Trecherous Treck
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2009
1
10
20
Trip End
Ongoing
Puerto Natales,
Patagonia,
Chile
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
After a couple of hours we go to Refugio Chileno and got in to warm up. It was a wooden building, with a a kitchen some small rooms to sleep in, and a main hall to eat some food, warm up and dry off. We went in, made some food, had some hot tea, and try to wait out the weather. The rain had picked up and we were quite thoroughly soaked and could not see any part of the mountain. There were probably another 20 people who had similar thoughts to ours, just waiting out the weather. At one point, a small break in the clouds appeared and we ran out to get a quick picture of the towers, barely visible through the clouds and light rain.
After a while it became obvious that the weather would not clear up any time soon, and there was no news of the bridge getting fixed. So we decided to go back. Half way down the mountain, the rain eased up a bit and wind picked up (this is a common theme for us apparently.)
When we got down, the weather at the base had cleared up completely, but clouds still surrounded the peaks of the Torres. The wind was steady at around 50 - 60 km/hr and the sun was shining on us. We chilled a bit and had some food on the grass and waited until the clouds cleared from the peaks. After a while they did and the mountain looked incredible. We decided to set up camp there and try catch the peaks at sunrise. With great difficulty because of the wind, we set up our tent and used every trick in the book to get the pegs in deep enough, weighted down with rocks, protected from the wind by a picnic table. During this exercises, the wind picked up Malwina's jacket and through it into a nearby river where it was immediately swept away. On more than one occasion our big backpacks started to roll away. Putting down anything anywhere without tying it down was absolutely useless. We secured our stuff as best as possible and went to walk around a bit. When we got back, our tent was flipped over and folded up by the wind. The seemingly super stiff poles were bent in all directions. And our camping area was surrounded by grazing horses. Talk about Patagonia, wind, sun, horses and mountains! And it was starting to rain (even though it was sunny)!
We quickly decided that sleeping in a tent that was likely to fold and of course leak did not seem like fun. Others who had pitched tents also bailed and moved to the local hotel.
We decided to head back to town. On the way to the bus, we saw a group of hikers and as a gust picked up, 5 of them were swept off the road and into the ditch, and the sixth was picked up off her feet and dumped on her but right on the road. She looked like she got decked by Tyson and did not get up for a while and it turned out slightly hurt her leg.
While waiting for the bus we bumped into a few people we had seen on the mountain. We shared our wind and weather stories, but apparently we were lucky.
One couple was caught in the wind while walking on a sandy path. Their faces and hands were bloody with small scabs all over. It looked like they got the chicken pocks in the last 5 hours since we last saw them and scratched open every little pock. This was caused by the wind throwing little stones at them at what by then was close to 100 km/hr! To make matters worse, the guys backpack had been thrown into the river. He managed to save it but obviously all of his stuff was socked.
Another girl spoke of her bus ride to the bus stop. Along the way the windshield was peppered with stones and cracked all over place and started actually falling out. So the conductor with the help of some others held the windshield in place while the driver kept on going! This did not last long, as another gust came in, and swept the windshield out and away like a kite.
We got back to Porto Natales without incident, crashed at Teresa's place again, and headed out to El Calafate the next morning.
