Torres Del Paine

Well, we're alive and much to the relief of our family and friends (and us) we were not in the earthquake zone in the north of Chile.  We didn't even know about the earthquake until the 28th (Sunday) of February and we were in a campsite with no real communication to the outside world, so all we heard were rumors of a 9.0 earthquake striking Santiago.  Images of Hati and the devastation caused there came to our minds and we hoped the same thing had not happened in Santiago.  Our friend Beatrice has parents that live in Santiago and we also hoped that they were ok.  In the end it seems like the damage is extensive but not crippling to this small developed country, or at least I hope so, and the country has ample reserves from the copper boom from the past years to help pay for reconstruction.  Needless to say, this is likely to have an impact on our travel plans.  We were planning on going north from here (Puerto Natales) to Puerto Montt and from there up through the main populated region of Chile including Santiago.  Now we're not really sure.  Should we keep to our schedule?  Surely the tourist industry has been hit hard and not going would exacerbate the problem, but if we do go, what would we really do?  Suzanne had an idea of helping out with relief efforts, which is a possibility, but I'm not sure how we would do this, so we'll need to do some research and see if we can.  In the meantime we can tell everyone about our time at Torres del Paine.

Torres del Paine is considered to be the most famous national park in South America.  It is a nature-lover's dream come true.  The main feature is a (relatively) small set of peaks independent of the Andes mountain range made of granite and sedimentary rock that shoot directly out of the earth like a massive cathedral.  Since its relatively small, you can actually hike around the peaks and up the valleys to get up close and see these peaks up close.  This is what we did.  We rented camping equipment and bought some food and began a five day backpacking adventure around the spires.  Day 1 we got up early and hopped on a bus to the park and began our hike up the first valley where you can best see the Torres or towers.  We'll let the pictures describe them.  The first day's hike was very difficult.  We had not been backpacking since the Conundrum trip a couple of years ago and that was only a couple of days and our packs seemed really heavy!  It also didn't help that the national park doesn't seem to really believe in switch-backs or anything so the hike up the valley was pretty much straight up the valley!  We eventually made it up to our campsite, which was very close to the mirador (viewpoint) of the torres.  I had read that it is very special if you can see the torres at sunrise, especially a red sunrise so our goal was to get close and hike up the last 450 meters (bouldering this time) to the mirador.  But since you never know what the weather is going to give you we decided to do the hike up there on our first day as well since the weather was looking ok.  So we hiked up that mountain twice, once on day 1 (but thankfully without our packs) and again on day 2 (this time in the dark before sunrise).  We were very blessed though in that both times the weather worked out fine and we got to see the torres in all their glory.  I also got some good sunrise shots!

So day 2 started out with a difficult hike without packs and then we headed for a very long hike to the next campsite.  This day wasn't as difficult with elevation climbs as the day before but it was about twice as long!  We didn't get to the next campsite until 6 pm (with a wakeup time of 5:30am!) so we were very very tired.  Along the hike though we did get a good view of the Cuernos peaks which are much more massive than the torres.  It was also very windy.  At one point we took the sleeping pads off our packs and hand-carried them because they were catching the wind and were almost knocking us down!

Day 3 started with us sleeping late in our tent from exhaustion from the day before.  We then headed up valle frances to a campsite at the base of the valley.  We went ahead and set up our tents and then without our packs we hiked up the valley for some amazing views of the cuernos, torres and surrounding mountainscapes that were just truly spectacular!   There are glaciers everywhere along the valley and on the way down we got to see one amazing sight.  One of the glaciers near the top of the mountain suddenly burst out a huge waterfall of ice and water covering the rocks below.  Then as quickly as it started it stopped, but we got to watch the effect of all that water all the way down the mountain as the normal waterfalls (which were everywhere) swelled to twice their size for a couple of minutes and then returned to normal.  I took a panoramic video of the whole valley so hopefully it can convey what we saw, but I'm afraid it will fall short.  It's hard to capture the massiveness of these mountain on a video or a picture (though of course we took plenty of attempts).

That night, after eating our hot-dogs and rice casserole, Suzanne got sick in the middle of the night and (in her words) between her being “trapped” in her mummy sleeping bag and being unable to open the tent, she was unable to direct the result of this sickness outside the tent and thus sprayed it all over the inside.  Needless to say, I was awake in a moment.  Why is it always hot dogs?  We did our best to clean it up and tried to go back to sleep.  The next morning she still wasn't feeling well so we decided to do only an 8 km hike to the next campsite instead of the planned 18 km.   We would then have access to running water and do a thorough cleaning of our sleeping bags and tent.  So poor sick Suzanne had to strap on her pack again and endure another hike but she was a trooper and we made it in 3 hours.  We set up camp and cleaned everything up and got it all dried (thanks to a sunny afternoon)  and had a relaxing evening.  The next day we hopped on a boat and headed back to civilization.

Overall it was an exhilarating and exciting adventure and we both really enjoyed it.  Suzanne was great!  This is not exactly her thing but she did it for me and I think she's got quite a bit of “I did Torres del PAINe with you, so you can do this for me” stored up for use later, but I think it was all worth it. :)  We're next going back to Punta Arenas to hopefully catch a flight to Puerto Montt in the Chilean Lakes District, assuming the flights are working in the country by then.  Some other observations:

You should really have a good idea of your meals and only bring that food, especially when you can buy food (albeit expensive) at some of the campsites.  We brought a full 1 and ½ day's food extra and we definitely noticed the weight.  Other things you don't need:  cards, dried milk.

I would love to come back and do an even longer hike (there's a full circuit around the peaks) and when I told Suzanne of this, she suggested it would be a great adventure with my brothers (i.e.  Not her).

~Mike

ps.  Pictures are uploading but they're a bit slow so check back in a day or so from this posting.
Pictures