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Published: April 10th 2009
The trek of our lives.
¨This is a landscape that has to be seen to be believed, and even then, confronted directly by the senses, it strains credulity... The land here is like a great book or a great symphony; it invites approaches toward comprehension on many levels, from all directions¨(Edward Abby, Author of ¨The Journey Home¨).
Trekking the W is no small feat in Torres del Paine. It took us an entire day to collect all the pertnent information (how to survive the ¨stink uniform¨, wind harrassment, etc.), finding the best rates for buses and gear. When the gear rental company gave us -30F degree sleeping bags we knew we were in for some fun! Also to prepare us further we attended the 1.5 hour talk at The Erratic Rock Hostel, it was definately worth the stop. The particular route we took is creatively called the ¨W¨ and others often will extend the trip by doing the Circuit or the Q. Due to time contraints (we are pushing to make Brazil by April 7... visa requirements) we decided to do the 5 day ¨W¨while adding the bottom tick of the Q as
an added bonus. 😉 Here is how it went...
Day 1 (10.5mi/17.5km): Administrative-to-Refugio, Acampar Paine Grande The day started early with the bus picking us up in Puerto Natales at 7:30am with a 3hr ride to the Administrative stop where our ¨trekking¨(no longer considered hiking... a totally different category) would begin. This first day was considered a warm up by other trekers and gratefully it was. We had an overcast day with a sprinkle of rain which provided perfect weather for trekking. The scenery was nice with river views, mountain views, beautiful lake views and relatively gentle inclines throughout the trail. We arrived at Paine Grande within 4 or so hours, set up our tent (which required the help of 3 others... stressful because we thought the poles were busted), had a bite of noodles w/ soup sauce and a box of wine.
We forgot to mention that we were now traveling, since Rio Gallegos, with a delightful Basque man named Oscar. Oscar is 1-in-a-million, and our trip would not have been the same without him. You´ll be hearing a bit about him throughout.
Now the most amazing thing about this evening at Paine Grande was how
BRIGHT the night stars were... absolutely incredible. The sky was so clear and crisp... it was almost as if you could just reach up and touch the stars. It was a perfect close to the day. We were quite tired and knew that solid sleep was ahead.
Day 2 (18.7mi/29.6km): R. Paine Grande-to-Lago Grey/Glaciar Grey-to- Paine Grande-to-Campamento Italiano Well... you can just forget about solid sleep in Patagonia. The clear night transformed into erratic and windy rainstorms. The wind shook our tents relentlessly, created creepy and weird noises through the mountains (Chrissy: I woke up thinking about ¨LOST¨and the black powdery thing). The noises invaded everyone´s dreams ruining any hopes of a good night sleep. Still we were positive...
Day 2 (we knew) was going to be a long one, but thankfully we left our packs at Paine Grande carrying only day packs for the trek to Glaciar Grey and back (before heading on to C. Italiano). Glaciar Grey is one of the largest glaciers in the world and has a major effect on the microclimate of Torres del Paine. The wind blows from the glaciar picking up ice cold moisture which it slings in the form
of rain, hail, snow or a combination of them all ... only in this region. WELL the weather, even though originally overcast with light rains... morphed (we choose this word carefully) into hell bent hail and pelted us solidly every couple hrs. In between these war-like periods either the sun smiled at us (changing our perspective of the trek) OR the wind roared off the glaciar pushing us to-and-fro like kites in a hurricane. Even though we were a bit thrown off by this tempermental weather we had good laughs about it all and Oscar´s red poncho that nearly carried him away with some of the gusts! (Or rather came to life under the wind´s spell.)
We arrived back at Paine Grande camp around 6pm and rushed to take down tents, collect our packs and make our way to C.Italiano before nightfall (estimated trek time 2.5hrs). Oddly enough... we did not make it to C. Italiano before nightfall and became victim to giant mud pits only navigated by Oscar´s night vision and John´s single head lamp (my batteries were dead... imagine that). The final kick in the pants was a cable bridge swinging in the rain above an extremely
loud river (which could not be seen)... and a sign that said ¨Uno persona¨which is... One person at a time!!! We made camp, ate pasta with esparragoes soup sauce, and a bit of chocolate for desert. With stomachs full we went to bed at 10pm, hoping the wind would give us mercy this night.
Day 3 (12.7mi/20.5km): Campamento Italiano-to-Valle de Frances-to-Los Cuernos Once again no solid sleep was had. The wind was in full effect, howling relentlessly BUT the trees do need some credit for providing a bit of shelter. It was enough shelter to give us confidence that our tents and camping neighbors wouldn´t be blown away. While Chrissy prepared our ramen noodle breakfasts I walked back to the swinging bridge for another look and found a beautiful view of the mountains that we had missed in the dark the night before. After our healthy breakfast we left our packs at camp and started up to the mirador which was to be an all up hill hike for the next 2.5 hours. It was well worth it with the terrain varying from boulders and waterfalls, raging rivers of glaciar run off, to alpine forests and streams that
ended at the base of numerous mountain peaks which surrounded us. Throughout the hike we saw and sometimes heard mini avalanches that echoed thru the valley. (Worth mentioning...there was an especially windy section of the trail, at least 75 mph winds, which caught Chrissy off guard and took her down for a second time...Wind 2 - Chrissy 0) After 2.5 hours of downhill on the return trip, Chrissy and my knees were just about finished...so it took a little encouragment from Oscar (who is a trekking machine) for us to strap on all the gear for another 3 hours to Los Cuernos! This section of the trail led down along Lago Nordenskjold and its river rock beaches. It made for some beautiful views with clear skies, distant mountain ranges, and jagged rocky peaks that extended out of the pine forests at our backs. How serene even with the wild blowing wind, which it did almost constantly. Interestingly during this section of the trek the wind often picked up a wall of mist/water from this lake which it then slammed onto the shore and side of mountain. The wind didn´t blow in any one direction here, but seemingly wherever and whenever
it wanted, sometimes even kicking up small funnel clouds on the water of mist and wind that would start racing to shore! (For the record, it is now Wind 3 - Chrissy 0..this is not looking good)
Finally, day three is in the books, we found a decent campsite in the woods with Oscar and an English couple, Ayden and Catherine, to split up the last of our wine and enjoyed another long windy night together!
Day 4 (12.9mi/20.9km): Los Cuernos-to-Campamento Torres (Past Chileano & Refugio Las Torres Dreaded day 4...a solid 10 hour day with the last 4 hours being all uphill! We had heard horror stories of this portion of the trip, but the good news was we had perfect weather with beautiful warm sunshine filling most of our day! The majority of the trip was rolling hills with great views and fresh streams waiting for us every time we needed a drink. Patagonia is one of last places on earth you can still drink the water without getting sick! We made it to Campamento Chileno in good time and from there we had only 1.5 hours to go! We talked to some fellow hikers
who were also taking a break and they had been told by someone they passed on the trail that the rest was nearly flat. This person told very big lies! The final stretch had numerous vertical trails... but hey, whats new? We were some tired hombres when we made it to Campamento Torres that night. After a quick dinner we were in bed before dark and ¨nearly¨ slept thru one of the worst nights yet!
Day 5 (14.7mi/23.9km): C. Torres-to-Laguna Amarga- PRAISE GOD! Day 5 came early as the alarm went off at 5:30am so we could hike 1 hour (vertical - straight uphill) to the three towers of Torres del Paine at sunrise. At some point in the night I think everyone was awaken by a combination of extremely cold tempertures and their tents smacking them in the face. Somehow sand and dirt had made it inside and was blowing everwhere! When we got up we found our tents covered in mud (??) AND the rain had turned into snow laying down a fresh white coat over everything. 45 minutes later we made it to the top and waiting for the snow clouds to clear in order
to get a view of the towers. There were about 20 other campers waiting for this blessed event. After an hour we had some nice views and some good laughs with Oscar, Ayden, and Cathrine, but had to get moving if we were gonna make it down to Laguna Amarga to catch the 2:00 bus.
We made it down to Hosteria Las Torres in record time (3 hrs) and found ourselves feeling pretty good. At this point we had the option of waiting a couple hours for a shuttle bus ($5/ea) to pick us up or we could walk it. The map indicated 1.5 hrs. Shoot we are trekking pros now... we could prob do it in 1 hour! Lets kill some time and save some money! Bad idea... a little over 2 hours later we dragged ourselves to the final bus stop, (with John and I both doing the monster walk... Frankenstein style... no joke). We had finally broken our bodies...aching joints, swollen knees, and blistered feet...going out with a bang!
Chrissy woke up on the busride back and there was a guy standing in the front taking pictures. What in the world.... then she looked around
and found every single person on the bus sleeping...all were out cold!
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Iratxe
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Yet another Basque in you lives ;)))
Hahaha, Chrissy, I must admit I loughed out loud when I read about Oscar (amazing how many Basques have crossed your paths in life so far) and your nightime LOST moment (btw, the smoky monster had an important role in the last episode). Amazing trekks, awesome pics, incredible experiences.... you guys are getting ready for Tibet and the Himalayas, right? But hopefully before that I'll be meeting you again somewhere in Northern Africa, Southern Spain or here in the Basque Country.... Have fun!!!!!