Patagonia Trek – The Grey Glacier (Day 4)
Unfortunately as we were heading out of Refugio Paine Grande early on Day 4 it was a complete downpour. While getting drenched first thing in the morning is never a good way to start the day, the rain only lasted about 45 minutes so we got pretty lucky. One thing we learned about Patagonia is if you don’t like the weather wait 30 minutes and it will change (hopefully for the better). Everyone was looking forward to Day 4 since not only was it supposed to be a much lighter day in terms of distance, but also we were going to get a chance to see The Grey Glacier (see route map).
The trail from Refugio Paine Grande to the Grey Glacier lookout near Refugio Grey was pretty easy going. We headed up for the first hour and then made our way over the next few hours down towards the Lago Grey shore. Like the rest of the trek, this portion of the “W” trail offered some great views. One that especially stood out to me was our first glimpse of some small icebergs in Lago Grey that were giving off the brightest blue hue I’ve ever seen in nature.
As we came over the ridge at the Grey Glacier lookout the first thing that stuck me was just how massive the ice field behind the Grey Glacier was. Once we took in the glacier from the lookout we headed down to Refugio Grey and jumped on a boat to get a closer look. As you can see in the photos below seeing the glacier up close was truly awe inspiring.
After the boat trip we jumped in a van and headed back to EcoCamp which would serve as home base for the last couple days of the trek.
Read more about our trek in Patagonia:
- Patagonia Trek – Intro
- Patagonia Trek – Recommended Gear
- Patagonia Trek – Milodon Cave (Day 1)
- Patagonia Trek – Paso Los Cuernos (Day 2)
- Patagonia Trek – Valle del Frances (Day 3)
- Patagonia Trek – The Grey Glacier (Day 4)
- Patagonia Trek – The Towers (Day 5)
- Patagonia Trek – The Eastern Lakes (Day 6)
