W-Trek Day 4 – Camp Frances to Mirador Britanico
The trek starts with an easy and flat walk for 30 minutes to the Camp Italiano. It is the only remaining campsite (available for hikers) that is run by Conaf, the ministry of agriculture, and therefore it’s for free. Yet not offering any bathroom facilities, but still an okay campsite what we saw from passing by.
- Route: Camp Frances – Mirador Valle Frances / Britanico – Camp Frances
- Duration: 5 hours
- Metres of height: 650 m
- Length: 13,4 km
From there the trek goes slightly up until the first Mirador, a lookout to a hanging glacier. You could sit there for hours observing the huge ice fields, where every now and then some ice is breaking off with an unbelievably loud sound, which can easily be misinterpreted as thunder.
From there the hike leads through a flat part within a forest until you will get to a large exploited field of rocks. Now it is less than an hour to the final point of the hike, which is a little rocky peak, offering a nice view across the whole valley, called Valle de Frances. There used to be an extended trek, which seemed not to be available any more.
Due to the little altitude difference it took us almost the same amount of time back to the Camp Frances. This evening I felt pretty bad, just like you feel when about to get sick. It must have been exhaustion though as I was feeling alright in the morning again. After all I did not much of any practice on multi-day hikes before. Something I would recommend now, even though the single hikes were not that demanding. All in all it is yet another beautiful and diverse landscape of the park that I remember now when thinking back to that day.
