1-Mar Arco Iris 1300m elevation gain, 8 hours

Negotiating the hand tram across the Río Cochamó

I got up early and headed to the refugio across the river to ge some recommendations for a day hike.  I knew that is was highly likely that it would be our only good day of weather and wanted to capitalize on it.  To get to the refugio, we needed to take a hand tram which was fun the first time.  The refugio staff recommended Arco Iris which is a 1630 meter peak that has a trailhead directly above camp.
Like most other trails I have hiked down here, the trail went straight up with minimal switchbacks.  The first part of the trail was dirt and roots through thick lenga forest dotted with fuscias and other flowers and the occasional Alerce tree.  It was beautiful, thick, humid temperate rainforest.  After an hour and a half or so, we came to rock slab where there were ropes of questional quality that we needed to batman up.  The bolts the ropes were affixed to were also of questionale quality.  After surmounting the series of ropes across wet rock slab, it was about an hour more of steep trail up to a mirador.

View from the Arco Iris mirador showing the Cerro Trinidad big wall; move over Yosemite!

The mirador made an excellent lunch stop and I did some back stretches as I was feeling out of alignment.  We decided to try for the summit which was reportedly only 1.5 hours more.  The only water source was reportedly above too and I desperately needed a resupply.  The ¨trail¨was mainly a scramble on slabby, steep rock.

I was thankful after 50 minutes of hiking to encounter some snow;  late season snow always mean water!  The top out on the flase summit wasn´t far away.  The panoramic views were incredible.

View from the false summit.  Volcan Osorno is perched in the distance over the lake. 

Volcan Osorno, which I climbed previously in early January

Alexis on pseudo -rappel (sans harness) on the steep slab

One hour down to the mirador and another hour and fifteen minutes at a quick pace brought us back to camp.  Unfortunately, clouds had moved in which thwarted my notion of a swim in the Río Cochamó.  I settled for a sponge bath and gotten eaten alive by no see úms.  We enjoyed a dinner of wheat free pasta and soup.  I have finally learned that I´m not quite ready to be eating wheat again all the time.  I slept much, much better with the wheat alternative.