Trekking in Torres Del Paine

They say that there are seven different micro climates in Torres Del Paine, and that on any given day it can snow...

I think we experienced all seven micro climates, and it did snow on our last day.

The weather in Patagonia is so unpredictable. We noticed that at the ranger's station, instead of having a weather forecast, they had a weather history. The only thing you can really count on are the Patagonian winds. They are so strong that they can knock you off your feet.

That being said, Torres Del Paine is probably the most diversified national park I have ever been too. The scenery that you see on different parts of the trek, does not seem like it belongs in the same park. The different viewpoints are distinctively stunning.

The water in Torres Del Paine is so fresh that you can drink it straight from the rivers and streams--no need to pack gallons of water or deal with the purification tablets.
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DAY 1: We take the Catamaran over to Refugio Pehoe--our starting point for the ¨W.¨ It's rainy and cold, and our packs are packed full. The rain starts to lift and is replaced by high winds, then sunshine. We hike for 4.5 hours to Glacier Grey, and setup camp at Refugio Grey. Then we hike for a couple hours with our day packs to get a better look at the glacier.

It's the first time I've ever seen a glacier. I didn't know that a block of ice could look so amazing.

Dinner that night is a simple spaghetti bolognese and a mug of coffee. It tastes like the best spaghetti I've ever eatten--camping food always tastes good no matter what it is.

Sleep comes easily that night.
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DAY 2: We hike for 6.5 hours to camp Italiano. The weather is not too bad today either. Our pack weight is still heavy, and my feet are feeling it. We're both so exhausted from the uphill hike that we decide to postpone the late-afternoon hike to Valle de Frances until morning.

Later we meet a French guy who describes the Valle de Frances as "the most beautiful thing he's ever seen in his whole life." We're excited and a bit skeptical.

We have just enough energy to make our mushroom rice for dinner. It also tastes good, lucky for us because we have a lot of rice.

We meet a group of Israelis in the cooking shelter who ask to borrow cooking gas. We end up sharing whiskey, learning some choice words in Hebrew, and smoking hookah. I can't believe they brought hookah all the way up the mountain!

The weather starts to change once night falls. The winds pick up and so does the rain. It feels nice in my warm sleeping bag and our cozy tent.

I hear a squeaking noise in the middle of the night and scampering right above our heads where all our smelly shoes are. I shudder and try not to think about the rat that is likely sharing our tent.
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DAY 3: Ben's alarm goes off early so we can squeeze in the Valle de Frances hike. It's cold and rainy outside our tent. I don't want to get out of my sleeping bag and into my dirty clothes again, especially my less than fresh socks.

We get up anyway. The hike is beautiful, but we're freezing. The fierce winds and rain don't really help. We hike for two hours, but the rain created a roll of fog around everything. We couldn't see the Valle de Frances, but at least we got to see the most perfect rainbow.



It's back to camp where we make a soup for breakfast and have some hot coffee. Our hands finally start to defrost. We pack up camp and keep trekking to Los Cuernos Refugio. The first two hours of the hike are the worst. My feet are screaming from the weight of the pack, and the weather is relentless. The freezing cold rain coupled with the biting winds make the drops of rain feel like little needles hitting our faces. Ben and I are usually chatty on our hikes, but for that stretch we probably said only a couple words to each other. It doesn't matter that we have our Gore-tex rain jackets on. We're wet, cold, fatigued, and feeling beaten down by mother nature. Nature is humbling that way...

We reach Los Cuernos in 2.5 hours, our stopping point for the day according to the Erratic Rock plan, but Ben and I decide to push it to the next camp so that we can have an easy day four. Six more hours later we're exhausted, but we see the sign for Hosteria Torres and practically crawl into camp. I've never been so happy to see a sign!

We sleep really well that night.
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DAY 4: After day three's 10 hours of continuous hiking, we feel like rock stars. My feet no longer feel sore, but the uphills for this day are a killer.



Still, we roll into campamento Torres super early and have our pick of campsites. It's so early that we don't know what to do with ourselves. We start to get really cold from sitting around and snacking, so we decide to have a peak at the Torres. It's a one-hour scramble over a ton of boulders--not easy--but at least we're no longer cold.

We get to the end of the trail, but can't actually see the Torres because of the thick fog, and it starts to snow.

We head back down, do an early dinner, and try to go to sleep early so that we can try to see the Torres at sunrise like Rustyn suggested. Neither of us can fall asleep so early so we end up talking about random things until eventually one of us nods off.
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DAY 5: My alarm sounds at 4 AM and again at 4:15. Neither of us wants to get up in the cold darkness. Ben finally makes the first move and starts to get up while I cocoon myself deeper into my sleeping bag.

We take our headlamps, sleeping bags, stove, snacks, and soup packets, and do the same mountain scramble only in the darkness and with bigger packs. We have our headlamps, and the moonlight illuminating the sky, but it's still hard to see.

It´s freezing and light bits of frosted snow are falling making our climb more slippery. We don´t see any headlights around us and wonder if we were the only crazy ones who decided to try to catch the sunrise. A few minutes later we are joined by two Israelis stumbling behind us in the darkness.

Ben and I found a little cave the afternoon before when we were scouting the Torres, and that´s exactly where we decided to make ourselves comfortable while we waited for the sunrise. One of the Israelis decided to join us in our hovel. We started making our soup and I got comfortable in my sleeping bag. The cave shielded us from the gusty winds. For a fifteen minute window the skies cleared and we were able to catch a glimpse of the Torres. We were happy we actually got to see them this time.



We packed up camp and hiked back to Hosteria Torres in record time, and shared our pictures and stories with the Australian couple, Dave and Erin, who we kept running into on the trail.

The bus ride back to Puerto Natales was full of smelly backpackers since most had gone without showers for five-plus days, and we were in the same grungy, muddy, and sweat-stained clothing. All we could think about was a nice hot shower and some dinner with a lot of meat.