Pain(e) Grande

I am sitting on a lovely soft bed as I write this - and I never realised how wonderfully comfortable such a bed can be! After 8 days of sleeping on a thin foam mat on the sides of some rather rocky mountains, I have really come to appreciate the comforts of hostel life! :) But despite the hard ground, canned food and frequently wild weather - or perhaps because of all those things - we loved hiking in the Torres del Paine National Park.

We caught the bus out to the park on the 19th of Jan with our hired tent, lots of energy and our minds full of warnings about sudden changes in the weather, pumas and bushfires. The park welcomed us with brilliant blue skies and amazing views of the highlights as we arrived - the twin-coloured double peaks of the Cuernos, and the Torres themselves, huge towers of pale granite, making us itch to start our hike immediately.

The view of the three famous Torres upon our arrival

Our first sighting of the twin peaks of Los Cuernos (the Horns)

Here is a map of the park - the trail marked in red is what is called the 'W'-Trail (although some people who will remain un-named think it rather resembles a mis-shapen rear end.... :P ) Most people hike the 'W' from the east to the west (from the right to the left on the map), but we decided to start from the west, to try and avoid the crowds, and to leave the highlight of the Torres for the end. Additionally, because we had some extra time, we decided to hike not from the offical start of the 'W', but from the ranger station Seda Administrativa CONAF, adding an 18km 'Tail' and an extra day to our trip. So, after having been given an enticing glimpse of the spectacular mountain range, we then had to watch it recede into the distance as the bus took as out into the flat, grassy pampas in the park's south. We started our hike at just past 12 noon, and the first two hours were hot torture as we were baked by the midday sun (remember the ozone hole is right over Patagonia - we got sunburnt in all sorts of strange places), completely exposed in the middle of endless, mercilessly treeless grasslands. Where was the cold, wild, wet and windy weather we had been told to expect? And who on earth had secretly hidden a tonne of bricks in our backpacks?? Then, just when we were starting to wonder if we would ever see the mountain range again, we breasted a small hill and were rewarded by a view of an astonishingly blue lake underlining the reverse side of the Cuernos.

Brilliantly blue glacial Lake Pehoé and the Cuernos from the south

Glacial refrigeration

Here's to conquering the mountains!!

From there it was only another hour to our first campsite - Refugio Paine Grande - distracted by the view, the kilometers seemed to fly by and the bags felt 20 kilos lighter ;) We set up our ancient hired tent (it only cost us 6 Euro a day, and had seen many a hike in its time) in the midst of an ocean of multicoloured flapping nylon domes and sat watching the myriad of hobbling hikers with trepidation. Most of them had started the 'W' from the east, meaning Paine Grande marked the end of their hike, and the state of their feet and the exhausted look in their eyes did little to fill us with confidence.....But a couple of glasses of wine cooled in the glacial waters of lake Pehoé restored our confidence and we went to bed convinced that we would conquer the mountains MUCH more successfully than any of our fellow hikers ;)  

My personal sherpa walking up Grey Valley ;)

Compared to day one, our second day of hiking was a walk in the park - 11km up the Grey Valley, following the shoreline of Largo Grey, crossing several improvised, (and rather toe-curling) bridges, catching frequent glimpses of the massive wall of ice blocking the northern end of the narrow valley - Glaciar Grey. After setting up our tent in the sheltered campsite at Refugio Grey (our favourite campsite on the track), we spent most of the afternoon braving the battering winds on the peninsular in front of the glacier face, watching icebergs break off the wall, be slowly but surely shaped into beautiful sculptures by the wind, and float serenely past us - hypnotic.

Majestic iceberg ships sailing past

We also noticed a fascinating phenomenon - the glacier was reflecting so much sunlight back up into the sky that the slipstreams created by planes passing by were casting shadows on the clouds above them!! No wonder we found it difficult to look directly at the glaringly bright ice sheet!

Reverse shadows on the cloud

Lulled by the serenity of Grey Valley, we decided to have another quiet day on the third day, only walking the 11km back to Paine Grande and taking the time on the way to observe the flora and fauna of the park. Although on constant look out for a condor, Mic had to be satisfied with numerous smaller birds of prey, including a rufous-tailed hawk. On the fauna front, along with the omnipresent Chilean firebush (which we somehow forgot to take a picture of) we also spotted some beautiful foxgloves (Fingerhut). Unfortunately, due to some amazingly idiotic tourist's thoughtless actions, a large portion of the park suffered bad fire damage in 2011 - heartbreaking to see whole swathes of alpine forest decimated...many of the trees still seem to be bleeding.

Rufous-tailed hawk

Foxglove

A bleeding tree in the fire-damaged forest

Where the French Valley should be....

After three wonderfully sunny days, the park decided to take its revenge on the fourth day - the morning dawned grey, cold, windy and wet. We packed up our soaking tent and trudged off towards the start of the Valle del Francés with heavy hearts - the clouds were so low that we were sure we would not be able to climb up to the famous viewpoint at the head of the valley as planned. Our worst fears were confirmed when, upon arriving at the base of the valley in the pouring rain, it was to find the clouds obliterating any view whatsoever, and hikers who had attempted the climb hoping to break through the clouds and find sunny panoramas above reported hours of climbing in a foggy, wet soup. Dejected and very damp, we walked on to Refugio Los Cuernos, set up our still-soggy tent and settled in to wait out the weather. Meeting a group of hilarious homosexuals on a 'gay tour' of Patagonia (their words) and a couple of shared casks of wine cheered us up no end, and the next day we unzipped the tent to find that mother-nature had had a partial change of heart - the wind was howling, but the racing clouds were interspersed with patches of blue sky. We set of hopefully back toward the French Valley and were overjoyed to find that the glacial basin that had the day before been completely obliterated by clouds was once again visible.

There it is!!

We set of to climb up, up, up - our map said it would take 3 hours for the 6km, and not without reason - the track was not only steep, the terrain was also an ankle-twisting mixture of enormous boulders, sliding shale and slippery gravel. And the wind!! The wind was treacherous, roaring down through the narrow valley one minute, trying its hardest to push you back down the slope, then it was suddenly gone completely, leaving behind a echoing stillness which could last anything from 5 seconds to 15 minutes before the gale would return with a vengeance, hurling a gust at you from which ever direction you least expected. It made the hike twice as hard as it normally would have been, and at least 3 times as exhilarating :D

Upward, ever upward, where the wild winds held their way...

After finally winning the battle with the slope and the wind, we were rewarded by the amazing 360° view from mirador at the head of the valley. Flattening ourselves on top of a slab of rock, holding on tight and riding the wind, we took it all in - a ring of towering granite mountains, clouds flying, racing, being torn on the ragged peaks, making us feel tiny and exposed, but wildly alive and free at the same time.

Riding the wind on top of the world in the French Valley

The exhilaration carried us back down the mountain, lasting almost until we reached the valley floor....and then the exhaustion hit - our knees and ankles ached and our faces smarted from the wind and the sun. Our eyes were full of dust and our stomachs screamed for food. But we still had more than two and a half hours of walking ahead of us after finishing the descent to get back to Refugio Los Cuernos....the last 5 kilometers seemed like much further and when we finally arrived we felt like the mountain had almost conquered us. 26km and almost 10 hours of hiking were more than enough to make sure we didn't notice the hard ground through our sleeping mats that night :)

View from our tent on the 24th of January - sunrise on the Cuernos

The next morning the Cuernos greeted us in blazing sunshine once more, and we set off to complete the third and final arm of the 'W' - from Los Cuernos, along Largo Nordenskjöld (yes, we are still in Chile - Otto Nordenskjöld was a Swedish geologist who did some exploring in the area in 1890s) to the Valle Ascesino , then up the valley to Campamento Chileno - 15km in total, and with quite a climb up the valley - our legs were still feeling rubbery from the day before, and we were happy to arrive and set up our tent in Chileno - although the camping site took a little getting used to! The valley is so narrow that there is no space for flat tent sites, hence the inventive people from Fantástico Sur (the company that runs the refugio) has set  up dizzying tent platforms on stilts - meaning your tent is around 3m from the ground. This would not be too bad if the platforms were a decent size, but as they are tiny, getting in and out of your tent becomes a bit of a balancing act :P We decided to take it easy on the wine that night, just to be on the safe side ;)

Dizzying campsite in Chileno

The next morning we had a lazy start, sitting in the sun beside Rio Ascesino, drying our hand-washed socks and watching the 'day trippers' being carried up the valley on horseback (we admit we were feeling quite superior at this point, we couldn't help it). We made it up to Campamento Torres,  the last campsite on the 'W',  by lunchtime, set up our tent and then headed up to see the park's namesake - Las Torres. The path from the campamento up to the mirador is only about 3km long, but takes about an hour, as it goes almost straight up, the last kilometer over lose boulders and scree. But as people coming down kept telling us 'vale la pena' (it is worth it). The massive granite towers do honour their name and literally tower over you when you finally make it over the last pile of scree and enter the glacial bowl at their base. We sat on the edge of the glacial laguna and watched the afternoon light slowly turn the monoliths from pale grey to slate.

The towers everyone comes to see

 And it was while we were craning our necks to look up at the towers that Mic finally spotted what he had been watching for since we arrived in the park - an Andean condor!! It is the largest bird of prey in the world, with a wingspan of 3.2 m (beaten by the Albatross with 3.6 m - Mic is a fountain of bird knowledge). The one we spotted cruised around above the laguna for a while, then landed on top of a cliff to the left of the Torres aptly named Nido del Condor (the condor's nest).

We finally spotted him - the elusive condor

Now we really felt we had seen almost everything we had come to see in the park, only one thing was missing - the legendarily spectacular sunrise over the Torres. And so we were up again at 3.30am on the 8th and final day of our hike, once more walking up the steep track with our headlamps on, forming part of a chain of blinking lights carried by stumbling, sleepy early-starters determined not to miss this one last highlight. We got  to the top before five. snuggled up in our sleeping bags on a flat slab of rock and waited for the show to begin. And we were not disappointed....the sun worked its magic on the dark pillars, first tinging them ever so lightly with a soft coral pink, then setting them on fire with every shade of crimson you can imagine. 

Sunrise on the Torres - first just a touch of colour...

...and then an explosion. 

A fitting firework finalle to a wonderful week of walking - 8 days, 121km, countless wonderful views, and best of all - no twisted ankles, no missing skin, no hobbling and ZERO BLISTERS! We conquored the mountains!!! :D :D