Hiking in Patagonia!

Our next stop was one we had really been looking foward to... Torres del Paine National Park in Southern Chili. When you see pictures of glaciers and huge dramatic mountains of Patagonia, they are more than likely taken in Torres del Paine. It is a hiking meca. Because we were going to be in the area at the very beginning of the season and weather was going to be questionable, we opted to book a trip to hike the W (the prime hiking circuit) whuch included sleeping in refugios (like bunk houses) and lodges as opposed to camping. We figured even if the weather was bad all day long, we would be fine for the next day if we slept in a warm dry place. By doing the trip like this, it also meant that we would have a guide with us during our trek coordinating our logistics from one place to another.

We arrived in Punta Arenas to gray skies. It was cold, wet, and snowing. We were very glad we had booked the lodge to lodge W trek. We got our bags and were met by Jorge who introduced himself as our guide for the next week. His English was ok, not great, so it took us a few minutes to start to figure each other out. We got into the car and headed out to Puerto Natales and our first scheduled stop to the penguin colony along the way. We were very excited about the penguins. Jorge was not a good driver. We'll just leave it at that. So, after about 45 minutes of white knuckles, we arrived at the very closed gate of the penguin colony. Jorge talked to the guy at the gate and told us that he guessed they must be closed on Sundays. Big Bummer.

We carried on, back to the main road which would take two to three hours to get to Puerto Natales. Larry asked about a lunch stop as it was already early afternoon, and Jorge said something about yea sure, there was a place in a bit. About an hour later, we stopped (just to grab a drink, not the lunch stop) and when I got out, I saw that one of the tires was completely flat. This was not a good start to our Patagonian experience. Fortunately we had a full size spare, and we were back on our way. Jorge was still a terrible driver, but our knuckles had a little more circulation after the tire was changed. We did finally stop for a quick lunch a couple of hours later, and Jorge told us he had been working in the national park for about 15 years. He also told us he really likes the horse trips and just did a few hiking treks to mix it up. He was extremely pessimistic about the weather for the next week. He tried to talk about our upcoming trip, but he hadn't yet read the details, so he told us he would brief us later. We arrived at in Puerto Natales very tired, and very unsettled about what our trip was going to be like. We reassured ourselves that it was hiking, and we didn't really need a guide to be great just to hike, we just needed someone to get us to the trailhead and manage the logistics- and we could help with that.

The bright spot for the day was the Weskar Lodge, where we stayed. We were warmly greeted and everything was there was great, including a fireplace and couch in a common sitting area. We both felt better after a nap and felt more optomistic when we met with Jorge again to go over our itinerary. Just in case, as we were not sure of Jorge's detail management, I brought down my copy of our itniterary as well for reference. We chatted with Jorge for a while, and he seemed like a nice enough guy, just not an overly prepared or enthusiastic guide. We made it through the itinerary, which we did need ours as backup, and felt a little better about the trip. We were just excited to go hiking and it seemed as though Jorge was going to be able to get us to the trailhead. After Jorge left, we had a surprisingly good dinner at the Weskar. The food was quite delicious really and it was a nice way to end a very long day.

The next morning we woke up to a perfect blue sky. We looked out our window and could see both the fiord in front of us and snow capped peaks out to the west. We got our gear together and we were ready to go hiking! Jorge and Alec met us right on time and off we went. Alec owns the company and spent about 20 years in the US, so he was able to give us a much better run down of our itinerary. Alec also explained that the penguin place was closed because there was a land dispute going on and although he was told it was going to be open, it actually wasn't opening for another week. We were bummed about the penguins, but it was hard to be sad about anything on such a beautiful day. It was two hours until the trailhead for today's hike. It was beautiful. The mountains kept getting bigger and brighter, and we saw all kind of trees and animals along the way- and FLAMINGOS. There are flamingos in Patagonia. Although this is a widely known fact, it was news to us and very surprising to see these big pink birds hanging out in a little lake by the side of the road.

Today's hike was not part of the official W trek, but a bonus additional day hike along Laguna Verde. It was pretty muddy at the beginning, and Jorge said that he has only every done this trail on horseback before, so he wasn't quite sure how far it was. The trail dried up some, and it was absolutely beautiful, the views just kept getting better and better. We were really able to see the whole range of mountains that make up Torres del Paine. Jorge seemed in good spirits, and we all enjoyed our hike. We kept stopping to take pictures at places with great views, and Jorge kept telling us that we were not yet at the viewpoint. We weren't sure if that meant we shouldn't be taking pictures or stopping, or just to let us know that there was going to be a better spot at some point. We wound up stopping at another beautiful spot (not the view point, but it is where the picture below was taken) for lunch. Jorge scored big points at this stop as he pulled out the following items from his bag: grilled chicken and rice, fresh bread, real forks, red wine, chocolate, and potato chips. We started thinking this guided hiking thing wasn't so bad.

A little while later we did reach the official viewpoint, which was absolutely spectacular.

It was made even more spectacular as we sat there drinking a little red wine and eating chocolate. Alec met us at the end of the trail and drove us to our hotel for the night. We were a little unsure as Alec drove off the dirt road across the lawn to what we assumed was our hotel. From the outside it looked totally under construction. Alec explained that they had hoped to finish their expansion before the season began (officially October 15), but due to the heavy winter, they were behind. The inside of the hotel was beautiful. It was by far the nicest place we had been on our trip, and we made that assessment after walking into the lobby- big chairs, fireplace, and unbelievable view of the mountains. We asked about Internet usage, more out of curiosity that desire to use it, and they said they had laptops with wireless connections that they could check out to us. Wild.

Our room was on the top floor in the corner, one of the only two rooms that had a little balcony. It was a beautiful evening and the view from our room was the best view either of us has ever had (the picture below is from our hotel room, seriously!). We had a great view of the mountains, the river, horses, and clear blue sky. This was luxury living. We watched the sunset, drank a glass of wine, and had a good dinner at the hotel restaurant. Since this was early season in Patagonia, and we only saw two other couples the entire time we were in the hotel, we guessed there must have been only two or three other rooms occupied on this night. The hotel was situated somewhat remotely along the river Serrano, so it wasn't like the rooms were full and people were having dinner somewhere else.


The next morning, we were well rested, well fed, and excited to go hiking. Just to set the mood even more, they were rocking out to 80's classic pop rock in the breakfast area. Since we were the only people there, we did a little lip syncing and fully enjoyed some Michael Jackson, Olivia Newton John, Queen, and other one hit wonders from the early 80's. It was great.

Our first stretch along the W circuit started from Lago Grey, a lake with iceburgs on one end and a glacier at the other. We were to take the morning ferry to the other end of the lake and hike from there. Unfortunately, it being early season, there was no morning ferry, so we walked around the end of the lake until 2:00pm until the only ferry of the day left. It was the first iceburgs either of us have ever seen, so we fully enjoyed staring at them from every possible angle. They really do range in color from clear to white to deep blue depending on the density and age of the iceburg. It was pretty amazing.

The ferry took us down the lake and near to Grey Glacier. Our first glacier! It was huge and very impressive. We took a quick side trip to get a closer view of the glacier, but we didn't have quite enough time to really take in the glacier. We figured there were more glaciers in our future, but not unlimited daylight, so we really needed to get moving. We had an eight-ish mile hike to the refugio and it was already 3:30pm. It was beautiful, but we were pretty focused on moving in order to get to our refugio (bunk house) before dark. Even so, it was so beautiful, that we had to stop here and there for a quick picture. We arrived at hiker central just as it was getting dark, and with 10 minutes left to get dinner. The refugio was kind of like a college dorm set up, but with more beds per room. It was pretty empty, a consistent theme with our trip being "pre-season", so we had the luxury of a room to ourselves and not with the standard 6 or eight to a room. The next day we were to hike up the French Valley, which Jorge in his very brief briefing told us would be kind of long (about 14 miles) and kind of steep (we didn't know what this meant), so we went to bed early after a hot dinner and a hot shower. We were really loving the "hot" lodge thing as it was quite cold outside at night.

The next day was our favorite day of the trek. We just kept saying to each other that we were really hiking in Patagonia so that we would not think it was a holleywood backdrop on a dirt trail. It was one wonderful view after the other. The weather was perfect, and there was alomst no one else on the trail (which in high season, we were told repeatedly, is like a highway of hikers). We crossed a hanging brdge and headed up the ravine to get a closer view of the French Glacier. It was steep. We learned that in Jorge's Patagonia speak, flat trail means a good up or down incline, and steep means scrambing up or down rocks. We got to the viewpoint of the French Glacier and it was 360 degree views of beauty. One direction was a lake and mountains, one direction was a snow capped mountain range in the distance, one direction was a great view of the torres towers and their granite tops, and directly in front of us was a huge, spectacular glacier. From time to time we would hear a sound like thunder, and then watch the glacier for snow and ice falling (calving). It was amazing. It was a long hike, and we only reached the midpoint around 3pm, so we had to keep moving along. We could have easily spent another few hours just sitting and watching the glacier.




We hiked the rest of the way to the next refugio, and arrived, again, just before dark. This refugio had much more of a hiker feel, smaller, wood cabin like, nice people (as far as we could tell since no one spoke English), and overall good cozy atmosphere. Tired and happy with our day, we had a festive meal- including a bottle of wine that came with dinner. It had the word "Diablo" (devil) in the title, so it must be good.

By this point, we were mostly entertained by Jorge. We had determined that he only really understood parts of what we said, and when he had no idea, he responded with "yeah, that's right." This became kind of a game for us. He would from time to time tell us about how the Argentinians were bad and the Chileans were good (in more detail, most of which we understood). He had big blisters on his feet as it was his first hike of the season, but still managed to carry our lunches everyday, and hadn't gotten us lost on the trail. We kept saying to each other, he's a nice guy and very friendly, he just is not the best guide ever (note the look on his face in the picture below). We came to be believe that every other guide we came across on the trail was a long lost friend of his as everyone knew him and greeted him very enthusiastically. We felt more like we were hiking with a guy who had hiked the trail before and had offered to take us along rather than a professional guide who was taking care of us. Since we could really take care of ourselves, this arrangement worked out fine. And, he thought it was very funny that everytime we started going substantially up or down hill on the trail, we would call it Patagonian flat. We had hit a nice groove and more than that, we were hiking in Patagonia! It was great weather! All was good.

Our next day was our "short hike / rest day." This turned out to be about 8 miles of Patagonian flat which took pretty much all day. It was another beautiful day hiking in Patagonia, so we were happy. This section of the trail was really to get us in position for the next day, the grand finale hike up to the Torres towers. When we got to the end of the trail, Alec was to meet us and drive us to where we were staying for the next two nights. There was another refugio right where Alec met us, so we were a little confused why we weren't just staying there, but off we went. Alec explained that we were staying at an estancia (ranch) with a really good view of the Torres towers. It is a place they use a lot for their horseback riding trips. Unfortunately the river was running high and the bridge we needed to cross to get there was closed, so it took about two hours the long way around to get there. Partway there, Alec jumped out to catch a ride back to Puerto Natales, and Jorge was back behind the wheel. At least all the tires had air in them. We drove about an hour on and around a dirt road across a couple of sheep ranches to arrive at our destination. It was fully entertaining to watch the sheep and lambs run away from the car as we passed (they must remember Jorge's driving from last season!).

The estancia was very cool. As with everyplace else, we were the only ones staying here. They have a little ranch house with maybe 10 rooms and a dining room in a separate building just across the way. It felt very much like a ranch with saddles and horse paraphanelia all around, and plenty of sheep skins everywhere- rugs, seat covers, etc. We arrived and were immediately treated to coffee and the equivilent of Chilean donuts, freshly made and still warm. The cook greeted Jorge as if he was her long lost son. It was quite nice. And, as promised, the ranch had an exceptional view of the towers hovering in the distance.

The place was great. We only had one minor issue... Larry walked out of the room to join me in the living room with full windows to watch the sunset without the room key, and the door locked behind him. Larry went to find the woman who greeted us at the door to tell her, but his lack of Spanish and her lack on English made it a little difficult. After a game of charades, and finally realizing that Larry did not want a bottle opener, they understood that we were locked out of our room. Unfortunately, they didn't have another copy of the key (who has automatically locking doors and no extra keys?). So, after much discussion, an older gentleman, who we figured had to be the senior ranch hand, climbed through the window we had left open and opened the door from the inside. He then proceeded to lecture Larry about not leaving the key in the room. It was one of those moments where it absolutely didn't matter what language he was speaking. With all the finger wagging, gesturing, faces, and tone of voice, it was made clear in no uncertain terms that Larry was not to leave the key again.

In the morning, we headed back an hour across the ranch and another hour down the road to exactly where we had finished the day before. We were ready. We had our brief briefing of the day the night before- about four hours up, kind of steep, last hour is really steep, and three hours down. Jorge's judgement of time was never that great, so we added some extra time and asked him to leave earlier in the morning than he planned. It was our last day hiking in Torres and we were in good spirits. We had mentally prepared for ridiculously hard hiking and were pleased it was only pretty tough. We arrived at the two hour mark in about two hours.

I should digress about times on the trail for a moment. In the US, when you are hiking on a well marked trail, you will often see signs that give distance to the next point. If a map or a guide book gives any time estimate, you can be sure it is always very conservative and you can probably hike it faster. In Torres del Paine, there were no distances, everything was signed by time it should take to the next destination only. To make matters worse, the times seemed always to be listed as shorter than what it took us to hike there by about 25%. Even when we were hiking (at what we thought) was a reasonable speed, we were slower than the time estimate on the signs. If we hiked as fast as we could without stopping, we could almost meet the time predictions. It's really a demoralizing way of signing trails if you asked me. Of course, if we were hiking faster than predicted it would be fine. So, it was a huge accomplishment and cause for celebration that we hiked to the two hour mark in two hours and didn't feel like we were going to pass out.

There was another refugio at the two hour mark, and we stopped in for supplies. Potato chips. We didn't have any left and I was craving them. So we bought a very overpriced (4000 Chilean pesos- you'll have to do the math if you really want to know how much we spent) can of chips and started toward the next point on our trail, an hour away. This next point was where, according to Jorge, it got really steep for an hour up to the viewpoint. We arrived to find ourselves at the bottom of a very steep skree field (looks like a big rock slide with small and large rocks). We climbed up and found ourselves face to face with the big towers- very impressive. The weather was nice and we had daylight on our side, so we stopped and enjoyed the view for almost two hours before heading down.

At the bottom of the skree field we stopped for a much needed break. It is actually harder- both mentally and physically, it seems, to go down a steep slope than up. Time for the chips. We all enjoyed some, worth every peso! I put the can away, after taking just a couple of more out- two last chips for the road. I had put the chips down, and as I turned to put the can away, a very small innocent looking yellow bird swooped in and stole my chips. Big pringle sized chips! Very small bird! The nerve of some birds. Then, deciding he didn't really like them, the bird dropped them a few feet down the trail. Add chip stealing birds to the list of animals we had seen.

Speaking of animals, we saw some that were not so surprising- juanica's (wild llamas), sheep, cows, wild horses, and more sheep. Then we saw quite a few that were surprising- the previously mentioned flamingos, the rios- it's a Patagonian ostrich that runs around wild, huge hares- rabbits with foot long ears, a huge blue looking eagle (sittling on a tree it was almost three feet tall), and giant woodpeckers. We figured it was sort of like the Amazon, in the opposite extreme, and animals needed to be bigger and tougher in order to survive. Fortunately, we didn't see any spiders. Or any insects really- it was still too cold.


The rest of the hike down was beautiful and a little sad as we were finishing our trek. We, of course, weren't really that sad as we had a full list of great places to see in the days, weeks, and months to come. We constantly remind ourselves how lucky we are to be doing this trip. Hiking in Patagonia is really a dream come true- and it was much better in reality than in a dream. The W circuit is known as one of the top hikes in the world. We agree.

We opted to spend just a little more time in Torres del Paine National Park by booking a half day kayaking trip for the next morning at Lago Grey. To get there from the estancia, we got to drive through a part of the park we hadn't yet seen. It was another beautiful day, we were happy with our succesful W trek, and we were glad to be sitting and not hiking on our tired legs- and that almost was enough to distract us from Jorge's driving. We stopped at a waterfall, saw more flamingos, and more rios on our way to Lago Grey.

Lago Grey was were we started our hike by waiting for the ferry, and staring for hours at the iceburgs. We wanted to get closer to the burgs and they offered the option to kayak around them. It was pure and complete fun. We paddled around the iceburgs, crashed into an iceburg (on purpose, just so we could say we crashed into an iceburg), touched the iceburgs, tasted the iceburgs (it had to be done), and spent a couple of hours playing around in the water while our trusty kayak guide tried in vain to keep us going in the general direction he wanted us to go. It was amazing.

On the way back to Puerto Natales, Jorge offered to stop off at the Cave de Milodon. We had no idea what this was, but got from Jorge that it was a really big cave and this milodon big deal around Puerto Natales, and that was enough to peak Larry's interest. Apparently, the miloden found at this cave is a huge deal in Puerto Natales because the skeleton was in such good shape. It´s kind of like the town mascot. Milodon´s were giant sloths (think cross between anteater and grizzly bear) that were twice the size of humans about 10,000 years ago (now very exctinct) and lived in caves. It was without a doubt the biggest cave we've ever seen. It was like a big ampitheater sized hole inside a rock. In fact, they play movies on the cave wall during the summer.

We parted ways with Jorge after one more quiet white knuckled ride back to Puerto Natales. The biggest story of our trip to Torres del Paine was the weather. In this very windy, cold, and cloudy area we had six days of partly sunny, warm, and calm days. We were told over and over that even in high season when the weather is supposed to be great, a stretch of good weather like this is very very rare. We lucked out and we knew it.