The Torres del Paine; Patagonian and Chilean Flags
Haha. So cheesy and common, my title. But I have more of an excuse to use the "Paine" pun than some: my boots were two sizes too small. I wear a 42, and I hiked 85 kilometers in size 40. Needless to say, the only thing that is holding my blue toenails on is...something gross. So.
I think I'm lucky, though. I paid for all of my sins (that was my Buenos Aires host's reaction to my tale of woe), and I spent 8 days wandering Patagonia's beauty. I'm not Thoreau or Proust, I cannot transmit euphoric nature feelings with my words, so let me just say that if you ever ever find yourself in Puerto Natales with five days, don't settle for the five day W route. Push back your bus ticket and give yourself 9 days to do the circuit, because the upper part of the route, the path least taken, is where the solitude is, where the glaciers are, the day of climbing up to a super windy mountain pass only to make it over and see the Southern Ice Field spread out before you, fading into the distance. (This is the world's third largest source of fresh water, after Antarctica and Greenland!) Here you see the grey, blue and white ice below you, compressed into jagged peaks and valleys as the new snow pushes the whole thing along, and you have this slow river all to yourself. You might even see rainbows arching over it. This is an amazing place to be.
Rainbow arching
Ice land
There are countless other places I ought to describe, but I'm wary, because I just can't convey the feelings of being there. The lower part of the route, the W, is along a milky green lake, and there is one two-hour segment of the trail where you walk along the shore. The stones on the beach are black and white, and up close the opaque water is as clear as could be, so the monochromatic stones glimmer up through the delicious waves. Yum. I wanted to gulp up the entire thing (Patagonian water is the purest, most delicious water I've ever tasted. California hikers will appreciate the wonder of being able to drink directly from any of the countless streams found along the trails). We let ourselves collapse on the (surprisingly comfortable) rock beach and look at the fading sky, which was striped with Georgia O'Keef clouds. Then we had to get up and go...ouch, my feet. Ouch, my knees.
The trail; Towers from the other side
Avalanche!
Curious Clouds
And then there was our third day, which began before dawn. It had been a frosty night, and my tent was covered in what you scrape off of your windshield every morning in Boston in the winter when it doesn't snow. Frost. And as the sun rose, the frost turned into heavy mist, and everything was white and misty and then yellow and glittery. It was a lovely morning. We were the first ones up and out, as usual, so we got to see the whole process.
Early morning on day three
Finally, the weather was so extraordinary when we set out that we decided to do our last day first. In general, trekkers like to finish the trip with a sunrise visit to the Towers, but often there are snow storms or rain storms or just clouds, so if you have nice weather it's a good idea to take advantage of it. We did that, and climed up the slippery rocks in the dark with our sleeping bags and stove to enjoy a very picturesque breakfast, lounging on a freezing rock facing the granite peaks of the Torres del Paine (towers of blue). The sun came up slowly and gently, the towers caught the light with very little of the dramatics you might see on the internet, and we had bland porridge to go with it all. It was delicious.
Late dawn at the towers
We were lucky. 8 days out there, and only one or two with any rain at all. Generally, you should expect 1 day of rain, wind and snow for every one day you're on the trail, even in the summer. And that leads me to my next Torres del Paine lesson: I think that you should go in March. Now, my lonely little experience is not anything to make rules out of, but I think that March is ideal because the wind dies down, the people go away, and the refugios are closing so everything is discounted (1000 peso box wine in the middle of nowhere! Woohoo! And you don't even have to carry it out!). If you're smooth, you can get free hot chocolate, and if you're super smooth like me, the cute gaucho guys will ask you to never go and leave them all alone at mosquito ridden, glacier lake surrounded, condor patrolled Refugio Dickson.
Nice socks
Shout out to Cecelia and Stephanie, my hiking crew who I met the day before we started and turned out to be the most ideal company imaginable.
