St. Patricks Day 09

So the day after our bike ride was St. Patrick's Day. We spent the day hanging around town mostly. Towards the afternoon. Naomi realized she lost her ATM card. She was pretty upset about that. Combine that with it being St. Patricks Day and that the hostel in which we were staying was owned by Irish, and the local vodka population was trembling.

Vodka? That's not very Irish, you say. Well, no, I agree; I stuck to good old green beer. It was fun. A bunch of the owners' friends from Ireland had planned it so their trip through South America would land them at Pudu for St. Patricks Day.

I woke up on my bed the wrong way with my clothes and shoes still on.
I was by FAR in better shape.
We caught a local bus to the Catedral ski area the next morning. From there, the plan was to take the ski lift to the top and then backpack from there.

Above is Naomi and the ski area. Not feeling so good.



She is pretty damn tough though. She started feeling a little better.

And the top of the ski lift view was impressive.


Really nice there.



But we had to get moving so we could get to your camp spot before dark. And Naomi still wasn't feeling that great. I'm not sure how into backpacking I would have been if I felt that bad.


The hike was one of the best I've ever done. It started out along the top this ridge which was pretty much straight up and down. We just followed the crest for a few hours. It was a spectacular area and being on the top of the ridgeline made it even more fun and exciting. It was rarely scary though because there were huge boulders everywhere keeping you from having the feeling that you might fall all the way down a 2500 foot cliff to your death.



After hiking for a long time, we got to a junction to hike down to Refugio Frey, which was our destination. We had to hike down a really steep rock cliff.

Going up would have been awful. Another guy at the hostel had recommended just hiking up from the bottom instead of taking the chairlift. The chairlift was $7 each. That is well worth an extra 3000 feet of elevation gain to me.

Picking our way down was still really time consuming. But, again, it was just beautiful there.


By the time we made it to the small lake, we figured we were almost there. It took another hour to make it down another big rock cliff and then to the lake where we would camp and Refugio Frey.



I took a lot of pictures on this trip, but this was a big omission. I don't have any of the actual refugio. Way out in the middle of nowhere is this cabin where you can rent a room (we didn't) or have lunch or dinner. We had dinner there. It was superb. Really, not just for camping, but for anywhere. The ranger/cook guy took his job very seriously. We had a fresh basil, avocado, and tomato salad that was one of the best salads I've ever had. The key was his terrific citrus poppyseed dressing. It would be good anywhere, but in South America, you get oil and vinegar or no dressing. To have something this good was shocking. Then there was fresh pasta with a fresh tomato and vegetable sauce, and a homemade dessert. We had lots of fantastic meals in South America, but this was one of the 5 best.
Also it was a really impressive location. If you go to Bariloche in the summer, make the hike to Refugio Frey, and make sure you eat dinner there.



In real time, Naomi is finally here. That's really cool.