. You can sometimes see 2 or 3 lakes from a distance and compare how much the colors changed!!

Pehoé Lake And Dry Sacks

We arrived at the camp site, called Paine Grande Camp, at probably around 6 PM. It took us 5 hours for 7 miles.

The tents were ready for us.

If you read and remember my post from the first day, I mentioned how we were given 2 dry sacks, and we had to separate our belongings based on the first 4 and last 3 days of hikes. And they were coming by boat!

Well, this was the lake they came across and given to us!

When we received out sacks, we also mostly forgot what we separated, so it was fun to talk about our surprise of what we packed and what packed stuff we didn't end up using.

Also, this was the first day of no rain at all!! I took the opportunity to hang all my damp clothes along the ropes tying down my tent.

Dinner And The Crowds

This was the second camp grounds into the W portion of the trek. It was definetely more crowded and many of us were missing the solitude of the O circuit.

The camp grounds were adjacent to the buildling housing the dinning hall, which also had a small shop, for purchases like wine and clothing.

For Dinner, it was cafeteria style and lots of food options to choose from. I honestly can't remember what I ate here and I didn't take pics of my meal, like I should have.