Interesting Fact About Torres del Paine National Park:
1) Although it is in the direct line of the Andes Mountains (the Andes are both North and South of the mountain range in the park), it is evidently an independent mountain range with no connection to the Andes.
2) ´Paine´ is a native word that means ´blue´ which evidently has to do with the blue color the glaciers use to give off thousands of years ago
Some sort of cool llama looking animal that is every where in the park
After spending a day and a half in Puerto Natales, Chile mainly resting the many wounds on my feet caused by the ´great´ sidewalks of Argentina, attending a hour and half seminar on trekking in Torres del Paine National Park, and shopping at a supermarket that is basically a trekkers paradise (small bags of everything: spices, jams, condiments, etc.) we finally headed off to the National Park on Wednesday (17/3). The park was a 3 hour (+coffee break) drive from the town and after paying the park entrance we continued on the bus to a launching point for a boat to take us to the bottom left corner of the ´W´ (see the map below). While we were waiting for the boat we were told to take a nice 20 minute walk to a overlook of a small waterfall. It was a nice small waterfall but after being at the Iguazu Falls all waterfalls kind of seem lame to me. After we finally boarded the boat and disembarked 40 minutes later, Emily and I began our trek to the first campsite. In reality it was a pretty short hike and mostly downhill (only 3.5 hours) but because it was the first day it took us 4.5 hours. Along the entire hike though we saw amazing views of Grey Glacier, until we hit the campsite and realized just how close we were to the glacier.
Glacier Grey in the background (this was the view of the majority of our first day of hiking)
Cool Geology, looks like a fingerprint
The campsite was along the beach of the glacial lake and large and small chunks of ice were floating about infront of the campsite. The relative closeness we were to the glacier that night probably had something to do with the next morning when I went an extended rant about how cold it was and who ever had the ´great idea´ of sleeping next to a glacier was crazy. The campsites are kind of weird at the park. There are both free and pay sites (that are run by different companies, that I assume are contracted out by the Park Service). The freesites seem to be a bit out of the way most of the time, while the pay sites are more conveniant and less of a hassel normally to get to. Also attached to all the paysites are ´refugios´ or small hostels that more rich/older people stay at that provide both cooked meals and a place to sleep (and quiet a price) so you don´t need to backpack with basically anything except clothes. The nice thing about these sites though is they also have minimarkets which allowed us to buy a carton of wine (if anyone from my garin is reading this it was Gato Negro) to enjoy with our dinner that dinner.
On Thursday we left the campsite and hiked a small 20 minute path to a great lookout of the glacier. We then retraced the path back down to the bottom left corner of the ´W´ where we got dropped off the boat on the first day. Even though there was more uphill during the retracing we managed to go a bit quicker (a little under 4 hours). We had lunch and headed towards the next campsite (about 2.5 hours away) directly in the middle of the bottom part of the ´W.´ Although we couldn´t see it, we could hear a hanging glacier not to far from the campsite. Now I wasn´t exactly sure what a hanging glacier was until we saw it the next morning. I knew what a regular glacier was, like the one we saw the previous day or the ones we saw in Los Glaciares National Park that are part of a larger ice field and basically carve out valleys and is created/maintained by snow (during the winter) from mountains melting (during the spring) and compacting into the icefield. As I found out the next morning a hanging glacier is more like a large amount of icy snow that is compacted on the side of a mountain. When a piece of icy-snow falls it is not like the regular glaciers where just large chunks of ice fall off in to a lake, but it causes more of a small avalanche of snow that flows down the side of the mountain. All night we could hear this going on and it sounded like a thunderstorm in the distance that just never got closer or father.
Closer up view of Glacier Grey that we saw the second day
EEntrance to the second campsite
The third day, even though it was the longest hiking (8 hours), 6 hours were done without our packs on. We hiked up and down French Valley (the middle stem of the ´W´), which was 3 hours each way. From the top we just had amazing views of the entire valley: the plains at the bottom of the valley, the granit mountain tops, hanging glacier, etc. After we returned to the original camp we packed up camp around 15:30 and made our way to a pay site just two hours walk away.
View from the top of French Valley
The next morning we woke up, surprisingly not freezing cold as we had the two previous nights (which might have had something to do with the weather being a tad warmer, but I am convinced it had to do with the fact we weren´t sleeping right next to a glacier for the first time in three nights). The weather was bit worse then what we had been having. Which luckily had been pretty sunny (we heard from everyone to expect 4 days of downpour, one Israeli even told some people we met that Torres del Paine was more like ´Torres del Trauma´). The first half of the day was pretty drizzly and as we crossed a huge plain we hit pretty cold winds. As we began to make our way up the far right of the ´W´ we started to experience more and more wind, which only made the semi-drastic uphill we were doing that much harder. At one point going up in to the valley we turned a corner on the side of a mountain and almost got thrown right off the mountain the wind was so strong. We finally hit the paid campsite and even though it was marked we only had another 90 minutes to the freesite we decided we were making good time so we decided to stop inside the refugio and drink some hot mate and play backgammon bit. We finally laced back up our boots and made it to the freesite, the nice thing being even though we continued to go uphill we were now in much more of a tree cover so we just heard the heavy wind run through the leaves. The only upside to the day was that we took a nice short-cut, the trail we took was marked for 7.5 hours without stops, but a nice shortcut that took us through a valley instead of having to go completely downhill to then go back uphill, saved us a nice 1.5 hour.
View of the final leg of the trip
The final morning was the morning we had been waiting for the entire trip. We were told in a short seminar we took before the hike at, ErraticRock, that we need to wake up mad early the final morning and hike before sunrise to a glacier which was about a 45 minute hike but almost at 45 degrees uphill and a very rocky/sandy semi-marked trail. Needless to say the trail was not so fun to do in the pitchdark but when we got up there about 5 minutes before sunrise we quickly setup our sleeping pads and started to cook our breakfast. As the sun began to rise and hit the glacier, and the peaks above the glacier, the entire area glowed an amazing orangish-red color. Hopefully the pictures can do some justice but it was undescribeable. We then ran back to the campsite packed up and for the first time before 10:00am all week we were on the trail, and basically sprinted down from 886m to around 50m above sea level (we ran not because we were in a total rush for time, we made it to the bus stop 2 hours early) but because it hurt my knees a lot less then walking it).
The following is three pictures during sunrise of the Three Towers
We finally got back in to town and after returning some gear (walking poles for my old-legs and rain pants that I rented as insurance after our hike in El Chatén) and moving hostels we went out to dinner with some friends we met along the trail and I enjoyed a nice steak with a sunny-side-up egg and some fries.
Quick-side not we would like to share our camping-culinary expertise with the world...
-First Night: As it was the first day we decided to hike in with some extra veggies and Emily made a pleasent Veggie Rice Curry (I also brought along some chicken sausages).
-Second Night: Typical Pasta and Tomato Sauce
-Third Night: Our true culinary masterpiece. Mini-Pizzas. Yes that is right we brought along these flat circular bread-rolls that we sliced in half, then added tomato sauce, onion, oregeno, garlic salt, and cheese. I then placed 4 small rocks on the bottom (balancing the pizza on the rocks) of my cooking pot put a little water on the bottom and closed the pot. 90 seconds later...MINI PIZZAS with melted cheese and all.
-Fourth Night: Pasta with alfredo sauce (from a packet), which we neglected to notice needed milk. So we added a bit of cheese and some leftover tomato soup and it tasted pretty good.
After a quick layover back in El Calafate we are now in Bariloche (after a beautiful 29 hour bus ride, which went through our ´most favorite´ town in Argentina, Rio Gallegos.
I am jealous! Keep having fun.
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