January 19, 2006
Day 113

We slept late today. It was good to get a lot of sleep for once. Until now, we had to go to bed late, get up early, and walk all day, which made me achy and grumpy. But now, I was finally rather cheerful.

We didn't seen much of Glacier Los Perros yesterday, so we went back for another look this morning. The weather was a lot more calm, so I was able to relax and take it all in. My pictures turned out much better this time around, too.

This was the day of the pass. A guy we met at the campsite last night who was going the other direction warned us that it would be a 45 degree angle for us on the way down and that there would be mud up to our knees going up. Considering that I didn't have hiking boots or gaiters, I wasn't looking forward to more mud.

The first part of the ascent was pretty miserable. There was mud everywhere, which made it impossible to get anywhere. It wasn't up to my knees, but it did go over my shoes a few times. On the plus side, the trail was usually visible, so at least we were able to get through the bad parts quickly.

Eventually, we got above the tree line and there was no more mud. Of course, without the protection of the trees, it suddenly got cold, windy, and rainy. As we got higher, the rain turned into snow. We reached the top of the pass without much trouble, but the weather was so bad that we didn't have much time to look at Glacier Grey, which had dramatically become visible from the top. Tony and I snapped some quick, cold photos and started running down the hill before the hypothermia set in.

Once we got back to the tree line, the trail became very steep. Indeed, the slopes at times did hit 45 degrees. When it got really steep, ropes were installed between the trees for our assistance. We walked down the thick forest for about two hours until we finally reached the bottom. A few minutes later, we were Camp Paso, where we stopped for the day.

Instead of having soup again, Tony cooked us spaghetti for supper. He threw in some spices and tomato sauce to make it more interesting. It was still pretty bland, but I was happy because it got me good and full. However, I would later find out that John doesn't appreciate eating non-spicy food.

The most difficult part of the trek is now over. Other than the bad weather, the pass wasn't too difficult. I had planned for it to be a lot worse than it was, which I think made it easier to tackle. Now we only have four days left, and none of them should be as difficult any of the last three. We finally had some more time to relax after a long day of hiking, and I think we are done with the muddy parts of the trail. Life is good.

The photo album for this entry is here.

January 18, 2006
Day 112

This was our toughest day so far. We started out with a six-hour walk to Camp Dixon. Toward the beginning, the trail wasn't very well-marked, it was raining, and the path was muddy. There were no bridges across any rivers, so several times we had to navigate our way around them by walking up and down stream until they got narrow enough to cross. After crossing one of the rivers, we couldn't find the trail. We spent nearly half an hour looking for a marker indicating where the trail was. Finally, we saw where the path continued up a huge hill in the distance and were able to continue.

The entire day, we traversed the scenic, yet dreary terrain before arriving at Dixon, a beautiful camp located on a peninsula of one of the many lakes in the park. We only had time to eat a quick lunch, however, because we had to move on to Camp Los Perros, which was four hours away, if we wanted to stay on schedule.

The last four hours sucked. All of us ran low on energy and the trail became super muddy. My shoes were water-logged, and the bottoms of my pant legs were filthy. I wished I had bought waterproof shoes as I sloshed through the swamp.

At the end of the day, we saw Glacier Los Perros' water run off into a lake that was full of huge ice chunks that had slid down the mountain. It was another beautiful sight, but it was rainy, windy, cold, and I was exhausted, so I couldn't get any good pictures of it.

Finally, we got to camp at 8:00. John cooked another amazing soup for us. The camp had a warm shelter for us to relax in. We met two Canadian girls named Rebeca and Jackie there. They only had three weeks to spend in Chile, but were doing the whole Torres del Paine circuit anyway. Once again we went to bed early with the most difficult part of the trail still ahead of us: a bad-ass pass between two mountains that would take six hours to complete.

The photo album for this entry is here.

January 17, 2006
Day 111

We had to get up at 4:00 this morning. There's a great viewpoint of the Torres del Paine about an hour from camp, and we wanted to get to it before sunrise. We had walked part way up the trail yesterday afternoon, so we had a good idea of where we needed to go. The problem was that it wasn't really a trail; it was more of an exercise in climbing up a bunch of rocks for an hour. This was fine during daylight because the general direction was marked by red dots painted on every few rocks. However, before sunrise, the dots weren't visible. Neither was much else.

We got lost almost immediately. Tony and I also lost contact with John. Still, as long as we kept going uphill, we figured we'd be fine. Suddenly, the rocks turned into sand, which made for a tough climb. Then, then sand ended and we entered the forest. We were definitely far from the trail at that point. The brush was really thick, so every inch was a fight. At some point, I lost my lens cap when it got knocked off of my camera. I was beginning to get frustrated because the sky was getting brighter and I couldn't see the towers yet. I didn't want to come all that way just to miss the sunrise over the towers, which was supposed to be the best part of the whole trip. After all, every postcard of the national park features the towers stained blood red by the rising sun's light.

Finally, I saw the top of the tallest tower poke out above the forest. I got some new motivation and scurried up the hill, about ten minutes before the light was at its finest. Strangely, I didn't notice anyone else around, but my view was perfect, so I stayed put. The top of the towers did indeed turn red, although it wasn't nearly as good as in the postcards. After ten minutes of redness, the light suddenly faded and the moment was gone. The day had begun.

It was windy and cold, so I was ready to go back down. Tony and John found me at that point, and we went down together. We also noticed that we were far above the official mirador, so we had a much better view than everyone else. Sometimes getting lost has its benefits.

We went down to camp, ate porridge for breakfast, and took a nap for an hour before packing up and heading out. It was a three-hour walk back to Hosteria Las Torres, where we started yesterday. Until that point, we had spent our entire trek on the "W," and there were other tourists everywhere. Some were just doing a day or two; others were walking the whole five days. Next, we were going to begin our three or four day section outside of the "W." Sure enough, as soon as we started our four-hour walk to the end of the day, the people disappeared. We were practically the only ones on the trail, which became a problem almost right away.

Tony and I got a few minutes ahead of John, which normally wouldn't be a big deal, but this time, we approached a fork in the path. One part of the path went straight, the other part went left. There were two signs: one telling us to go left, and another stating not to go straight. Tony and I thought the directions were unambiguous and continued on without thinking anything of it. We stopped for a quick drink of water a few minutes later, and figured we should wait for John.

Twenty minutes passed and John still hadn't shown up. We figured that he either got hurt and needed someone to help him, or didn't see the signs stating to turn and got lost. Tony stayed behind with our backpacks while I went to look for John. I traced our route back for several minutes, but still saw no sign of him. Next, I went back to the road we weren't supposed to go down. All there was was some guy's house followed by a thick marshy area. There was no trail in sight. I figured that he'd for sure know that something was wrong and wouldn't have gone that way. Still, him being lost appeared to be the only possible explanation, given that I couldn't find him.

I walked back to where Tony was sitting. We looked at the map and decided that if John kept walking in the wrong direction, he would eventually hit another trail and would be able to continue from there. Then a couple passed us and told us that there wasn't anyone on the trail who was hurt, so the only possibility was that John was lost.

Figuring that John might already be on the other trail, we continued without him and got to the campsite a few hours later. Just when we were talking about how long we should wait before sending out a search-and-rescue squad, John showed up. He had indeed not seen either of the signs and gotten lost, but he found the trail later. I know it's not a really exciting ending to the story, but John was OK, which is the most important thing.

After hiking for nine hours, we were all thoroughly worn out at the end of the day. We set up camp at Seron and only had a few hours of daylight left to cook dinner. John made another fantastic soup. We had to pay to camp this time, so not wanting my money to go to waste, I took a shower. It was ice cold, so I wished I had been content with being dirty and smelly.

We had originally planned to go on the trek for eight days, but Tony studied the map today and figured out that it would be possible to do it in seven. It would require hiking for ten hours tomorrow, but it was our only choice because Tony had to get back to Lima soon after our trek finished. (Lima is a loooong way from Torres del Paine. It's where I started my trip four months ago.) Given how long our day was today, it was easy for me to get the rest I would need for another tough day tomorrow.

The photo album for this entry is here.

January 16, 2006
Day 110

Prologue:

Torres del Paine National Park is probably the most beautiful park in all of Chile, and indeed all of Patagonia. Its main attractions are, not surprisingly, the Torres del Paine, which are a series of jagged mountains located in the middle of the park. "Torres" means "towers" in Spanish, and "Paine" means "blue" in a local native language. (Some people contend that Paine was the surname of an early Welsh explorer of the region.) The other major attractions of the park are its numerous glaciers, the biggest and most stunning of which is Glacier Grey.

Here is a link to a map of the park. You may want to refer to it when reading this blog entry. By far, the most popular trek people do when they come to the park is the "W," so-called because the trek is shaped like a "W," as I have crudely illustrated here. The "W" is popular because those who hike it get to see the highlights of the park, and it only takes 3-5 days to do so. I chose to go on the complete circuit, a 7-8 day trek that includes the "W," but also loops around the back of the park. I went with John and Tony, two Englishmen whom I had met previously in my travels. We carried all of our own gear during the trek. We stocked up on food the day before leaving, and we got our water from the numerous glacial streams we crossed along the way. We went without a guide, but one wasn't really necessary because the trail was easy to follow for the most part. This map shows where we went on each day of our trek.

Whenever I state that a certain part of the trek took a certain amount of time to walk, I'm quoting from the map we were given when we entering the park. The times listed on that map are just wild guesses because they are listed for people moving in both directions, regardless of how fit they are and whether or not they are carrying gear. We found that we usually beat the times listed, but I didn't keep very close track of our actual times, so I'll go with the map times instead. The total distance of the trek was 123 KM (76 miles).

Day 1

I was up late last night packing, and had to get up early today to catch the 7:30 bus to Torres del Paine. I was tired, but I tried to make the best of the situation. Still, it's hard to be positive when you lift your backpack for the first time and it weighs 16 KG (35 pounds) because of all of the food you need to carry. I knew buying 80 slices of cheese was a mistake! Still, there's really no way to buy enough food for eight days had have it be light.

We bought the cheapest bus ticket we could find, which meant that we had the most ghetto bus available. It was old, rickety, and packed full. The worst part was that there was no storage area underneath so all of our backpacks were piled up to the ceiling in the back. Still, most of the road was gravel, so the ride would be bumpy even if it were a brand new bus. After two hours of being thrashed around while trying to sleep, we got to the national park. The ride did have one highlight: we saw a rare ostrich (or a very similar species) on the way.

The bus dropped us off at Guardaria Laguna Amarga. The trek technically didn't start there, but we decided to get a warmup by walking an hour and a half to Hosteria Las Torres over a gravel road. Along the way, the Torres del Paine were visible, but they were obstructed by clouds for the most part.

Next, we walked to Albergue, a hostel/camp site. Camping there costs $7 per person, and it includes hot showers. You can also get a bed at the hostel for $38, but I'll explain the numerous options for would-be trekkers later. We quickly learned that the park has several of these hostels, which are expensive for Chile, but give people who don't carry any gear a place to stay for the night.

After a short break, we continued on to Campamento Torres, a free campsite. There are a number of free campsites in the park, which don't have any facilities other than a clear patch of ground to pitch your tent and usually a pit toilet. There aren't enough free sites in the park to camp for free every night (unless you walk 12 hours per day), but even the pay sites aren't outrageously expensive, so even people with tight budgets can enjoy the park.

When we reached Campamento Torres, we set up camp and cooked dinner. It turned out that John was an amazing cook. He started cutting up vegetables and throwing various spices into a pot. Before we knew it, we were eating a delicious soup that was really a whole meal. I don't even eat that well when I have a full kitchen at my disposal, so I'm glad we brought John along. At least when you have a heavy backpack for a trek like this one, it will get lighter as you eat your food. We made sure to eat some onions, carrots, and potatoes tonight because they were some of our heaviest items.

Despite having to get up so early, today was pretty easy. We only hiked 4.5 hours and had plenty of daylight to set up camp and eat. Tomorrow, we won't be so lucky because we'll have to get up before sunrise to see the Torres del Paine at their finest.

The photo album for this entry is here.