Torres del Paine National Park: the W-Trek

Tuesday morning we filled up on a hearty breakfast at the hostel and then stood out on the porch in the wind and rain and waited for our shuttle bus to the National Park for half an hour. We saw many vicuna and even some wild Rhea (which look like ostrich) on the bus ride there. We were awe-struck by the scenery once we entered the park and headed towards the west end to catch the catamaran across Lago Pehoe to our first camp (Paine Grande), where we would begin our trek.

Because we were trying to do the trek in 4 days instead of 5, we had to be efficient on the first day in order to get 22km of hiking in before nightfall. Everyone talks about how strong the winds are in Patagonia, and we had our first taste of reality when, before we even boarded the catamaran, the wind snatched Lisa's sunglasses right off her face and threw them into the lake. She really wanted sunglasses for the next four days of trekking so she took off some layers, braved the icy glacial water, and fished around in an attempt to recover them, but was unsuccessful.

We had 45 minutes between when the shuttle dropped us off, and when the catamaran left, and attempted to walk up the hill to see Salto Grande waterfall, but unfortunately had to turn around before we reached it so we didn't risk missing the catamaran.

The 50-person catamaran made a 30-minute crossing of the lake, and the strength of the Patagonian winds created waves big enough to crash over the top of the catamaran on multiple occasions. You'd think we were on the open ocean, but really it was pretty small lake. We had been tipped off by the dude at Erratic Rock that the fastest way to do the catamaran transfer was to make sure your bags were the last on the boat (top of the heap) and that you paid as soon as you saw the cash box come out. To speed things up even more, we made avocado and salami sandwhiches on the catamaran, and once on shore, set up our tent in about 3 minutes, threw our packs inside, and set off for Grey Glacier by 1:15pm.

We were able to set up camp and leave our packs behind since we'd be returning to this base camp after the return trip to the glacier (the first leg of the "W"). The trek to the glacier was so unbelievably windy, it's hard to describe. We were so excited to be on the trek however, that we found the situation hilarious, and had fun fighting the 50km/hour wind gusts on the there. 

Despite the freezing temperatures, horizontal rain, hurricane-force winds, and the fact that we were hiking as fast as we possibly could, we had a total blast on day 1.

We were thrilled that we were able to fill up our water bottles straight from the stream with no filter or purification tablets.



Only one minor injury was sustained. The cover story involved a puma encounter, but in reality, Will had a run in (literally) with a low-hanging tree branch. Luckily the 1st-aid kit made the day-pack and we fixed him all up and continued along our way. Here's a funny candid of the situation.  Note: Alex really wasn't as unimpressed as she appears.

Gillian and Le Roux had to turn around since they had to cook dinner before nightfall, but we trekked onwards.

We continued another hour down the path to Refugio Grey and made it to a spectacular beach covered in iceberg-bits from that had calved off the toe of the Grey Glacier across the bay.

 

By the time we got back it was nearly dark (around 9:00pm), and we were soaking wet, and frozen. We made another round of avocado and salami sandwhiches for dinner, then snuck inside to the refugio to try and warm up. We never really did warm up, and went to bed early mostly so that we could put our "dry clothes" on and curl up in our sleeping bags. Taking the advice from Erratic Rock, we had packed one complete set of "wet" (hiking) clothes, and one set of "dry" (sleeping) clothes. We didn't sleep much that night. First of all, our rental sleeping bags claimed to be good to -10, but there is no way they were. It was *maybe* -5 out, we were wearing every article of clothing we had that was dry, sleeping 3 people in a tent, and we were still cold. We did a mediocre job of pitching our tent (to be fair, it would have sufficed anywhere but Patagonia), and the wind gusts pretty much folded the tent in two, squishing Will, throughout the night. By morning we were wet (from the sides of the tent), cold, and tired and a slightly less enthusiastic than the day before.



It was snowing ("sleeting" might be a better word), horizontally of course, and we cowered in the refugio for an hour trying to wait out the weather before heading out. We eventually gave up, threw our big packs on our bag, and set off.



 Not long after we set off, it started to clear, and we even saw some sunshine. Most of day two we hiked alongside indescribably blue glacial lakes lined with flowering red bushes, and spectacular jagged snowy mountains in the backdrop.

To complete the middle section of the "W", up the Valley Frances and back, would have been a 28km-day. We stopped at Campamento Italiano for a tuna-and-crackers lunch, before setting off up the valley. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) the weather in the valley was white-out blizzard conditions, so we only made it part way up before turning around and heading for camp #2, still two hours away.

To be honest, 5 hours of hiking with all our gear on our backs in the weather was enough for one day.

We crossed a wobbly cable and board bridge across a river but missed the signs saying "no more than 2 people at a time" until after we had all crossed (it worked out for us). We hiked along a white-and-black peppled beach, and across many streams to Refugio Los Cuernos, and pitched our tent.

We were pretty cold and probably did an even worse job of pitching our tent on night 2. Our campsite was sheltered by trees, which took care of the wind problem at least.

We warmed up around the fire and paid a good price (comparatively) for a hot meal at the refugio. There was freshly baked bread, soup, pork chops, rice and even crepes for dessert. Talk about camping luxury! We were cold again that night, but did sleep fairly well regardless. We even snoozed the alarm clock for an hour the next morning.

Day 3 was our "nice weather day" and we even shed our raincoats and fleeces at times when the wind layed off. The scenery was equally spectacular on day 3, and we covered a lot of ground in high spirits.

Naturally, we enjoyed another tuna-and-crackers lunch sheltered by some bushes overlooking a lake.

We took a lot of short breaks to admire the scenery and give our backs a break from our heavy packs.

All in, we hiked about 16km and ended at the base of the Torres, at Refugio El Chileno, and did a much better job of setting up camp, since we were warm for once. We ate dinner at the refugio again and played cards, and were in bed before 9pm, since we had the alarm clock set for 3:00am the following morning Why? Well, we wanted to hike up to the Towers for sunrise, at 5:16am, in hopes of seeing the famous postcard colours on the Towers as the sun rises. The alarm went off at 3:00 and we could see that we had a clear morning, which made us excited to get going.

We hiked about 1.5 hours uphill, through forest then across a large icy boulder field to the base of the towers, where we "set up camp". We put down our mats, and snuggled up in our sleeping bags, perched on a rock overlooking the towers and the lake below, and ate breakfast. We were so thankful to have our sleeping bags because it was fridigly cold up there, and they allowed us to stay warm (in a relative sense) for about and hour and a half as we watched the sunrise.

It wasn't perfectly clear and we didn't see the full colour show, but it was still stunningly beautiful.

By 8:00am we were back down at the refugio, having hiked for 3 hours already. Have essentially completed the trek at this point we were ready to head out. We warmed up over tea and chocolate in the refugio and admired a rainbow over the towers.

Our feet and backs were sore, and we so tired of eating granola bars, but complaints aside, the 4-day trek was a definite highlight of our South America trip. We headed back down to the base camp and took a bus back to Puerto Natales, where we feasted on home made pizza and pasta at El Mesita Grande surrounded by great company that we met on the trek, including our new friends Derek ("Dell") and Linda from Scotland, and Stephanie and Cedric from France. We slept like babies that night in the warmth of our big cozy beds at Hostel de Los Castillos.