9 Days in Torres del Paine

Hola, Friends and Family -

It´s been a while since our last post, but fear not... we´re back from Las Torres!  At the risk of stating the obvious, it was pretty amazing.  When we last wrote, we were holed up in our hostel in Puerto Natales, having arrived in the middle of a pretty serious 7-day strike over plans to eliminate subsidies for heating gas in the southern regions.  The cities of the south shut down all transportation, creating a bit of a humanitarian situation for all the hikers stranded in Torres del Paine park... as the park began to ran out of supplies.  Eventually, the Red Cross got involved to evacuate stranded hikers.  We, however, arrived just in time... the strike ended the morning that we arrived... we spent the day in Puerto Natales gathering provisions for our 10-day trek, making arrangements for our bus to the park in the morning, going for a run, and enjoying one of our finest meals ever (see our later blog post on indulgences).  The meal was so fine, in fact... and the wine flowing so freely... that it was not so conducive to packing for our trek when we got back to our hostel.  So, when the bus showed up the next morning, we sent them on without us, and rescheduled for later in the day, allowing us to finish a few more errands before our big trek. 

Day 1:  So, with a slightly later start than planned, we caught an afternoon bus to the park (about 2-2.5 hours from puerto natales), arriving around 5:30pm.  No problem there, as it stays light until 10pm.  We decided to hike in about 2.5 hours to a campsite called Chileno, up the valley that leads to the park´s signature attraction, Las Torres (beautiful giant towers of granite).  The campsite sat behind a refugio (like AMC huts in the White Mountains, where you can pay to stay in a nice lodge/bunkhouse)... lots of tents too close together, though.  Good news was that we packed much better for this one... left many unnecessary things back at the hostel, and our packs felt great.

Day 2:  A 4-hr day hike up the valley of las torres to view the towers.  They were stunning.  We didn´t realize how lucky we were to get such a fine day for viewing them... as the clouds moved in as we watched, slowly enveloping the towers.  We felt particularly bad for all the people we saw struggling up the hill on our way back down (now raining on and off), because they weren´t going to have any view at all.  At the top, we were re-joined by friends Carly and David, who were day-hiking to Las Torres as well.  The hike itself was lovely... and a day off for us without our packs.  It rained a lot that night.  Fortunately, our tent does a very good job of keeping us dry:)

Day 3:  There are two main treks in Torres del Paine -- the ´W´, named for the shape of the trails when looking at a map, taking about 4-5 days, and the ´Circuito Grande´, which takes you all the way around the mountains and then takes in the W as well on the back side (8-10 days).  We´d guess about 45% of the people in the park are there to see Las Torres and maybe a few other big attractions, about 50% hike the ´W´, and about 5% hike the Circuito Grande... we, of course, were all over the Circuito Grande.  Day 3 marked the beginning of our journey around the circuit, from Camp Chileno to Camp Seron, about 18 km away... a beautiful day for hiking, a long day of hiking, but quiet and peaceful with few other hikers out on our route. 
                                                                          Day 4:  From Camp Seron, we continued around another 17 km or so to Camp Dickson, which sits at the foot of Glacier Dickson and the lake that forms at its base.  This was our favorite campsite -- with giant peaks behind us, a glacier and lake in front of us, some beautiful rainbows, and a whole lot of wind.  I mean, a whole lot of wind.  The kind of wind that is strong enough to knock a 230 pound clydesdale and his 50+ pound pack off of his feet and onto his bottom... twice.  Dave was a bit concerned, because we were in a bit of a precarious position coming up over a pass... and it was much stronger and more consistent wind than he´d hiked in before... Amy, of course, was having way too much fun to notice any potential danger.  She would just lean into and try to fall forward but let the wind hold her up.  Wind would continue to be a consistent theme on our trek:)

Day 5:  We left Glacier Dickson, climbed out of the valley we were in, and headed to Campsite Los Perros... named after Glacier Los Perros, which is just around the corner.  Another lovely day of hiking.  When we arrived at camp, there was a lot more hustle and bustle here... There was a bit more excitement in the air... because everyone would be heading up and over the pass the next day.

Day 6:  By far, our favorite day of hiking.  From Los Perros, over the Paso, to Campiamento Las Guardas.  So great, in fact, that we´re writing an entire separate blog post about it.  Highlights:  a fox, a whole lot of mud, climbing towards the pass, a freak blizzard (yes, freak blizzard), and our first views of Glacier Grey (which is so amazing it might also be getting it´s own post), and which we camped at the foot of.  Just a wonderfully glorious day of hiking.


Day 7:  From Las Guardas, we headed down to Lago Pehoe, where we rejoined the masses doing ´the W´.  But before we did, we spent most of the morning hiking alongside Glacier Grey, spotted a pair of woodpeckers in love, had a close encounter with a huemel deer (about 5 yards away from us -- the huemel is the national symbol of Chile -- their equivalent of the bald eagle -- and apparently just as endangered), and played with giant pieces of Glacier Grey.  Gigantic pieces of glacier break off of the end and tumble into the lake -- some as big as houses.  They float across the lake as giant icebergs, and get washed up in little coves, creating beautiful ice sculpture gardens.  We hiked at the foot of the Cumbres, the highest peaks in the park, covered in a beautiful icy white layer, all the way down to Lago Pehoe.  It was a tough day of hiking, though... we´d apparently burned through an awful lot of calories heading up over the pass, fighting through some extremely strong headwinds, and staying warm in the freak blizzard... meaning we were a bit depleted the next day (especially the clydesdale, who led the charge up the pass:).  When we camped at Lago Pehoe, were definitely back with the masses... but it also brought some other benefits.  The campsite had a store... with m&m´s, juice and fresh eggs.  Trust us... after 7 days of dehydrated food, these are exciting developments. 

Day 8:  A close second for favorite days of hiking!  We hiked with our packs from Lago Pehoe to Campiamento Italiano, at the base of the Valle Frances -- a lovely and peaceful 2 hour hike (after a glorious breakfast of eggs, juice and coffee).  We then set up our tent right by the river, dropped our packs for the day, and day-hiked up the valle frances -- about 6 hours in total.  The entire day, we hiked underneath the shadows of a giant hanging glacier, which was alive with its rumblings, as giant pieces of glacier would go tumbling down.  We could have watched that all day... and more or less did, as we hiked up and down the valley. 

  

It was a wonderful little vacation to hike without our packs again, after 7 straight days of carrying weight.  Up in the valley, we found the most beautiful spot in the entire park, surrounded on all four side by unbelievably stunning views -- the hanging glacier frances on one side, the towering cumbres peaks at the back of the valley (a favorite among the rock climbers), the cuernos peaks on the other side, and amazing views down the valley, with a winding aqua-blue lake and massive snow-capped peaks in the distance. 

The rest of the way down we were giving permission to other hikers to turn around (as it was now late in the day) once they´d found this most beautiful spot in the park... for which they all seemed grateful and relieved.  Back at camp, Amy met our dopplegangers from San Diego (first date in the Lost Coast where we got engaged, honeymoon in New Zealand, vacation in Patagonia), who had all kinds of great New Zealand tips for us. 

Day 9:  Our last day in the park... a rare early start for us (hiking by 7:30am) and a morning of solitude hiking out from the Valle Frances, about 16 km out to Hotel Las Torres... as we finished, our legs finally had permission to start hurting, after 9 days,120 km of hiking with 50-pound packs, 100 mph winds, a freak blizzard... and oh so much beauty.