Torres Del Paine - January 9th

Today we are really going into the wild.  Yesterday’s arrangements saw us booking a night in a refuge in Torres del Paine national park.  This is Chile’s most famous national park, a trekking mecca, although due to its remoteness only a few hundred thousand visit each year.  Unfortunately one of them recently lit a camp fire that burnt down more than half the park.  So only a small area is open to us.  Of the parks most famous route, the ‘W’, only about 40% is still open.  So instead of a 4 day trip, we are doing a 2 day trip (to be wholly truthful we probably wouldn’t have done the full trek anyway).

After our transfer to the park, which was almost two hours, and the usual messing about at the park entrance (although this was cheaper than in Argentina, and they do keep records of who goes in an out so they can find lost trekkers easier), we finally started trekking about 11:00.  Our first trek was up to our refuge, the refugio chilenas, which took a couple of hours.  As it was raining when we got there, we decided to check in and use the facilities to eat our packed lunch rather than having an outdoor picnic.  This was a good idea as we also offloaded some gear and by the time we were finished it was sunny again.

Then we started on our trek up to the highlight of the park (luckily not affected by the fire) the view of the Torres (towers) themselves.  This was a much harder trek, alongside a busy river, across many little tributaries joining into it, and finally up a very steep slope to a mirador (viewpoint) of the Torres.  However when we got there it was all worth it, because the view was amazing, especially because there was a lake in front of the towers that was fed by some waterfalls running directly off the glaciers underneath them.  It was awesome.

The strange thing about this famous hike is that there is a lot of backtracking, so our trip down was the same one as up.  It’s funny because you do get to see the same faces on the trek over and over.  We reward ourselves after 6 hours of trekking (about 15km, but almost 900m ascent and 500m back down) with a couple of beers at the refuge, and then what turns out to be a really good dinner, although for slightly more than we are used to paying.  The truth is that although this is a place where everything has to be brought in by horses (including our turkey for dinner) it is actually quite a comfortable place to stay, with hot showers and comfortable beds.  We are sharing a room of 8 with a Dutch couple, and a Swiss couple and their kids (6 and 10!), and we have a very nice chat with them and other guests before we retire to rest for tomorrow’s even longer hike.