Advertisement
Published: December 12th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Every now and then a stone would clatter off the undercarriage, I almost expected one to rip trough the floor. It's early morning in South Patagonia and we are on a rough unpaved road heading to Torres del Paine National Park, one of the most beautiful parks in South America. Well, that's what the guide books proclaim. My first sight of the park certainly lived up to expectation.
From a distance I was reminded of fairytales of a weary traveller who seeks out a kingdom where help and salvation lie. The traveller stands at the edge of a forest and in the distant valley below a great castle appears, built upon a hill. A castle strong and immense. The majestic granite towers - or "torres" in Spanish - are the centre piece of the national park, standing alone like the fairytale castle, salvation to us weary travellers.
Jessica and I spent three days hiking in Torres del Paine. The peaks in the park are not actually part of the Andes, but in fact a separate independent small mountain system. Like a world of its own.
On our first day we hiked to Glacier Grey. Behind us was the
luminous turquoise Lake Pehoe, to our left Lake Grey and on our right were huge mountains, their jagged peaks pebble dashed with snow. Along the trail we stopped and drank from streams of crystal clear water. It is perfectly safe to do so. There must be few places left in the world where you can have this pleasure. After an hour into the hike, Lake Grey became dotted with blue icebergs so we knew the glacier was not far away. By the time we reached the lookout point, the wind was incredible, gale force. In Europe sirens would wail, windows would be boarded up and school cancelled.
Our vista was of Lake Grey, the huge Glacier Grey cushioned in by the white mountains and the Southern Ice Field beyond. This ice field is the third largest body of ice in the world, after Antarctica and Greenland. A guide we met in Puerto Natales put it into perspective for us. Glacier Grey is 10km (about 6 miles) wide by 28km (about 17 miles) long. Imagine the Glacier as a match stick, the Southern Ice Field would be as big as my arm and hand! Sitting on rocks high above Lake
Grey with the glacier leading out from the ice field and icy winds wetting our eyes will live long in my memory. A sight for sore eyes.
The following day we set off for Valle Frances (the French Valley - booo!!! It was a handball!!!!!!). It was a clam dry morning but a menacing cloud engulfed the upper parts of the peaks. As we climbed the clouds came down to meet us, the wind picked up and the heavens opened. We could see nothing. Nada. Wet, freezing cold and disappointed we called a retreat. Our second day was a bit of a miserable one, but I have to say it still beats the rudeness of work!
Our third and final day began in darkness, hiking up a steep trail to the base of the granite towers. As the sun began to rise we noticed a few snow flakes in the air. We climbed higher and the snow got heavier. We were really attacking the trail. In fact we were walking in t-shirts in the snow. At one stage we went through a forest which gave us shelter. A red headed woodpecker tapped out his morse code to another
woodpecker not far away. We paused to listen to their coded conversation - a pleasure to watch. Emerging from the forest, the ground was now covered in a good two inches of snow and really slippy for the final section of the climb.
At the look out, an angry grey cloud tried to ruin our day. We knew the towers were somewhere in front of us but we just could not see them. This time we were prepared to sit it out, armed with warm clothes and snacks. A while later we were joined by a soulful hippy from Sweden and two nice men from Chile. We had a friendly chat as we all willed the cloud to shift. I shared out some chocolate and it was like a gift to the gods. The gods were pleased and began to life the clouds. We all sat in perfect silence, eating chocolate and snow, taking in the view that was appearing as though by magic. We never got a full view of the 3000m spires but what we did see impressed us all.
Twenty minutes passed and we were then joined by a family from...well it doesn't matter where
they were from...but they were loud and really annoying, yap yap yap yap yap, screaming and shouting (the parents were worse than the kids). So the moment was ruined. Some people should never be allowed outside the confinement of their own home. The four of us took one last look at the towers and headed down.
Amazingly all the ice and snow had completely gone but was replaced by a fierce wind on our backs, urging us downwards. About halfway down the mountain we began to meet people ascending against the wind. We had begun our climb at 5am when all these people were tucked up in their bunk beds. We looked back and pitied their bad timing. At this stage the towers and surrounding mountains were engulfed in storm clouds that covered the entire sky. This day was certainly a case of the early bird catches the worm.
From James
Advertisement
Tot: 0.303s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 14; qc: 76; dbt: 0.0922s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
joy
non-member comment
torres del paine
Fantastic hike James,great description.Shame about the weather but still a great experience not to be missed. Love Joy