The Pingo trail

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My early morning bus ride took me from El Chalten back to El Calafate where I had a short stop before returning to Puerto Natales. The bus back into Chile was totally full and I was dreading what would happen when we hit the border, as previous experience from Bariloche to Pucon taught me it was a slow painful process. And guess what? It was a very slow, painful process. Whereas before we had passed all our bags through an x-ray machine, the border crossing on the way to Puerto Natales was in the middle of nowhere and I don’t think that part of the world will ever see such a high tech machine. So it kind of went like this, we took all our handheld bags off the bus with us, we then waited while our backpacks were hauled from under the bus and we carried all our possessions into the border control house. You can imagine that a whole bus of people piling into a small house with all their possessions just wasn’t going to work, and it didn’t. We were told to leave all our bags in a big pile in the middle of the room while we got our passports stamped. We then had to take our bags to two men, who were to manually search them. But, being the first ones in our bags were totally buried under everyone else’s, I mean seriously, could no one have seen this coming?! We literally just had to throw others people’s bags out the way, it was a disaster. Luckily the top of my bag was loaded with dirty washing that stank to high heaven, so they didn’t look any further. But two young kids on our bus, both locals, got the full search. They did look a bit dodgy and the border patrol even came onto the bus to check their seats, emptied the flask of hot water and mate from their cups, the only thing they didn’t get was a full strip search. But, after an hour or so, we were on our way.

I was caught in two minds about my plans for my return to Puerto Natales, I was either going to return to the park, Torres Del Paine, to hike the back part of the circuit, or I was simply going to chill out. I only had 4 days as I was due to fly to Boston and then on to Chicago for Thanksgiving so I didn’t want to push myself too hard and miss my flights. After checking back into the Erratic Rock and talking to the guys there, it dawned on me I did not have the time to hike the back part of the circuit, it would have involved hiking 30km a day for 4 days straight, my body was not ready for that. With the weather so varied there, I just couldn’t risk being stuck out there in a snow storm not being able to get back for my flights. But what they did recommend was even better.

They called it the Pingo trail, a side trail well out of the way from the main trails which offers isolation and a great chance to see the parks wildlife. I planned it would take 2 nights and 3 days to do. The start of the trail was 17km from the park administration and no local buses went there, if I couldn’t hitch a lift I would have to walk to the trail head. So the next day I was back on the early bus into the park, but instead of a small minibus picking us up like 2 weeks earlier, a full sized coach turned up, and it was packed. I was so glad to be hitting the side trail; I dread to think how busy the main park was getting. I was one of a handful of people who took the bus all the way to the park administration, most people got off at the catamaran stop. Once there, I signed in, had a quick look round at the museum they have there and set off down the road. I had been walking for an hour before a van pulled over and offered me a lift, I was so relieved, after walking directly into the wind for an hour I was shattered.

The first of my trek was to take a small walk to the shore of Lago Grey, the opposite end from Glacier Grey. It was actually like beach, the ground was so soft it resembled sand, there were ice bergs floating down the lake towards me and the views of the main park were awesome. From here it was only a 30 minute walk to the camp ground I had originally planned on staying at, I had never envisaged being able to hitch a lift so planned on the conservative side. But as it was only 1pm, I decided to take the 4 hour walk to the next campsite. The map seemed to suggest it just followed the river through the valleys, but once again, local’s maps let me down.

A few hundred metres after leaving the first campsite, Camping Pingo, I finally caught sight of the elusive Patagonian deer. I was walking up a slight incline when I spotted something out the corner of my eye, it was a stag stuck in his tracks staring right back at me. It was so bizarre, we both stood there for over a minute just staring at each other trying to figure out what to do. He then started to head up the hill so I walked slowly up to see if I could see him again, he literally crossed the path no more than 10 metres in front of me, and he didn’t have a care in the world. I was absolutely overwhelmed by the whole encounter and my heart was racing, it was just incredible. I think this was the only thing that kept me going that day, the hope that I would see more deer and if I was lucky, a puma. My day was about to take a turn for the worse. After visiting a small waterfall and seeing a crazy woodpecker with a red head, I crossed a small field before the maps total lack of detail slapped me full in the face, there in front of me stood another mountain to pass. The trail took me through a dense forest so I had no idea which way I was heading or for how much further the mountain went on for, all I know is that it seemed to go on forever. The trail was very muddy and there was no sign that anyone else had been up here in the last few days, I had it all to myself. I wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or scared, when I would hit the campsite I would be 4 and half hours from anyone, if something went wrong, if a puma came and grabbed me from my tent, I would be screwed.

Just before I reached the campsite there was a sign post for a waterfall, which I reluctantly followed. The path to the waterfall was all down a steep hill and I knew full well my legs would barely get me back up, but it was gorgeous. I dropped my pack and sat on the wooden platform and treated myself to a sandwich and some peanuts with the sound of water crashing into rocks at the bottom of the waterfall, it was perfect. Thankfully the campsite was only 30 minutes from the waterfall, and when I got there I couldn’t believe my eyes. I knew the trail was remote and not many people come up here, but the campsite resembled a prairie, the grass was totally overgrown and there was no obvious place to pitch a tent. The whole place crept me out and I actually felt quite scared. I finally found a place to pitch the tent but then totally struggled to find water. Most of the campsites in the park are all on the river, so being in a field was totally confusing. I could hear the water but I couldn’t see it, and after trying to find my way to the rushing water sound it ended in a dead end of solid trees and bushes. Eventually I decided to back track down the main trail and saw a faint trail in the grass which as luck would have it went straight to the river.

Being so tired and shit scared, I retired to my tent quite early that night, laying there with my iPod on, but this time with one earplug out so I could listen to the surroundings. When darkness fell I laid there listening to the cry of what I hoped was a deer, I was dreading it to be a puma. As time passed the sounds got closer and closer, but never close enough to warrant cardiac arrest. I eventually managed to fall asleep and was relieved to wake up the next morning in one piece. As it gets light so early here I was on the trail to see the Zapata Glacier quite early. It was a 10km round trip and most of the walking there was easy, albeit through trails that had turned into mud baths. On the way I had an amazing view of the Pingo Glacier and Lago, the trail used to go right up to these but a difficult river crossing forced the rangers to close that part of the trail. Instead I was left with the Zapata Glacier, what a total let down, it was the smallest glacier I have seen and was barely visible as it was hiding on top of the mountain. There was nothing left to do apart from eat my snicker bar and go back to camp. Once at camp I dropped my tent and started the 15km back to the end of the trail, I was feeling much more energetic today and the mountain I had walked up yesterday involved a lot more downs than up today so I set a good pace. Much to my surprise I bumped into some day walkers while trudging back through the forest, they actually scared me as they popped up from behind a ridge, it’s amazing what isolation does to you.

When I re-passed the waterfall where I had seen the woodpecker the day before, my presence totally scared the crap out of something in the trees just ahead. A female deer was bolting back up the hill into the safety of the woods, but as she was so spooked she started running back down again. For a few minutes she just ran up and down, totally scared and not knowing what to do. I had already taken a few pictures so I decided to walk up the trail and get out of her sight to see if she would calm down. A few minutes later I saw her walking calmly across the trail and down towards the river, I was glad she was ok. I was approaching the area where I had originally seen the stag and was full of expectations to see some more until a rambling crowd of 20 came marching over the hill towards me, any chance of seeing any form of wildlife was gone. At the end of the trail is one of the parks most expensive hotels, but as to why these rich old people wanted to walk up here I had no idea. The weather was foul and every single one of them looked totally miserable.

I made it back to the end of the trail at lunch so I took shelter under a tree and had some lunch. I knew I couldn’t make it back to the administration in time to catch the early bus out of the park, so I decided I would walk the 17km back down the road and not accept a lift if the opportunity arose. As it turned out I was offered a lift by the park ranger after just 500 metres, he looked at me as if I was totally crazy when I said no thanks. It was raining hard, but there was no wind, so it was actually quite good weather to walk in. The road was flat so I didn’t have to keep looking down at where to put my feet so I just opened up the tanks and went for it. The road back to the administration was full of long stretches of straight which seemed endless, followed by a corner with another endless straight section immediately after. It was mentally a tough challenge to keep going, I had already hiked 25km before I even started on the track, I was tired but my legs had a good rhythm going, thanks to the road markings I knew I was going at over 6km an hour and I knocked off the 17km in 2 hours 45 minutes.

When I reached the park administration building I literally collapsed, my legs and entire body was totally spent, I was soaked and after I had stopped for a few minutes I was freezing cold. I had walked 42km with a full pack on, that’s just over 25 miles, almost the length of a marathon with a full pack and having been up and down mountains. When I changed out of my wet clothes I noticed the damage I had caused to my feet, walking that far in soaking wet hiking boots had left me with blisters in places I never thought possible and a cracking blood blister on my right heel. I was a beaten man, there was still 2 hours to kill until the bus arrived, and so I grabbed the rest of my peanuts and chilled with a documentary on pumas which was made in the park. Puma’s are such beautiful, amazing animals, I was actually sad I hadn’t seen one, but judging from the documentary, they live in the hills where no trail takes you.

As I had finished my trekking a night early I rolled back up at the rock and had to sleep on the sofa for the night, but judging by the snoring coming from above I was in the best place. The next day the whole hostel, everyone had already been to the park, had a movie marathon. We must have watched 6 movies, ranging from The Edge, Cliff Hanger, Spider Man, and Austin Powers and so on. It was so nice to just totally chill. That evening a few of us headed for the local grill restaurant, I finally had a steak that was worth screaming about, it was fantastic, but I still don’t think it matched the sirloin I had in Gaucho’s in Piccadilly, London.

So this was the end of my South American adventures, the next day I got a bus back to Punta Arenas ready to catch a very early flight en route to Boston the next day. Little did I realize quite what damage the pizza I had for dinner on my last night would cause……………..

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Comments

[John]

Steak
Mate, nothing will beat the steaks at Gaucho!!