3/15

At 7:30 this morning, we caught our bus to take us to the Torres del Paine National Park, about 1.5 hours from Puerto Natales. As soon as we got into the park, we were greeted with beautiful views.

The bus dropped us off at the catamaran terminal to take us across the lake to start our hike. Again, we were amazed by the views before we even started hiking!

We arrived to Refugio Paine Grande around 11:30, where we left some of our food for later in the trip and started the hike toward Refugio Grey. The weather was great! We had heard that the weather was mostly very rainy, very windy, and very cold, so we were expecting the worst for the whole time. Thankfully we only got brief bursts of winds, some clouds but only sprinkles in terms of rain.

Due to the good weather we got great views of the Glacier Grey on the hike, as well as some other lakes and mountains, then descended down to Refugio Grey, where we would be staying the night. There was a mirador (look-out) for the glacier close by which got us a little closer views.

There was also another trail from Refugio Grey which headed towards a mountain route which wasn’t on our itinerary. Cassie remembered hearing that it was worthwhile, but couldn’t really remember why, so we decided to head to the first hanging bridge and then head back to the Refugio. We got to the first hanging bridge and we were pretty amazed at the views.

On the other side of the bridge, we spoke with a couple that had been waiting for us to cross. They told us that if we thought this bridge was impressive, we absolutely needed to head up to the second hanging bridge and the lookout point that was just past it. We checked our watches to make sure we would have plenty of daylight, and then headed that way. We were so happy we did. The views were superb! (The same couple happened to be our roommates that night and we thanked them profusely for their recommendation).

After that, we headed back to the Refugio, cooked our dinner on our camping stove in the shared cooking area, then went to bed pretty early.

Total distance for today was about 13 miles.

3/16

Today was by far our easiest day. We got a little bit later of a start around 9:30 am, and we hiked the 7 miles back to Refugio Paine Grande. We arrived at 1 pm, settled in to our room, then cooked lunch and prepped our dinner so we wouldn’t have to later in the evening. We had a very relaxed afternoon reading by the fire and enjoying the views out the window.

Not much else today other than prep for the rest of our hike.

3/17

We had a long day ahead of us so packed up early and started out around 7:30am, just in time for the sunrise.

Weather was again very nice, but a little bit windier than the last couple days. We hiked around a couple lakes and over some streams to a campground called Italiano.

At Italiano, we dropped off our big packs and headed uphill toward Britanico Lookout. On the way, we stopped at a lookout point of the Frances Glacier, that was also very active with lots of calving and subsequent avalanches. This glacier was neat as it was on the side of a mountain/cliff so when the ice calved it didn’t fall into a lake but down the mountain side.

After some more hiking through beautiful forest…

we reached the Britanico lookout. There were huge mountains surrounding us 360 degrees of all dfferent colors and shapes. This was a beautiful place to sit down and have some lunch after a long morning of uphill trekking.

We continued to have great views of the valley we climbed up on the way down too.

After we picked up our bags at the bottom (campground Italiano), we had about 30 more minutes of hiking before we reached our housing for the night, called Domos Frances. We stayed in a little bubble. This one didn’t have an indoor kitchen, so we cooked our food for the night outside then again had an early night.

Total Distance: about 13 miles again

3/18

Overnight we woke up a couple times with a small fear that our domos would collapse due to the howling wind outside. It was still pretty intimidating when we finally woke up, but,  like one of our bunk mates said, “In patagonia the weather will either get better, get worse, or stay the same…”, so we bundled up and started our trekking for the day. Luckily the temperature wasn’t too bad outside, probably around 50 degrees farenheight. Our end point/destination for today was Refugio Chileno, where we would be staying for our last night on the trail. This would be are most difficult day as the majority of the trail would lead uphill, plus, our packs would stay on our backs the whole way. Fortunately to start out, we again enjoyed a beautiful sunrise, and, since we were descending at the start of the hike (ugh, don’t you love descending just to know you have to ascend all that (and more) all over again???), it continued for a while.

Our hike took us alongside a lake, and the wind was blowing so strong, the mist blown off the lake by the wind fell on us like a light rain. Somehow, we wandered off trail for a few minutes, then eventually found our way back. The wind continued strong throughout the day. We later saw at our Refugio that they were 60-90 km/hr (35-55 mph). It was enough to catch Cassie’s pack and knock her onto the ground a couple times. It definitely added another dimension to the hike we hadn’t experienced before.

The rest of the hike was uneventful except for the continued superstrong wind and some light rain towards the end. Soon after we reached the refugio, it started pouring down rain, and we were relieved that we had made good time. We spent some time relaxing by the fire and reading again. Tonight, we had dinner included in our stay, so we didn’t have to worry about preparing it (great news as very soon after we reached the refugio, it started pouring down rain in addition to teh freezing cold winds). They served us a chicken broth soup, a salad, pork chop, and a tiramisu type dessert. It was descent for the refugio’s location in the middle of the forest, where everything had to be brought up by horse.

Total distance today: 10.5 miles

3/19

This morning we woke up to get an early start (again) on the trail to the namesake of the national park, los Torres del Paine. We had a surprise as we headed up the trail- at first frost, then all out snow! The first couple miles were a pretty gradual incline followed by the last mile that was pretty much straight up (about 1200 feet of elevation gain in the last mile). We caught a couple of glances of the towers on the way up.

At the top, we were at first a little disappointed, because it seemed that the clouds had moved in and shrouded the towers, but after a short wait, the clouds parted and we saw the iconic view of the park. It was stunning. We had some hot beverages that we had brought from the refugio and marveled at what nature can do.

After taking in the views for a while, we headed down to Refugio Chileno again to grab our packs, then we hiked the rest of the way out. I know this sounds like a broken record, but still fantastic views!

Upon arriving at Hosteria Las Torres at the bottom, we took a van to the park entrance where we caught the bus back to town. We checked back in to the same hostel we had stayed at previously, then went out to dinner. We split a large parrillada for 2 to celebrate our accomplishment, and still had meat leftover! It was exactly what we wanted/needed after our long week of travel (Alejandro was particularly happy at the sight of food when it came out as you can imagine).

Total distance: 9.5 miles