W Trail addendum - The Story of the Lost Dad

Two lovely people that I met today, Floyd and Zack, told me that they walked up to the Torres viewpoint two days ago. Floyd is Zack’s Dad and was walking slower, so they agreed that Zack would head down the hill to get ingredients for dinner at Central Rifugio before the shop closed. He thought that his Dad would arrive about an hour after him. Meanwhile Floyd stopped briefly at Chileno and continued past Windy Pass. However at some point he took a wrong turning and got lost in the woods. Zack was waiting for him at Central, growing increasingly worried, and eventually reported Floyd missing. The rangers forbade Zack from heading back up the hill because it was getting dark and they didn’t want another person to go missing. They checked the cctv at Chileno and Floyd could be seen setting off from there only an hour after Zack, as expected. Meanwhile Floyd was lost and it was completely dark. Zack had carried a lot of Floyd’s kit down for him so Floyd had no food, head torch, emergency blanket or first aid kit. He had only a little water. His phone and watch batteries died. He kept walking along the trail looking for signs, and when he realised that he wouldn’t find his way back, he sheltered under a tree. It began raining, lightly at first so the leaves protected him, but then harder and harder which was very unpleasant despite wearing waterproof clothing. He nearly fell asleep at one point but was wary of getting hypothermia so he forced himself to stay awake and paced up and down for hours until eventually he saw the sky getting lighter. Once he could see a bit he started following a trail along the side of the mountain and in time he met some people heading the other way so he found out that he was going in the direction of Francès. One couple noticed that he was looking exhausted and gave him water and food. A bit further on he met a ranger who had his photo on his phone as a missing person, and walked him back to Central. A very relieved Zack was waiting for him, and they were allowed to stay an extra night; Floyd slept for the whole day. Strangely enough, Floyd wasn’t the only person missing in the mountains that night; the rangers told Zack that two other couples were also missing. So this must be a regular occurrence. I presume that they turned up eventually. The rangers told Zack that when people go missing it’s usually because of one of three reasons: 

1. They are fed up with hiking and have set off back to Puerto Natales without telling their group. 
2. They have found their way to the wrong rifugio and are getting drunk there.
3. They really are lost.

Thank goodness that Floyd was ok after his ordeal, and in fact was back hiking a day later.