We were both woken before 5am by the Koreans having little regard to their fellow campers, I layed in a half sleep also listening to the snoring whilst trying to figure out what the weather was doing.

Liz didn't want to stay another night in the park camping and we had no food left anyway. If we slept in we would miss the possible sunrise casting the torres pink and also risk missing the bus back - we got up.

We grabbed the last of the cerial and headed out. It was still dark, we only had a headtorch with almost flat batteries to negociate the tricky steep terrain.

We passed the Koreans on the path, they said hello, whilst I said that they should be quieter in return. We did the 2 hour trek to the base trek in less than the official time. The sky was now light enough to see a lot of clouds, their was little chance of a pink sunrise. The 45 minute trek to the view point directly below the torres was very steep - we decided to have breakfast. We didn't eat a lot before the cold and possibility of missing the torres completely due to the gathering clouds forced us on.

A lot of frozen people were walking down in silence - the signs were not good. Again we went into plod mode, yesterday had taken a lot out of us and we were running on empty stomachs.

Near the top someone said that you cannot see anything. We were so close we decided to get there anyway. Liz walked over the final brow, the words wow gave me the energy to rush up.

The ground is so steep you cannot see anything but the terrain still to climb. At the top of the climb all becomes visible within a few strides. On either side of the torres are jagged mountains higher than the torres but semi covered in cloud. The torres themselves were indeed covered in cloud and not visible. Below us was the emerald coloured lake that you see in postcards. It is difficult to get an appreciation of the size of the torres, they are very smooth. The jagged mountain to the right provides the scale better and gives you that wow feeling when you first see them.

Wait a minute and the weather might change was my moto that has proved benifical in Patagonia. We put on everything we had and looked for somewhere away from the cold breeze. I wanted the wind to get up for a change to clear the clouds. We had the rest of the cerial and crisp bread whilst watching the outlines of the torres slowly becoming visible.

Liz waited a little while but had to set off down due to the cold. I was now the only person there. I put on 'God is an Astronaut' on the iPhone, it was a good choice it suited the strange sterile surroundings. I busied myself taking photos of the surrounding mountains and a fox that appeared close by. The torres were now almost free from cloud (a bit better than the blogg picture) but it was still overcast and grey.

After a while I decided that what I had was as good as it gets, the prospect of a coffee at the tent sent me down. I was leaving the last highlight of the world trip. There was a theatre in Beunos Aires that I would have been one but I recently found out that it was closed for renovation.

I ran down passing lots of people coming up, they had little chance of seeing the torres - I had caught glimpses of the torres going down it was under cloud again.

Back at the campsite Liz had taken down the tent. The people from the refugio were in a big group waiting to head up, they were showered, fed and looking like they had just walked out of a hiking catalogue. I had my coffee quickly Liz was slowly starting to freeze again.

After an initial rise it was a long boring plod downhill to the campsite. We passed all types of people on this section, seeing the torres is the tick in the box like Ben Nevis is to Scotland. The difference between the people going down and those coming up looked very apparent. You had those with unfeasibly large backpacks but most were the ones that come from the hotel or the refugio for a day hike. Old, young, fit and unfit - the record for unfit must have gone to a family resting at the start of the first rise at the very start of the trek up.

We caught the bus back and having done the usual flaked out on the hostel bed in Puerto Natales knackered.