Reaching the Italiano Campground will require a 19 Km hike which we start early in the day. The katabatic winds which jostled us yesterday are all but gone today and we make excellent time. Much of this portion of the park (40,000 acres, 10%) was consumed by fire last year when an Israeli trekker triggered the inferno when he burned his toilet paper rather than burying it as is required. It will take decades before the slow growing vegetation recovers.

Upon reaching the campground we secure a level site, pitch our tent and ready it for the evening. I slaved to prepare a delicious beef stroganoff (added boiling water to a pouch containing the freeze-dried, dehydrated ingredients; a perfect match to my cooking skills). Kyle inherited his mother’s refined taste for food and was quite surprised with how good the meal was. It is amazing what a long day of hiking will do for your appreciation of a simple meal.

Minutes from our campground is a “bridge” (a literally loose collection of boards laid on top of two steel cables “secured” on each side by a netted pile of rocks) over the Rio del Frances from which there are exceptional views of the Glacier Frances and Los Cuernos mountain peaks (“the horns”). The former is an actively calving, hanging glacier which produces thunderous avalanches about every 15-30 minutes. Often the avalanche produces a prolific waterfall that lasts for several minutes as the melting glacier water is released from behind the ice. The latter is a set of 7500-foot peaks that are capped in dark brown stone and rise abruptly from the surrounding forest.