Fly South: Torres del Paine (or T Del P)

This trip was incredible. From all the blisters, soreness, and oatmeal for 6 days in a row came an experience unlike anything anything else I´ve ever done. 11 people in total decided to go down to hike and camp in Torres Del Paine, the most famous national park in Chile and also apparently well-known in other parts of the world. It was tough, much tougher than I thought it would be, but so worth it. We spent 5 1/2 days total in the park, doing the ¨W¨ as the trail is called, and camped at free sites at night.

We started off by flying into Punta Arenas, down near the southern tip of Chile. From there, we quickly hopped a bus to Puerto Natales, a town near the Argentinian border to gather supplies, food and to figure out what the hell we were doing. We stayed at a hostel that night that was recommended to us by two friends who went there before. The hostel was run by an American from Oregon named Bill, and had a bunch of people from all over the world, (Brits, Germans, Chileans, Canadians) staying there. Bill used to be a tour guide in the park, so he basically gave us a bunch of tips and showed us a map of the place and all the ins and outs. We mapped our schedule accordingly, woke up the next morning sometime near dawn, and took another bus to Torres del Paine.

The first point on the ¨W¨ is Glacier Grey. This day nearly killed me. After the first hill, I was wondering why I came and thinking of throwing myself off the next cliff, but luckily it was worth it to go on. We hiked about 6 hours that day to take these fantastic pictures, and it ended up being incredible.

These two daredevils climbed down to the where the glacier was and brought back with them glacier ice. We heard that somewhere in Puerto Natales, you can order a martini with blue glacier ice instead of regular old ice. It is supposedly the ¨most expensive martini in the world,¨ but I´m pretty satisfied with a lick of glacier ice straight from the pond.

The three girls who I shared a tent with and I decided to hike two more hours, nearly all uphill, so we could hit a campsite that was located closer to the glacier. We slept literally 20 ft. from away from it (COLD) and throughout the night, we could hear it moving, (sounds a lot like thunder.)

The second leg of the ¨W¨ is to Los Cuernos, the picture above. Supposedly they look like horns, but I don´t see the resemblance. Nonetheless, they were stunning. We camped that night at a place called Campo Italiano and it became our favorite campsite because of the two guards that worked there. That night we were invited to their hut for chicken, rice and wine which was fantastic after the food we had been eating. Since it is the end of the season (nearly autumn) the guards have a lot of time on their hands, and we were perfectly willing to take advantage of a warm meal, and also to practice Spanish.

The last leg of the ¨W¨to the actual ¨torres¨ was the hardest and longest. It was 7+ hours of hiking up hills until we reached the valley pictured above. It was my favorite spot because after all that walking uphill with ok-scenery, we turned the corner and Bam! This valley appeared, and it was GORGEOUS. It was also scary because the trail is literally on the side of the mountain behind me, and one trip, and you slide right down. But it was the most fantastic scenery.

These are the actual torres. They were very pretty and I enjoyed them, and the scenery when we topped that hill, but I have to say the valley into it was much more magnificent. The torres are pretty much just rock formation that look like towers. We climbed up that rocky hill for an hour at dawn to see the sunrise hit the torres, (supposed to be stunning) but unfortunately it was misty so we didn´t see them as well as we could have.

On the way up to the torres, we saw the opportunity for a great picture, (kind of stolen from Lion King, but whatever.) That´s me by the point!! It was shamelessly windy, and I kind of nearly died. Oh well, all in the name of art. =)