The Mighty Towers

Double post time – hold onto your seats, there´s a lot to catch upon!

17th April to 30th April 2014. Puerto Natales and Torres del Paine, Chile; El Calafate and El Chalten, Argentina.

From Bariloche (Argentina) we took over a day of buses to get to Puerto Natales (Chile). This is in Patagonia, in the extreme south of the continent (equivalent to being about 800 km south of Invercargill, NZ). We spent a few nights gearing up for a part of the journey we had been looking forward to especially: hiking in Torres del Paine national park.

This hike is a very popular tourist attraction to the region. Essentially the national park is a maze of trails, campsites, refugios (huts) and fancy hotels. Most people walk what’s called the “W” trek, or opt for the longer, more rugged “O” trek. Due to the time of year – we finished hiking on the 23rd of April and the season ends on the 30th April for winter – we opted to do the smaller W trek; good thing too as the O happened to be closed anyway due to snowfall.

It is called the W trek because that is the shape that the trail makes in visiting the three main highlights of the trail. From east to west (the way we hiked it), these are the Torres del Paine, Valle del Frances and Glaciar Grey. Overall we took five days to complete the W, and Oliver, Esther and I were joined by a lovely German man, called Michael, from from Germany. For these days we enjoyed something that has probably never happened in Patagonia before: five days of no wind and no rain (the trek is famous for its ferocious winds and heavy rains usually holding up walking for a day or two)!

Day one was 8 hours return to the closest viewpoint of the Torres del Paine (“Towers of Paine”, where paine is an indigenous word for blue, presumably for the glaciers at its base). You can actually see these towers from all over the park, but this is the closest you can get. We were at 800 m, and the tallest tower was 2 km higher still! The geographic reason is that these are old magma tubes from when the area was volanically active. The magma cooled down to rock harder than the surroundings and erosion chipped in to do the rest. Definitely worth the dicey, icey ascent and descent!

 

 

Day two followed our coldest night in tents, and was a small, 4 hour day to get us in position for the next day. I braved the cold to view the sunrise on the towers from the safety of our campsite, and also saw a few foxes). The walk didn’t include any of the three highlights, but was beautiful none-the-less. The mountain in the background left is really big.

Day three was 7 hours up Valle del Frances (“French Valley”). This is a picture of Glaciar del Frances on Cerro Paine Grande which, at 3050 m, is the highest mountain in the park.

And this view back down the valley.

Day four was 9 hours up to see Glaciar Grey and back. We had to say goodbye to Michael first as his knee injury unfortunately meant an early departure.

The Grey Glaciar was spectular and seemed to carry onto the horizon.

Day five we got up before the sun and hiked out to where our bus picked us up. This is sunrise, and one of the reminders of the only rule in the park: no fires! In 2011 a hiker burnt their toilet paper, and it resulted in a fire which devasted 176 km squared of forest.

A very special five days, and we were so lucky with the weather! After a few days recuperation in Puerto Natales (including a day solely dedicated to eating cake and watching movies), we bused a few hours to El Calafate, Argentina, to visit the massive Perito Moreno glacier. The glacier is 250 km squared; 30 km long and has a calving face 5 km in width and 50 m high. The glacier is fed from the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, the largest ice field outside of Antarctica and Greenland. The southern extent of this ice field, some 60 km south from Perito Moreno is none other than Glaciar Grey in Torres del Paine! It is also one of the only glaciers in this warming world of ours that is still advancing. We spent five hours looking at pieces fall off it.

From El Calafate we went to El Calten, a tiny town with a somewhat unique reason for its existence; the Argentine government established the town as an outpost in anticipation of Chilean land claims. Hikers later discovered that it was in a prime position for exploring the surrounding mountains. Most of the hikes can be done within a day from your cosy hostel in town. One day we went up to the viewpoint of Mount Fitz Roy (or Cerro Chalten). Our luck was running out with Patagonia’s weather; literally as this photo was taken we were hit with frosty winds strong enough that it knocked me over.

We also walked to the base of Cerro Torre (“Tower Mountain”), a very imposing 3130 m spire of sheer granite. It is known as one of the most difficult mountains in the world to climb – it was not conquered until 1974, well after all of the Himalayas 8000 m peaks had been scaled. However, you’re going to have to google photos of this mountain (I suggest you do), because it was too cloudy for us to see it at all! The walk wasn’t a waste with lots of other beautiful scenery and woodpeckers.

That’s all from the deep south. From here we’re using buses to take us 3000 km north to explore Salta and San Pedro de Atacama before entering Bolivia.