Puerto Natales and Torres del Paine
Trip Start
Jan 10, 2007
1
7
11
Trip End
Feb 24, 2007
Puerto Natales/Torres del Paine National Park,
Chile
Friday, January 26, 2007
The bus arrived at our hotel at 7:30am (after complimentary breakfast of yogurt and toast and coffee), and we were on our dirt road 3-hour journey to the park boundary
01) View of Torres from the bus...
. Along the way we passed the nandu reserve and we could see these ostrich like birds along the highway in the shrublands for many kilometers. Babies too! Then we passed guanaco for many kilometers along the highway, they look like a llama. Near the park we passed a lake filled with bright pink flamingos! There we paid our park entrance fee of 15.000 pesos (about $30 each), and got onto a little bus which would take us on a very thin slow road the next 5km to Hosteria las Torres, where we could start hiking.Nadine had decided a grueling schedule for us. We were going to do the full loop, and visit both valleys, in 7 days (6 nights). More typically people do this in 10 days. Yeah, right. We were a bit limited in food, but Torres del Paine is one of those wonderful hikes in the world that has little stores in the camp grounds, where you can pay hyperinflated prices for cans of tuna, 1L tetrapacks of Gato Negro wine, or various other goodies (like the cocoa bran cookies we discovered on the hike). We had only a little bit of meat, since it was only after the hike that we found a source of super-dry paper-wrapped salami...
The Torres del Paine loop is normally done counter clockwise. You start hiking at the south east corner of this loop. As well, there are two valleys worth visiting as side trips (overnight), both of them heading into the middle of the loop (since that is obviously where the big mountains are)
01a) Hiking up to Campemento Torres
. One of these valleys starts about 3km west of the starting point, so we would first backtrack to go up that valley, where Campimento Torres (near the famous Torres lookout) and Campo Japonica are. The second valley starts roughly in the middle of the south of the loop, and the plan was to go into there on one of the last days of our loop.So first we went up the Torres valley, which starts with a grueling uphill surrounded by lots of day trippers, on a side slope bypassing a river gorge... luckily the day was not that hot. There was a wind in the valley and it made the going a bit easier. After a while the trail flattens out a fair bit more, and after passing a hut (where many people pause) it continues undulating in a much easier way, up along the river, through various kinds of beech growth. Eventually we manage to arrive at the campground, where we set up our tent nearly in the same spot as 2 years ago. The site we chose was occupied last year by a Columbian couple who surrendered the last of their food to us, since we guess they were done hiking, and this had included a very bizzare Columbian army matchbook and some "Manitoba" brand peanuts which made Nadine giggle. But this year there were no Manitoba peanuts for Nadine.
We put our packs down and decided which way we should continue our day, since it was not yet too late
01b) Trail went up and up...
. Last year we had wandered up to the Torres lookout in the afternoon, so this year we instead chose to continue up the valley towards the Japanese camp. This is mostly reserved for use by climbers now, to permit them easier access to the back valley high spots. We hiked further up the river for an hour to get there. Our map did not show this (because the maps they give to hikers really suck) but the trail obviously continued through the trees, so we followed it. It was heading into Valle de Silencio, and after we came out of the tree it was clear why it was named so. It crested out onto a mess of old morraines from an old glacier, and as we got onto the flats of it, we could no longer hear the myriad of waterfalls in other nearby valleys. It was a lot quieter. We continued up over slabs, boulders, and scree, easily climbing our way further up the valley. Unfortunately as the day continued, the wind was picking up, and Valle de Silencio was turning into a roar. We made it a fair ways up the valley, but not quite behind the Torres del Paine peaks themselves, too some pictures, and decided to turn around and head back the 2 hours to camp.Upon arriving at camp, it was discovered that one of the new Big Agnes blowup mattress had a hole in it. We tried for nearly an hour at the river to spot the hole, but could not. It was a slow leak. Since it was Nadine´s birthday (39!) and Nadine was older than Theo, it was decided that Theo would sleep on the mattress
01c) Side trip up past Campemento Japonica
! That night, it needed to be re-inflated a number of times, and it was a rough sleep. Theo got a nasty kink in his back. Nadine woke up very early (around 6am) to run up the hour to the Torres lookout. Theo had a rough sleep and declined, so Nadine and Stanwee made the trip up to the lookout alone. The sun was beaming on the towers at the lookout but just starting to shine on the lookout itself, and about 20 people were there already from the campsite looking very cold. Apparently there was no "red tower effect" with the sunrise that morning because of some early cloud patches, but the towers looked stunning in the early sun. After setting up the camera for some automatic timer shots of Nadine and Stanwee, Nadine ran back down to Campemento Torres to wake Theo for breakfast. Nadine slipped quite badly down a large boulder, but seemed to recover okay, but may have not noticed that Stanwee may have fallen out then. Back at camp Nadine relayed the beauty at the towers and the fun that she and Stanwee had, only to discover that he was MISSING! With it being an hour climb back up to the towers, and not really knowing where Stanwee may have fallen too, we packed up the tent and made breakfast.
The morning was very sunny but chilly, and we ran our way down the trail to keep warm with Theo´s back being a bit kinked up
01d) Paddler duck, dove down for minutes to fish
. We still had a hole in our air mattress and knew we could not continue tenting comfortably with it. About 30 minutes down the trail we passed the hut on the other side of the river, and Nadine spotted a quiet pocket of water underneath the bridge. We pulled out the air mattress and very quickly found the puncture. We put a dab of glue on it, to mark the hole for better repair later, and hoisted our packs back on. We continued down the steep section of the trail and soon we were back at the Hosteria de Torres, where a little store sold various things, including ice cream bars. We had to buy some to celebrate Nadine´s birthday the day before (that´s all she really wanted as a gift!), and after cooling our feet for a few minutes we continued. We had the 4-5 hour hike to Seron left.The hike to Seron goes through some land that is not exactly like the rest of the park. Firstly, it is not quite mountainous, but more just hilly. As such, it is not exactly part of the park. It is sort of owned by the ranch that is now known as Hosteria Torres... and as such, yes, that means that seasonally they pasture their cows on it, and yes, that means cow patties and trail damage and all that. So it is not the most attractive trail (ok, let us call it what it is -- a road) for the first 2-3 km. But after that you have crossed over a hump and start to enter the back side of the park
01e) Flower gone to seed, known as ¨Dry Love¨
. In particular, the last bit to Seron can be quite pretty due to the large number of white flowers completely covering the fields.We arrived at Seron (in the north-east corner of the loop), and Nadine found out that the hot water was already running in the showers. Yes, a serious hiking route that has hot showers at some campsites. Decadent, isn´t it! It became quite windy in the later part of the evening, and then some rain droplets hit. But by then we were already in the tent. Theo´s kink in his back was a lot worse, too. He had rather limited range of motion. But that is why he brings a doctor along for the hike. Nadine had a concoction of anti-inflammatories for him and muscle relaxants which helped. The thermarest mattress was patched well and presented no problem anymore.
The next morning the weather was dark and looming, but the wind had not really picked up yet. Up at 6:30am, we were out of the camp at 8am and headed around the bend towards the north side of the loop. It was 6 hours of hiking to Dickson and then 4 more hours up to Los Perros. Unlike previous years, because this hike was a few weeks earlier, there were significantly more flowers along the trail and we often stopped to take pictures. Nadine got sad because Stanwee wasn´t around to see the flowers
02) Stanwee near the towers!
!We had decided that stopping to camp at Refugio Dickson and the campground was probably a better idea that going through to Los Perros because Theo´s back wasn´t great. But when we arrived there just before 2pm we saw people packing up to START the hike to Los Perros. After eating a toasted ham and cheese sandwhich and making some pineapple juice crystals, Nadine had Theo convinced that he could walk through to Los Perros (Nadine admits now that she made a stupid mistake there, resting the afternoon and camping at Dickson would have been better!).
As is normal, about 1 hour before we arrived at Los Perros and the camping area, it started to spit very cold rain at us. This normally becomes a bit better just after passing the glacier below the camp, and it is perhaps a wind-lens effect from Paso Gartner combined with Glacier Los Perros... that makes that particular section of the hike so windy and cold and wet. Walking by Glacier Los Perros was spectacular though, with a rainbow, and lots of small icebergs in the lake!
We arrived to very light dripping, and setup our tent. Nadine bought a few snacks since we figured we deserved them
03) Last known picture of Stanwee...
. The kink in Theo´s back was still pretty bad, so he still was somewhat limited in range of motion (ie. placing tent pegs was ...not a good idea). The meal was cooked in the vestibule, since it continued dripping outside. The campground at Los Perros is in the trees, and it seems to always rain there. There is a large common tent set up for cooking to help hikers cook in rainy conditions. But it is cozier to cook in the vestibule of our tent (always making sure not to light the tent on fire and always with good ventilation to avoid gassing ourselves!)It rained a bit through the night but we woke up at 6:30am to light grey skies and no rain. Theo´s back was feeling a bit better, and we left the campground hopeful for some clear views over Gardner pass. After crossing the river and walking through the trees we were immediately thrown into muddly swampy rooty trees conditions for the next hour or so. There was a light rain, and little patches of blue sky over the pass. We struggled a bit through the swamp, hopping from root to root when we could to avoid ending up knee deep in mud.
Unfortunately in that swamp, Theo pulled his left knee a bit in the slipperiness of the swamp, and by the time the top of the pass was in sight it was hurting significantly
04) Another great Torres picture!
. This injury might have happened because of compensating for the kink in the back...The views were spectacular, of Glacier Grey coming off Campo de Hielo Sur (the southern ice cap) though the winds were very very strong. The pace had to be slowed though, because downhill was even worse for Theo´s knee. The winds were so ferocious that it seemed prudent to continue downhill to the trees rather than trying to hike back to the Los Perros campsite. Nadine issued more drugs, but the going was very slow and painful down the initial steep section through trees. Eventually the first potential campsite was reached, called Campimento Passo. It was incredibly windy! There were two tents setup, but the camp is really not on flat ground, so areas have been built up and dug in, to provide flat ground. A park ranger was cutting up a piece of tree that had fallen, for the fire in his hut. There is no store at this camp site, but only his shack and another small shelter for people. The tops of the trees were swaying meters in each direction under the constantly shifting winds. That is, for the trees that still had tops. There were branches and tops of trees strewn throughout the forest, that had obviously been torn off by the high winds which are very common here.
A plan had been to stop at this location, but if it was this windy the tent might get torn by something that fell. And anyways, Theo´s knee might be even stiffer tomorrow. So why not just keep trying to limp along to the next campground? So we continued, and only after going about 10 minutes realized that we were starting to enter a zone with even stronger winds. There was no real point in turning back (and increasing the limping distance), so we just continued as we could
05) At Hosteria Torres where we had icecream!
.The slopes become more exposed in places, with the wind able to reach us due to the lack of trees. There are also a few gullies that have to be crossed, sometimes with ladders. In these gullies there were rocks and sand (focus on the rocks bit) being blown in our faces by the wind so we had to be very fast crossing them. And the wind started to blow us down to the ground. Since the going is also very stiff, we learned to sit down as soon as a gust became too strong. Sometimes this meant sitting down on a thorny calafate bush, or even sometimes putting our hands directly onto them!
One particular section deserves mention. Anyone who has hiked this section will recognize it, as the grassy cliff section that rounds a bend with a slightly upwards slanting trail, and sometimes has a ladder of sorts on parts of it, though it seems that they like to keep moving the trail. Right after climbing out of a canyon and being pelted by blown rocks and sand, we had to climb out onto this treeless section. Up ahead about 100 meters ahead, we could see another couple who were sitting on the trail -- they had passed us earlier in the day while Theo limped down a steep section. Had we really caught up with them?? Well we soon learned that that we were nowhere near caught up with them, as the next 300 meters took us nearly an hour to cross
05a) Seron in distance, fields of daisies!
. We had to sit down most of the time, waiting for the gusts to settle. It was rather surreal. Super warm gusts of wind would come rushing down from the mountain at about 100km/hour or more, threatening to lift us off the slope and toss out down the hill towards the glacier hundeds of meters below. Then moments later, the a gust of slightly cooler but much more damp air would replace this, coming from the north from along the glacier. Then it would switch! And again, and again, and again, moment to moment, second to second! Whenever it looked like it would quieten down, we would get ready to stand up and sometimes get about 10 steps further along the trail before we MOST DEFINITELY had to sit down again! Nadine crawled sections. Later we found small little pin-pricks all over our hands and legs, most likely from rapidly sitting down on small thorny calafate bushes! In the first while we seriously considered turning around because it was so dangerous, but it was also extremely exhilirating at the same time, and so we cautiously pressed on! Theo had been in this place before, so he knew that it would eventually tuck off onto side valleys.At one point, Nadine´s pack cover flew off her pack, and just about turned into a sail which would pull her off the mountain! Luckily Theo was nearby and the pack cover was quickly rolled into a ball, disconnected, and tucked inside Nadine´s jacket
05b) Evidence of fire damage from 2005
. One little zip-lock bag flew out of her pack at that moment and was completely out of sight in 3 seconds!!!Eventually, having passed the cliffy section, we entered more trees. The wind was still fierce in some areas, but most of the hiking was in slightly sheltered sub-valleys. We eventually made it to the next camp ground, Campimento Guardia. Last time we were here it had been full of Argentians, and smelled quite a bit, but now it was empty and quite nice. However we decided that since Campimento Grey was only a 1 hour further, we would continue onwards, again to avoid the stiffness that the knee would have tomorrow. We could thus either take the (expensive) boat out directly from Grey, or stay there for 2 days and see what happens.
The next bit was more in low forest, coming down towards the edge of the lake, but somewhat steeper than the side slopes from the past 3 hours, and "the knee" complained bitterly. As well, Theo started to feel significant pain in his right shin, from pushing along so long with his left leg being a peg.
At Grey, we set our tent up basically in the same place as last year. We were warned that the strong winds could cause us problems, but bah, we wanted that spot since the beach sites never get any sun, and our spot might get some sun
06) Walking through fields of daisies to Seron...
. We had made the limpy hike in 10 hours while the Torres map says 11 hours and the book says about 9 hours. Not too bad, but Theo was in a very rough (and drugged up, probably) state. We had showers, and cooked a meal as little icebergs floated past our tent on the beach. We purchased a tetrapak of wine and drank it after the sun set, on the beach, looking at the twilight over the lake.We stayed there the next night, as well, since Theo was not able to walk that much. There was a bit of thought given towards taking the boat out from this point, but it does not go to a convenient place. Additional transport is needed at the other end to get to the proper busses, and all sorts of schedule problems were unknown. We did one little test-the-legs hike that day, towards the mirador at the head of the glacier, which was super pretty.
And perhaps there was a second tetrapak of wine..
So instead, on the second day, we walked to Pehoe... since it was not that far. After a rather early start without much wind, the day got increasingly windy by the time the first minor pass towards Pehoe was crossed. And the wind kept getting stronger. Nadine may have seen a lot of flowers, but Theo just grimaced the entire length of the walk
07) Stanwee would have loved seeing his buddies...
. It was clear that Pehoe would be the end of the trip, since there is a boat one can take from there, which goes directly to the bus. We stayed at Pehoe though for the night, because it was cheaper than staying in a hotel in Puerto Natales, and we had a reservervation the next day. We had some wine, played scrabble in the tent (Nadine of course won again), made dinner in an enclosed cooking area that has huge windows on all sides. Pehoe has worse camping arrangements every year, since like other parts of the park the camp grounds keep being moved closer to the stores and packed tighter together as well. And Pehoe does not just have a store, but what can only be called a hotel, which people with regular baggage come to stay at, having come in by boat. Furthermore one more problem with Pehoe is that the camping area has only low bushes around the sites, which entirely fail to protect from the wind. In the cooking area we spent at least an hour with a Welsh couple watching their tent buckle (yet never quite break) in the wind... we eventually managed to advise them of some remedies for their particularily pathetic tent (which was all they could find to buy in Puerto Natales that was worthwhile), and they moved it and tied it up to the side of one of the larger bushes in the area.The next afternoon, after photographing some very cute wild goose chicks near the camp area, we took the boat over Lake Pehoe to catch our bus back to Puerto Natales
08) Hiking towards Dickson...
. We saw more nandu and guanacos off the highway. At the mid-point stop of the busride, Nadine managed to buy a small and fantastic spanish+english flower book covering all the flora of the patagonian area.We recovered for two nights in Puerto Natales, with more great lamb chile pizza at Mesita Grande the first night and then going to Rincon del Tata the second night so Theo could have steak with eggs and onions and fries, and Nadine could have a burger totally drenched in avocado! As always, after returning to a town, we got to play the "getting laundry done as fast as possible" game, but Puerto Natales is actually a very good town for that.
Decisions had to be made about Theo´s injuries; could we still hike? Nadine decided to keep feeding him anti-inflammatories and start icing his shin every few hours since he was having serious problems walking (the knee injury seemed to be healing well and wasn´t bothering him). The plan became to fly down to Ushuaia, Argentina, the southern most city in Argentina in the area known as Tierra del Fuego. After spending a few days there we would proceed north of Puerto Montt to a town called Pucon where we hoped to hike the Villarrica 6 day traverse around the volcano. After some frantic booking of flights online (Nadine able to book cheaper flights through LAN Chile carrier as logged in as a Chilean versus an American/Canadian) as well as hostels/hostals we were set to take the bus to Punta Arenas on Feb. 4, stay the night, fly the next day to Ushuaia and stay two nights, then fly to Puerto Montt and make our way via bus to the city of Pucon. Although there was hiking to do in Ushuaia, we would avoid the hiking and do more of the tourist trips and try to eat lots of seafood and lamb!
Comments
stanwee misses you
stanwee wrote to say he is having a great time exploring the world. He has been safely retrieved by a younger stronger kneed world traveller who was nearly set aflame in a hostel fire but managed to escape and is now heading to the tibet.