Blogs from Torres del Paine, Magallanes, Chile, South America - page 27

Our next venture was the W trek in torres del Paine reserve, or like some people call it ¨Torres of Pain¨. This reserve is as big as the whole tel aviv area full with lakes and mountains. Like every good israelis we went to hear what Juan has to say about the trek and decided to do the W backwards. This is a 4 day trek with the last two days hiking with full equipment. The trail was full of people and mostly israelis so we had lots of company and it felt like a high school trip (except the carrying all that weight). The first day was to the Gray glacier (which was actually blue). It is a 11 km walk (of which yael stopped after nine where Eyal did the rest running) back and ... read more

I left El Calafate the day after my mammoth trek in Fitz Roy, and took a short seven hour bus ride across the Chilean boarder to Puerto Natales. The city of Puerto Natales, 247 km. northwest of Punta Arenas, together with black necked swans and seagulls, greets the visitor from its misty dock, characteristic of this rural tourist area. It is capital of the Province of Última Esperanza, situated by the Señoret Channel facing the Andes Mountain Range. Puerto Natales is the gateway to the famous Torres del Paine National Park, which attracts hikers and visitors from all over the world. I arrived in this lovely quite town with the aim of heading off the next day to hike the ´W´. I booked into the coolest hostel called Erratic Rock, which provides a free briefing for ... read more

We woke early due to the noisey Germans. I uterred 5 - 1 under my breath, and recited the 1966 world cup winning team in order to remain calm. Despite the wild weather overnight the lake was completely flat. We were relieved at not having to trek back to Paine Grande. We wanted to get outside and away from the hut and so set off to take in a few viewpoints. The views of the glacier and surrounding peaks were impressive and the camera was busy again. We chill-axed at the viewpoints before heading down to the lake to have our butties and wait for the boat. Unfortunately the boat was delayed by several hours so we had quite a long wait. This was a bit annoying as i'd wanted to have a walk to a ... read more

The last day of the trek would take us from Refugio Paine Grande along Lago Grey to refugio Grey behind which sits Glaciar Grey. The names might not be especially evocative but people we'd met had said it was spectacular. Added to that it was only about 3.5 hrs which suited our sore legs. The blue skies were gone but it looked pretty bright so we set off looking forward to an easy day with plenty of stops for taking in the views. As with day 2 that got walloped pretty quickly. Ascending away from the hut the weather got worse and the wind became pretty wild. The rain joined in properly and it got pretty nasty. We were getting soaked and it was tough going in the wind. A few precarious points didn't help the ... read more

Day 3 - huge day, boardering on enormous. The route was to take us from Refugio Cuernos to Refugio Paine Grande with an 'in and out' into the Valle Frances (french Valley for those who don't speak fluent french). Depending on how far we made it into the Valle frances would dictate the length of the walk, but we were looking at a good 8 hours with some decent ascent thrown in. The pants weather from the day before was gone and we awoke to some blue sky. Due to the cabanna the first thing i saw was the sun lighting up the cuernos - good stuff. Breakfast was the usual frustrating affair, difficult to get served which is annoying when you want to leave early. Had a nightmare filling the camelbaks the hut staff wouldn't ... read more