Torres del Paine National Park

Day 1 ... entered the park and hiked up to the free campground at Los Guardas.

The Mirador (viewpoint) on Lago Grey overlooking Glaciar Grey.


Glaciar Grey

Day 2... Day-hike up the flank of Glaciar Grey, then grabbed our bags and hiked back down to the pay-campground by Refugio Paine Grande (Lago Pehoe).

A rickety lashed-together steel ladder descending into a giant wash carved by spring meltwater.


Strange things happen in the woods... This is probably the most startling photo that I´ll ever post - Jonthan A. Stone eating a chocolate bar. Considering the fact that even two weeks previous, Jon wouldn´t even touch brown (albeit obviously-labled Vanilla) cookies for fear that chocolate might contaminate his delicate skin, his move to eating almond chocolate bars is nothing less than earth-shattering.



Day 3... Stormy night´s rest beside Lago Pehoe, complete with an extremely rare thunder clap on a nearby peak that woke the entire camp at 3am. The clouds momentarily broke at sunrise providing Justin and I with a gorgeous view of the Cuernos (the more photographed duo-toned rock monoliths) while Jon groaned from his sleeping bag. The rain of course returned within a few minutes and we ate a nice breakfast of oatmeal and even some eggs that we had purchased from the Refugio. The glorious part of paying to camp was that we had a glassed-in pavilion in which to cook and hang out. The unfortunate part was that 70 other campers also had the same, small, glass pavilion. Breakfast was the definite highlight of the day, though as we shouldered our packs and crushed through a 4 hour day in 40degree pouring rain. We dried off in the Los Cuernos refugio for the afternoon. But when we headed back to the tent for bed, we found the tent pancaked to a tree. Apparently the 100+ mph wind gusts (not exaggerating) were enough to yank the tent stakes, snap the guy-lines, bend all the poles, and send a snapped and jagged aluminum pole through the fly, creating a 4 ft long tear in the fabric. awesome.
Oddly enough, despite being 3 days into a hike in a national park, we were able to rent a tent from the Refugio and hit the hay dry if not terribly enthused.


Day 4... Left all the gear in the rented tent and did a day hike up the pretty and windy Valle Fracés. Came back and bought dinner from the Refugio. It was a nice meal considering we had been hiking for 4 days, but left each of us sadly hungry when it was over.




Day 5 ... Nothing too exciting, which was kind of nice. A long hike. Mostly rolling hills in the morning over terrain very similar to the Estancia, then a long dehydrated uphill climb to the free-campground near the base of Las Torres. Apparently didn´t take any exciting pictures. It was a relatively simple, relaxing day. Ohhh, and when we were still hungry after finishing the last of our packaged pasta bags for dinner, other hikers came to the rescue with unused supplies, so we went to bed actually full for the first time in a few days.

Day 6 ... 5 The newly patched together tent kept us nice and dry during the overnight pouring rain. But when we awoke at 5am to go watch sunrise on the Torres of Paine, snow had started to fall. So we had a nice hour-long hike up, with 2-3 inches of snow on the ground. We were damn excited for the snow too, because if it were only 5 degrees warmer we would have been hiking up in the pouring rain. At the top, we pulled out our sleeping pads, I crawled inside my sleepingbag, and we cooked some soup as we waited for the clouds to part. Though the iconic blazing red photo eluded us, we had a nice time in the snow and snagged some decent shots a little after sunrise. After an hour or so of sitting by the towers, we headed back down, broke camp and had a short hike out to the bus back to Puerto Natales.







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A human size suspension bridge - cool!

iHosterria Las Torres - the giant Vail, CO hotel that somehow sprang forth from the East entrance to the W trail.

heading into Torres del Paine

Okay here's the itinerary ... you can follow along if you can find a map online...

day 1 - Puerto Natales hospedaje to bus to park to catamaran to The (famous) 'W' trail. Two hours of hiking to "the second best view of Glaciar Grey from the park" then two more to camp by the Lago Grey refugio.
day 2 - long day trip north to "the best view of the southern icefield" at John Garner Pass then back down to our already set-up camp.
day 3 - Long hike (8hrs) from Lago Grey to Los Cuernos refugio.
day 4 - long day trip up the Valle del Frances, home to "the best views in the park" despite the park being named after the towers
day 5 - rolling hills turning into a long steep uphill to Los Torres refugio
day 6 - 4:30 wake-up to hike to the mirador (viewpoint) to watch the sun rise on the iconic Torres. Hike back down to catch a mini-bus to the bus back to Puerto Natales.

We'll spend that sunday night here in Puerto Natales. On Monday we'll probably catch a bus even further south to Ushauia (sp?), located in Argentina's half of Tierre de Feugo before bouncing back up to Punta Arenas to catch a flight to Santiago on Wednesday. We depart Chile for the final time on Friday, March 27, bound for Chris Beeler and Guayaquil, Ecuador.

more updates and photos to come...

Boarding the ferry at the end of the road.


The quick and dirty...
The Carreterra Austal, Chile´s southern road, ends in Villa O´Higgins. Arriving there on a 7 hour bus ride from Cochrane (the town nearest the Estancia) we quickly learned that the nearest ATM was unfortunately a 7 hour bus ride away, back in Cochrane. After a mad-scramble to find our last bits and pieces of cash, we booked our ferry passage in a combination of Chilean Pesos and US Dollars -- setting in place the craziest travel day of our lives.

Due to the previous week´s rain the giant lake had flooded, so we took a zodiac to board the ship while a local hauled the bags through the shin deep water. The four hour ferry took us through some gorgeous landscapes with giant gushing waterfalls on every slope. When we arrived on the far shore, we handed our luggage to a man with a horse set off for the Argentine border carrying only our daypacks and a lunch. Six hours and 22 km later we arrived at the Argentine customs building on the shore of another lake. On a whim, we hopped the departing ferry, which fortunately dropped us directly onto the bus to El Chalten. We staggered off the bus and directly into the dirtiest hostel any of us had ever seen, arriving dirty, tired, and a day or two earlier than we had planned -- marvelous.

... more to come later.

View from the Ferry.

Crossing the border on foot.

Mt. Fitzroy at sunrise. Otherworldly. But frigid. About 25 degrees and gusts of 80mph that made it near impossible to even stand in one place.

Mt. Fitzroy with some of the locals.

In a fit of laziness (and the realization that I could start applying for jobs) I haven´t done a real update of my blog yet - as you can tell. I hope that I´ll be bored enough later today or maybe at some point in the near future and will tell you all about the exciting last week. But reading Jon´s blog and Justin´s blog should get you plenty clued in and will have more pictures of me.
... more to come later...

fotos from the hike