On Day 3, we continued to dig ourselves even deeper into the modified perfect ratio hole by doing a bunch more hiking and zero climbing. I thought this was supposed to be a rock trip but here we are a few days in without having even gotten out the rope or climbing shoes, other than the endless unpacking and repacking. Sad.

We woke up cold and wet and not particularly well-rested after a night of on and off rain. Unfortunately the rock was also still quite damp and we weren’t stoked about getting on the climbing route we had originally planned on. So instead of that, we decided to go exploring further into the Trinidad Valley to get the lay of the land and also to try and find the second bivy spot.

We left our stuff out to dry and walked about an hour further up the trail where we found a giant dry cave. We absolutely should have kept walking the previous day and spent the night there instead, but oh well, you live and learn.

It’s actually not quite a cave, more like a giant overhanging boulder, and 16 or so people could sleep in that space well-protected from the rain. Under the rock there was also a little fire ring with benches in one corner, and some people had stashed some food and gear along the wall or hanging from bolts on the rock itself. We definitely regretted not exploring further up the trail the previous night to find the protected sleeping area, but at least the next night would be dry no matter what!

After our exploratory hike, we went back down to our stuff, packed it up (again), and brought it all up to the overhanging boulder where we planned to sleep the next night. Since it was barely lunchtime and we didn’t have much to do, we decided to hike up to the base of the climb we planned to do the following day. Part of the advantage is actually finding the climb, so you don’t have to waste time in the morning getting lost. We also hiked up with most of our gear and stashed it up there so we could hike with less weight the next morning on the way to the climb.

After the gear stash mission, we decided to hike a little bit further into Trinidad Valley to a beautiful lagoon. All the rain had apparently scared away the day hikers, so there was no one there when we arrived and we only passed one other group on our way back to the bivy.

At the bivy I spent a solid hour in the afternoon sun trying to find the leak in my mattress pad by submerging it in a calm part of the nearby river, but no luck. I had a patch kit with me but without knowing where to patch, it was useless. Sad. Guess that’s another night of sleeping on the ground for me.

We had the cave rock to ourselves all afternoon and mostly just cozied up in our sleeping bags with our kindles. Honestly the kindles might be the MVPs of the entire trip; I went through four entire books in less than three weeks. There’s only so much you can talk about with the same person for days on end.

Later in the evening when we were eating dinner, a lovely Italian couple arrived to spend the night with us in the cave, and they also had plans to climb the next day. That made us feel slightly less clueless; our plan to stay up there and climb even with the recent wet weather couldn’t be completely crazy if other people had the same idea. Right? Right.

Day 3 Modified Perfect Ratio

0 pitches : 11 hours

We really need to get ourselves on some walls if we’re ever going to dig ourselves out of this deficit.

The full list of Cochamó posts can be found here.