A little luck goes a long way at Torres Del Paine
This is no walk in the park
If you’re going to Torres Del Paine, be prepared to be blown away – in both senses of the expression. Situated in Patagonia near the southernmost end of Chile, the national park and UNESCO world heritage site is known for out-ofthis world scenery but comes with a warning: it’s also know for notoriously temperamental weather with winds that can deliver gusts in excess of 100 km/h along with incessant rain and even snow in the middle of the summer.
I never heard of the place until I happened upon an online ad. As someone with a bit of a passion for most things outdoors, I had been looking for an “adventure vacation” in an exotic local and was thinking seriously of Nepal or Machu Pichu. But just one look at a photo of the park’s namesake – a series of massive granite walls glowing in the dawn sun – made my decision for me.
By the time I had booked my trip and had bought the plane tickets, I began to hear the stories – tents blown away, torrential rain coming in sideways with the affect of a sandblaster, bitter cold. Will this be a holiday or a test of survival?
Added to the worry, I had opted for the O trek, a nine-day walk that takes you entirely around the perimeter of the massif or mountain complex at the park’s centre.
The other option, and the one taken by most of the trekkers who pass through the area each year, is the W, a four-day trip along the southern side and so named because it takes hikers up two valleys to its two most prominent features – the Towers and the Horns – and alongside a lake shore to a glacier.
Taking on the O meant more hiking and thus more time in the awesome splendour of Torres Del Paine (pronounced pie-nay) but with a greater chance of being exposed to the worst of the park’s weather. That said, I wasn’t going to travel all the way to the bottom end of South America without getting some quality outside time.
Plus any hardship I was going to encounter was going to be offset by the fact I had signed onto a guided trip that would follow a series of “refugios” placed around the circuit where we could get hot meals, showers and, for a price, wine and beer. Also, porters would be transporting a significant portion of my load, meaning I only had to carry a camera and the essentials for a day hike. I would still be sleeping in a tent, but otherwise it was glamping.
Oddly, we started with what a Hollywood producer would call the “money shot.” On the first day, we made the 18-kilometre round trip up to a lake at the foot of the Towers themselves. Blessed with a remarkably clear sky, our group ABOVE: Sunrise at a refugio in Chile’s Torres Del Paine National Park.
RIGHT: A hiker crosses a bridge near where the Grey Glacier spills into Lago Grey in Chile’s Torres Del Paine National Park.
of 14 plus two guides probably took a collective 100 photos of the Towers just on the drive in to the trailhead alone. As expected, the walk itself was uphill almost all the way and, because we had shown up on a Sunday, it was packed with plenty of other hikers – most of them proud Chileans out to get an up-close look at the centrepiece of what, in my opinion, is their more-spectacular answer to the Canadian Rockies.
By the time we had reached our destination, the clouds had crowded out the towers’ tops but not so much that we couldn’t get a sense of their ominous presence. How could what followed possibly top this? I was about to find out.
The next day was about appreciating the smaller things – the types of flowers, grasses and trees so different from our own. I also gained an appreciation for “Patagonian flat” which isn’t really flat at all, sometimes not even rolling, just less severe than going up and down a mountainside. The hiking was pleasant nonetheless and after four to five hours we had reached our destination.
It was essentially more of the same on Day 3, but as we progressed, more stunning mountains came into view – not on the scale of the Towers but still enough to make me slack-jawed. We pro-
gressed up a hill onto a pass where we were greeted with our first taste of gale-force winds. Surprisingly, it was kind of fun as we leaned into the blasts or tried to remain still enough to take a picture or video. That said, it was not the kind of place where you would try to do a pirouette.
Threatening clouds had dominated the sky as we descended down the other side. By the time we were at the next refugio, a strong drizzle was falling. The camp was fogbound, imposing a desultory mood and we spent the evening in the main building drinking wine, playing cards and expecting the warnings we had heard about the area’s fickle weather to come to full fruition.
But when we woke up the next morning, the fog had lifted, the sky was a sunny, clear blue and the mountains in their majesty could not be missed. The theme only continued as we headed back onto and up the trail.
As we looked back, we could see The Cube, a massive square block of black rock shrouded in cloud and with a glacier descending down one side to a lakeshore below. To the other was the backside of the Towers swooping up into the sky like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.
Suddenly, walking the O was worth the effort.
We followed the trail as it descended into a forest and over a series of bridges occasionally catching glimpses of the mountains towering above. Then we climbed again and up to a small lake backed by a hanging glacier.
We stopped there to laze around and bask in the sun.
Then, a little bit of magic happened. As some of us began to skip stones and simply throw large rocks and boulders into the lake, I saw something remarkable – as the mist from the splashes flew into the air they combined with the sun above to form small, moving rainbows. Patagonia is known as the land of rainbows, I was later told, and it’s so true.
The good weather stayed that evening but by the next morning it was raining, and at the worst possible time. Ahead of us lay John Gardner Pass, arguably one of the toughest legs of the trip due to the high wind that constantly blows through that part of the trek. It was as advertised but with the help of worthy rain gear, we persevered with relatively little trouble, and as we made our way over the rise we got our first views of the Grey Glacier.
Even shrouded in fog, we got a sense of just how huge it is at 26 kilometres long and six kilometres wide. We forged onwards and, to our good fortune, the clouds lifted, revealing an increasingly magnificent sight. Beneath the glacier’s white and grey surface there was an eerie luminescent blue glow, the green of the forest through which we were walking complimenting the colour.
After roughly 10 hours of walking, often along a steep, muddy and root-infested trail, we reached Interested? Here’s some advice:
Be prepared – Even if you’re taking a guided trip complete with porters, this is no walk in the park. You need to be in reasonable, even excellent shape. I relied on snowshoeing on the weekends, getting out to Otway as much as possible, some gym work and riding my bike on a wind trainer and was able to keep up – but just barely. If I was to do it again, I’d train for a 10K or even a halfmarathon to get ready.
Consider a guided trip – Many, especially the younger types, choose to do it all on their own, carrying their own food and tents and booking their own spots at the stopping points along the way. But a guided trip has its advantages, like taking away a lot of the headache and worry, along with the weight in your pack.
I opted for a trip through G Adventures and I chose it because it was relatively inexpensive and
a refugio on the shore of Lago Grey, the lake into which the glacier spills. The next day was a rest day but only in the sense that we weren’t hiking to the next camp. Instead, we were given the option of laying about or going on an excursion. I chose to do a guided walk along the glacier, complete with ice axe and crampons.
After a short boat ride and an extended scramble up a rock outcropping we arrived at the glacier’s foot where we strapped on our gear and, after a few instructions, ventured onto the ice itself.
Picture yourself in a desert of undulating sandstone, except this stone is made of ice and snow, and you get an idea of what it was like.
Our guides took us to a couple of tunnels where the blue – the colour ice takes when it’s compressed into its densest form – was most evident. When I was given was quoted in Canadian dollars. I was happy with what I got – the guides were fluent in English, were a lot of fun and showed a passion for the area – and the food was reasonable even at the hard-to-service refugios on the back side of the massif.
Getting there – I flew into Santiago, Chile’s capital, and then took a regional flight down to Punta Arenas, a delightful coastal town in the far south. From there I took a bus up to Puerto Natales to meet with the rest of the group at our launching point.
I flew to Santiago via Toronto on the way down and via Los Angeles on the way back up. Toronto is the better option because you can avoid the hassle of going through U.S. customs although there is the effect of jet lag to consider if you opt for Toronto.
a chance to peer into one of the openings I felt strangely drawn in by a curious urge to seek what was around the next corner. More blue, of course, but deeper and more alluring.
Pictures were taken and we stopped for a drink of tea and cinnamon supplemented with chocolate before getting a look at another tunnel, this one a little too steep to investigate closely, before returning to the base and then back onto the boat.
Next day, the weather held although my feet were starting to feel the wear and tear of six days of hiking. A blister had emerged on a toe and the bottom of a foot where my boot got wet, had cracked enough to create a laceration. The spots were taped up and away we went, leaving what, for many is the starting point of the W and the first of the most developed of the refugios.
We headed towards the shore of Lago Pehoe, taking on more Patagonian flat along the way. By the time we reached our destination, we got a clear sight of the entrance to the French Valley, home to the Horns – a cirque of jagged peaks outdone only by the Towers themselves, and the Cerro Paine Grande – an imposing mixture of black rock and hanging glacier.
As we emerged from our tents the next morning, the rising sun, the cloud and the peaks themselves created a glowing, spellbinding scene reminiscent of a painting from the Romantic era.
The feeling continued as we made our way up the valley. Cerro Paine Grande became only more impressive as we grew nearer, its glacier occasionally producing a loudly-rumbling fall of ice. We stopped for an extended time, our guides knowing this will be among the most impressive sights we would come across as well as among the last.
Eventually, we had to turn and retreat back down the valley and on to the next refugio, tracing the shore of Lago Nordenskold. On one side, the Horns peered down from above, on the other we saw rolling hills of green and granite flank the far side of the lake. We eventually reached what, for my money, was the most delightful of the refugios where, sensing the trip was soon to come to an end, we headed to the bar – yes, it has a bar – where I enjoyed yet another in an ongoing series of pisco sours.
The next day was our final one and, scenery wise, a little anticlimatic, although a fairly easy meander that took us back to our starting point, a sight that seemed a distant memory after nine days on the trail.
Throughout our trip, our guides constantly commented on how lucky we were. The conditions we enjoyed were experienced only one in ten times, we were told.
And when we gathered later that night for a trip-ending dinner, our head guide told us we were the first group in four trips where all the participants made it from start to finish. Inclement weather and a lack of knowing what they were getting into often meant someone bailed early or took the trip back out on horseback.
As I had heard the stories prior to the start of the trip, I had braced myself for an epic battle with the forces of nature. But while I was a little tired by the end of the trek, everything came out much better than expected – the sights were even more impressive than what I came across online and other than a few hiccups, the weather held.
I was lucky, indeed.