After a good night of sleep in our tent, the group prepped breakfast and headed out around 9am. The day’s plan was to get to Campamento Italiano where we would drop off our gear, hike up to Mirador Britanico, and then head back down to Campamento Italiano where we would stay the night. In the morning on our way to Campamento Italiano the weather was perfect. Below is a picture of us right as we were leaving Paine Grande.
Although the above picture makes it look like it was a colder day, you can see from my later pictures this day that most of the morning trek from Paine Grande to Italiano were done in our short-sleeved shirts. Layering and delayering our clothes became an activity we did numerous times per day as the weather could change drastically in a short period of time.
Along the way we came across elevation signs like the below. I could never decide if these were a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand it was always nice to know what the future hike looked like, but on the other hand, some times it would have just been better to not know how difficult the future path would be. I took pictures of every sign I saw as a reference point for future hikers. You can see them here on my Patagonia 2017 homepage.
Additional pictures from Paine Grande to Campamento Italiano:
Once we reached Campamento Italiano, we dropped our bags and headed for Mirador Britanico. Unfortunately, it started to lightly rain as we climbed to the top and for most of the hike we felt like we were in a rain cloud. On the way up we passed Glaciar Frances and heard it rumble a few times as the small avalanches took place.
Eventually, we reached the top of the Mirador Britanico Lookout! We got incredibly lucky as after we hung out at the top for a few minutes the rain stopped and most of the clouds parted making it much easier to see around us.
We hung out at the top of the Mirador Britanico lookout for about a half hour and then decided to head back down to Campamento Italiano where it rained throughout the night.
Additional pictures of the climb to Mirador Britanico Lookout:
