Torres del Paine National Park


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South America » Chile » Magallanes » Torres del Paine
January 25th 2013
Published: March 14th 2013
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Ushuaia to Puerto Natales


Having completed the epic journey to Antarctica, there was little rest or time for contemplation as the next destination was already decided. I was heading back into Chile to trek 5 days in the Torres del Paine National Park. I was already planning to do this before getting to Argentina, but the departure date of the Antarctica trip forced me to delay it. I guess that can be forgiven.

A 16 hour bus ride later, crossing the border and the Strait of Magellan once more and I had arrived sleepily in Puerto Natales. This is the main gateway town to Torres del Paine and the place to rent equipment. There are a number of options for performing the trek. The entire circuit of the park is usually done in 7-8 days, but most trekkers only complete the W section of the circuit, so called because of the shape of the journey depicted on a map. The 'W' covers roughly 75% of the full circuit with the remaining 25% seen as having less major sights, so the W is the best option for most people. It’s also advised not to trek the back section on your own as it can be more dangerous and less populated by other trekkers should something go wrong. I should also mention that the park has no search and rescue. None. If you break your leg or some other unforeseen mishap should befall you, you’re on your own. I felt that the W portion of the trek in 5 days would be right for me.

There are a couple of different accommodation options on the trek. You can either camp in tents, or sleep in refuges, which are basic cabins. For food, your either carry, cook and eat your own, or you can again lavish it up and buy meals in these refuges. So as you can see, this makes the trek open to many more types of travellers. Whether that is for better or worse is naturally a matter of opinion. I chose to go with the tent and cook options.

Having rented a tent, sleeping bag, rollmat, cooking gear and a trekking pack, I set about purchasing my food. Now one would think that being the epicentre for trekking one of the most popular and amazing parks in the world, Puerto Natales would be drowned in camping/adventure stores right? Wrong. So utterly wrong. It really amazed me how dismal it was. If you could find a way to open a store here there is a gold mine waiting to happen - trust me. It is quite remote though, so perhaps importing goods might be expensive and/or difficult. To this end, I was forced to buy my food from a pretty crappy supermarket. Two-minute noodles and pasta would be my dinners, and I bought an 8 pack of rolls and filled them with ham and cheese which would serve for my lunches. I was putting some faith in the ham and cheese staying fresh for long enough to not make myself sick. A completely wise decision. A pack of granola with powdered milk and dried apricots would become my breakfasts. Snacks consisted of chocolate biscuits, fruit lollies and chocolate. Rock and roll.

One of the major hostels gives a free information speech each afternoon in town about the park, the trek and what to expect. Much of it was of an ‘Idiot’s guide to trekking’ level, but considering some of the other ‘trekkers’ I saw in the days to come, more should probably have attended. The park has been badly burnt twice since 2005 from accidental fires started by trekkers. A lot of the scars were still seen from the 2012 fire started by an Israeli backpacker.

Most people start the trek in the morning but I had to post some things home before I left and had to take the afternoon bus up to the Park (2 hours away). That meant I had to cover 11km in less than 3 hours to beat the light. After departing the bus it was a short Catamaran ride across the lake to begin the trek. This ride was quite breathtaking as the blue glacier water in the foreground and the first sighting of the majestic mountains in the background were a great introduction. The highest peaks are some 3,000 metres high – which isn’t particularly high compared with other parts of the world. But the base is near sea level so it makes it more impressive in that regard. The weather here is renowned for its extremes – winds can reach 110 kmh and your large backpack becomes something of a sail.

Each of the legs between camps/refuges have cutoff times to ensure trekkers have enough time to reach the next camp before dark. I reached the start of my leg 15 minutes after the cutoff and the ranger tried to dissuade me from going. But I don’t think he had any real power to stop me and I convinced him to let me go on. I wasn’t sure what kind of terrain to expect but I was confident I would make it. The pack was quite heavy; 13-15kg I estimated, considering I had a tent, sleeping bag, cooking gear, food and clothes. But it was manageable and would get a little lighter as I ate through my food.

I didn’t have any trouble on the first leg to Refugio Grey where I would be camping the first night, and covered the 11km in just under 3 hours. I had about 30 minutes to set up my tent before dark. The sun sets here around 10pm. I didn’t bother cooking that night and contented myself with a delicious ham and cheese roll.

The next morning I woke early and grabbed my day pack to head up for a closer view of Grey Glacier, a 12km round trip. There were small rivers, a suspension bridge crossing, and a ladder climb up a cliff before breaking through the trees to a magnificent view of the glacier below and before me. There was a river of ice as far as the eye could see. In fact, this was just a small ‘finger’ of the glacier as it stretched for another 28km into the distance. There were some icebergs floating in the lake where chunks of ice had calved off the glacier. Unfortunately after having just been to Antarctica you can understand why I was only captivated, rather than spellbound.

After heading back to camp, eating breakfast and packing the tent, I hiked the 11km back down to my first departure point where I would camp the night. I decided to share a beer with an Aussie guy I met on the first day, Damian, who was doing the Refuge accommodation option. There’s always room for small rewards and the beer tasted great. It was very windy that night and I thought my little 1.5 man tent (no reasonable person could call it a 2-manner) might blow away, but it impressively remained intact. It turned out to be quite a solid little tent.

The next day was to be a long one – 28km, which was due to one of the campgrounds being closed because of ‘hygiene’ reasons. ie. The place smelt like a sewer. The most annoying part was this was probably the most important camp in the park as it allows you set yourself at the base of the French valley part of the trek and split the proceeding and next day into manageable 20km sections (it is also free to camp). It had already been closed for over 2 weeks before I arrived and the park really showed no motivation in cleaning it up and reopening it. It probably had nothing to do with the fact that there are 2 refuges 7km either side of this camp which generate the park a lot of money. A-holes.

So it was an early start in order to make it before dark and I hustled up to the closed camp in question. Here I dumped my pack and filled my day pack for the sometimes difficult climb up through the French valley and up to the Britannica mirador which gives a great view over the valley and up to the back side of the Torres mountains. This section involved some boulder-scrambling,
hiking through lush forest, beside raging rivers and watching small ice/snow avalanches on the nearby mountains.

Once at the top Damian and I sat and took in the excellent views for some time before making our way back down to collect our packs. The last 7km with our packs were quite wearisome and I was glad to arrive at camp by 5pm. That was until I saw the actual campsite. A rabbit warren in dense scrub would be a more apt description. There was not a flat patch of grass to be seen. Some lucky few who arrived early enough were able to make use of some wooden boards that had been erected for campers, but they were few and far between. And so I nestled and shoehorned my tent into a section of scrub. The best I could do was put it in a hole and on an angle. A great night’s sleep was all but assured.

I reluctantly and begrudgingly made my way to the admin office to pay the camping fee of $8 but they turned me away saying that someone would come to my tent later to collect it. It turned out nobody came
to collect the camping fee, or maybe it was just because nobody could find my tent, but suffice to say I felt not one bit guilty about avoiding the fee.

For some reason I was a bit bleary-eyed in the morning but to quote Russell Coight it was ‘time to hit the road’. The first 3/4 of the day was a delight after yesterday’s slog, passing by rolling hills and some open country with wildflowers. The final section into camp was pretty brutal, and after 3 days of hiking my leg muscles were ready to call it quits. But I made it, and was pleasantly surprised with how nice this campsite was. There was no refuge nearby so it was far quieter and peaceful. It was situated on a small stream where you can easily fill up your water bottle and at the base of the steep climb to the jewel in the crown of the trek – the Torres del Paine.

One of the best ways to see the Torres is at sunrise, which I planned for the next morning but there is never a guarantee you’ll have a clear morning and many times trekkers have left disappointed after having their view shrouded in clouds. As I had arrived in the early afternoon and it was a clear day I decided I would rest my weary bones for a couple of hours, then head up to the Torres in case the morning should be so affected by clouds. At this point I feel obligated to discuss those fantastic feats of human engineering - trekking poles.

It was recommended by more than one source to take trekking poles on my trek. Seasoned trekkers advised that there was no shame in using them and they would be useful. I still didn’t bother as I just didn’t think they would be necessary. But I was ready to accept being proven wrong. At least 80% of the trekkers I saw were using poles. If you don’t know what they are, they are simply a longer version of ski poles. I could tell they were useful for many people, but the constant tap tapping became a tad irritating by the end. They also cause people to take up more space than usual on the path. Seeing trekkers, especially those unaccustomed, constantly tapping and feeling their way forward with these elongated poles reminded me very much of an awkward Preying Mantis. In sections of the path that were only wide enough for one person, it was an amusing sight when two people approached each other from either direction. For me, I was able to easily jump to one side or scuttle past because I was unencumbered by these protuberances, but the pole-wielders were not so lucky. These little encounters were soon named ‘The Preying Mantis showdown’. One would tap-tap to one side, but the other would do the same. There would be an awkward unspoken moment of indecision where their feeble brains would try to determine who would pass first and how it would be done. More indecisive tapping and prodding would ensue. Perhaps there would be a little slip or a stumble, until finally one mantis would brush by the other, sometimes with a clash of steel, and they’d both be on their way. Little joys...

The climb up from camp to the Torres was very steep and energy-sapping, but thankfully quite short (only 30-40 minutes for me). The view was stupendous. I hadn’t seen such sheer rock of this magnitude before. Four huge jagged spires punctuated with a beautiful turquoise lagoon at the base filled from the glaciers above. I filled up my water bottle from the lagoon and savoured the refreshing taste. There is nothing better than pure glacier water. After contemplating life for a couple of hours I headed back to camp, ate some pasta and retired to bed. It would be a 4am start tomorrow.

The return rock scramble was done under the cover of darkness and I ended up arriving much too early for sunrise. It was good in a way because I was one of the first to ascend and avoided dealing with the long line of torchlights which could be seen all the way down the trail. As the sky lightened, it confirmed a crisp, clear morning with not a cloud to be seen. We got lucky. The special part of sunrise at the Torres is the way the rock changes colour and it did not disappoint. The massive granite spires changed from pink to orange to bright yellow then tan, before finally settling on its true grey colour. The shadows drew a perfect line across the middle of the spires one by one as the sun rose above the nearby mountain.

And with that, the pinnacle of the trek was finished. All that was left was to descend the remaining 12km to Hotel Torres at the foot of the park where the bus would collect us. As I descended I passed many day-trippers who only climb the final leg to see the Torres. Even for a day hike, it is all uphill and quite strenuous, which many appear to have underestimated. I was feeling very content after the sunrise and with my lighter pack, but with the mob rush constantly in my face I couldn’t get out of there quick enough to be honest. I tore down the mountain, dumped my pack on a nice patch of grass and rewarded myself with a hot dog and coke.

Despite some of the shortcomings that exist with a super popular trek of this nature, they could in no way compromise or diminish the breathtaking views, scenery and experiences. This will remain a highlight of my travels for a long time to come.

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14th March 2013

Nice
Great article chief, and thanks for the mention! I thought the trek was brilliant, and as a pole user (ha!) had to laugh at your Preying Mantis bit. I was definitely one of the cliche trekkers. Hope the travels are going well.

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