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→Season 2025/26
==Season 2025/26==
''' GPT 36 | 2/9-2/13 | 5 Days | RR | SOBO | Graham + Gabe '''
Incredible section, tough weather, muddy trails, but perhaps my favorite GPT adventure.
Started from Cochrane at around 6pm after conversing with a store owner and family about organizing a ride over the 30km of “paved road.” Was too expensive, opted to camp 8km on side of road, in some trees. Got two rides the following morning, second of which from workers (first time hitching in a truck) who were headed all the way up to Glacier lookout.
Trail is in decent shape, weather cleared for some okay views. Some sections with lots of fallen trees can make for slower walking. Encountered 3 aggressive dogs at Puesto (53.1/611) one of which lunged at my legs and got very close to biting me. But they backed off. Was trying to push over the pass as we knew bad weather was incoming the following day. Encounter some Chilean hikers right before Ford at Km 56. Had lunch and did weather check, saw that temp was dropping down to 30/-1C with 4 inches of snow that night, and heavy gusts following morning. This information inspired the Chileans to pack up camp and continue on with us.
We took a less that ideal route up the first rock scree, I would recommend following the GPS track closely, despite being CC as it did reconnect with trail. During climb, rain turned to hail, and then snow, which made the rocks slippery and scary. Once on trail in woods, it improved.
As we climbed up towards the pass, which was covered in snow, the weather changed dramatically — a few times. One minute it was windy and snowing heavily, and then the sun would break through the clouds. Definitely increased my stress as I debated my decision to push that evening. The ascent to pass is not steep after first scree, but it is quite long. Once at pass, the valley is beautiful, descent was not bad, a little bit of skiing down, and crossing icey cold rivers. The climb up to second pass at end of valley is quite nice.
Pushed on to Camp at Km 79, a few good spots to put tents. Very cold night, snowed, but we were protected from wind.
Continued next day with our new Chilean friends, short day in the cold. Camped at Puesto El Burro (92.2/660). Not many great tent spots, but it works well enough.
Left our friends early, pushed to unmarked camp at Km 116. My Garmin stopped working this day, which was upsetting. Couldn’t get satellite connection, led me to doing soft reset and trying to software update, which stopped my tracking 😞. 3 months of hiking. However, Gaia was working. However, I could still send and receive messages which was good. Eventually my garmin wouldn’t really even turn on when in Expedition Mode, took about 2 minutes of pressing on button and enter to get it to boot up (I resolved this in town, it was another software update and as per other notes, in this part of the route it is better to activate Multi-GNSS, not just GPS Mode)
Final day we pushed early to reach Refuge at Km 148. Ended up being a really hot day, which was nice. At some point, in the heavy bushes, my camera got snagged and fell off my bag, I hadn’t noticed for a while after. I was sad, but recently had changed SD card so after 30 minutes of scouring the bushes I made peace with the loss. (Just my luck, our Chilean friends found it and messaged me on instagram and I got it back in Villa O’Higgins 🙏)
After 2 hours waiting at road with no cars, finally a settler came and we got a ride all the way to town. He recently bought property near border and plans to build it up into a camping spot.
Truly a beautiful section, and a true experience with the beauty and power of the climate. Laying in my sleeping bag with all my layers kinda made me wish I was hiding in the shade of a boulder up north again. But that’s the GPT.
*'''GPT36 // 2025 Dec 3-5 // NOBO // 3 days // hiking // Bailey and Ohad'''