The morning after our glacier hike, we hopped on another bus to Puerto Natales, which was to be our base from which to hike in Patagonia. The bus ride was again nice and easy, and took about 5 hours. We got dropped off at the bus terminal, and immediately started shopping around at the terminal for a bus to take us to Torres del Paine, the mountain range we were to hike. The woman at one station told us the only next bus left at 3pm, about an hour and a half later, and that her friend could quick drop us off at a hostel to store some things we wouldn't need, and we could haul butt to make the bus. Against my better judgment, we got into this stranger's car, and lucky enough, got out about 5 minutes later at an actual hostel, and not a back alley to be raped and pillaged. We quickly tried to repack our belongings, but after a few minutes realized we were a bit too crunched on time, and should really take the night to figure out our stuff...thank god, it would have been disastrous in the end had we left with no proper planning. We booked ourselves in for the night at Alojamiento y Buses Maria Jose, and were able to breath a bit.
First things first, we had to get Chilean money. We went out in search of an exchange place, got some cash, and walked around the town. It seemed like, for the most part, this town was very much geared toward trekkers. There were camping and hiking stores everywhere. We did some browsing looking for warmer clothing for Jared, without luck. Next we found a store to rent us warm sleeping bags, as ours are really just for warmer weather. Next, we found a couple groceries stores, and after a bit of back and forth between the two, got the cheapest options for food for the next four days; Jared stuck to tuna for his meals, bread, mayo, lots of trail mix, cookies, and gummy bears (and excellent choice), and I got tuna, ham, cheese, mayo, crackers, yogurt and 2 cereal bars, and trail mix. We obviously wanted to bring enough food for all the days, but not so much that carrying it on our backs would be a burden. After our major tasks we done, we headed back to the hostel to arrange our belongings, and eat. Jared bought spaghetti and sauce at the grocery store for dinner, and proceeded to cook AND EAT the ENTIRE 400g bag of pasta. I opted to go out for a quick sandwich and warm soup. That night, we showered and prepped the last few things for our hike.
I have to say, I have never camped before; I mean, we've slept in the tent, and had to live somewhat with the bare minimum at some points on this trip, but I had never done anything where I had to live and eat out of my bag in the wild. I was pretty nervous about this trek. Especially given that Jared was so gung-ho about it. We had been told that the hike is a 4-5 day endeavor, and he was pretty determined that he could squeeze the whole thing into 3 days. Also, you know when you're at the gym in a crappy T-shirt with holes and old sports shorts, and everyone around is in Nike, Adidas, and Lululemon, with their iPods and pedometers. That's what I felt like...the person with the 10 year old high school gym T-shirt. Everyone has such awesome sooped-up gear, and just really looked the part of hiker. I was in a bit over my head.
Never the less, the next morning, we had a bit of a late start, and had to haul over to the bus station to make our ride to the Torres del Paine National Park. The ride took about 2 hours, and dropped us off at the park entrance, where we had to pay a $36 entrance fee (tourism stuff is expensive when you continually do it day after day). We caught a ride about 10 minutes into the park to the first "refugio" stop. Unsure of exactly what to do, but following the crowd, we grabbed our backpacks and got off in the middle of a field surrounded by mountains. There was a small cabin, where we were directed out to the camping area, basically just a field. No idea where the trails were or where exactly to go, we set up our tent, put on our layers, and packed up a small bag with snacks, water, and more layers...I did at least; Jared left with his pockets full of trail mix and his water bottle in hand. We found the trail relatively easily, and started our first trek. As we ascended the face of one of the mountains, my shin splints started acting up, and just before hitting my breaking point...maybe 30 minutes into our first hike, I popped a hefty 800mg dose of Advil and prayed I wouldn't be able to feel anything from the waist-down in about 30 minutes. The Advil did the trick, and after a lunch of tuna, mayo, and crackers, we were back on our way. That first trek was a crazy mix of weather; at times we were stripped down to our thinnest layers, and minutes later it would start raining with strong winds, requiring us to stop and put on all our warming layers again. At one point, Jared actually took his pants of to remove his long-johns. We walked across the sides of mountains with landslides, hopped rock to rock across rivers, meandered through fields of boulders, and forests of dead trees, and trudged through calf-deep snow on that first day. The final point was a lookout at the top of the mountain. It opened up to an aquamarine lake (the pictures for some reason do not show the lake's true color well), overlooked by the pride-and-joy of the park, the Torres del Paine. According to Jared, who had done some research, the Torres were formed by both volcanic as well as glacial influences. The lookout was amazing, and after taking pictures, we sat awhile eating our trail mix and taking in the sight. Unfortunately, it was pretty frigid with bitterly cold winds up there, so we couldn't sit still for too long before getting uncomfortable. When we satisfied our senses, or just got too cold, we made out way back down the mountain side. By the time we got back to the level of our camp, we had hiked 8 hours, 19 kilometers, and ascended to 886 meters. Not bad for our first day, but we were pooped! And our feet killed! We threw off our shoes, and threw on our flip flops, despite the cold; had dinner, tuna for him, ham and cheese crackers for me, and got into bed at about 8pm for a surprisingly good sleep inside the tent.
The next morning, Jared woke me up by laying on top of me in his sleeping bag at about 7am, but by some miracle, I fell back asleep as he packed up all his stuff and ate his tuna and bread breakfast. He finally wretched me awake at about 9am, a bit later than we had wanted to start our day. After a quick yogurt breakfast for me, we packed up camp, packed our big backpacks and headed out for my most dreaded part of the trip. I preemptively took Advil again, which effectively kept my shins at bay for the morning. About 10 minutes in, we finally hit the start of the second day's trek, and I was already to finish. The walk, thankfully, had more even land; definitely with hills and valleys, but nothing like the climb from the day before. There were a lot more rivers to cross, with the rocks a bit difficult to nimbly hop across with the extra 40 pounds on our backs. Might I add, Jared was carrying our heavy tent, you wouldn't necessarily think a tent would be heavy, but ours was; so props to him. There were a lot more breaks that day, but thankfully, the weather was absolutely perfect. The sun was shining all day, and the sky was clear. We wore our lightest layers and still sweat through everything, but the cold breeze balanced out the heat well. Given all the streams, fresh water was a breeze, so we didn't have to worry about carrying extra water (thank God!). The views that day were spectacular. All day we walked along a beautiful light blue lake with snow capped mountains in the background; each step got more amazing than the last. We stopped for lunch, of tuna and ham and cheese, at a refugio, and to my disdain, still had to walk another 2 hours to our camp ground. By that point, my shoulders, back, and legs were actually, audibly, screaming at me with every step. A bit after the lunch though, we walked into a pebble beach on the lake. We decided to take a quick break and laid on the ground, listening to the pond lap against the stones, and taking a minute the really enjoy the magical scene surrounding us. Unfortunately, we couldn't just camp there all night, so we got up after a bit, and continued our march. Around 5pm, we finally arrived at the second campsite. We had wanted to continue, both to get a bit more distance under our belts along the W, and because this camp site was free. Granted, there were no "accommodations" like the other camp sites: showers, running water, a restaurant, in case you needed to buy anything, etc, but we didn't mind in the least. We had our tuna dinner, and that night was probably a record bedtime for Jared; I believe he got into bed at 6:40pm. We had walked a total of 16.5 km that day, entirely with our packs on, so needless to say, we needed out rest.
That night, sleep did not come as easily as it had to night before, but nevertheless, we got up about half past 7am, had our breakfast, me yogurt and a cereal bar, Jared his tuna and bread, and packed up a small bag for our first hike of the day. We were to complete the middle leg of the W, a 6 hour hike in total, and then pack up camp and walk another 2.5 hours to our last camp site. The morning started off fine, we ascended in between the two major mountain peaks. Maybe an hour or so into the hike, a light rain started up. Not so bad. Then the wind; much stronger than the day before, we actually swayed and occasionally had to grab onto the nearest tree or rock and wait out the gust before being able to continue. We saw a few other hikers at the beginning of the trek, but for the most part we were solo. Two hours in, the rain was really coming down, and the temperature was icy cold. We got to a campsite that was completely barren, save a small shelter, made of twigs layered on top of one another. It was just tall enough for us to crawl under, and we had a quick break from the walk and rain, and ate some trail mix. We expected to see some of the other trekkers come up from behind us, but no one ever appeared, and we realized that we were the only 2 idiots who had continued despite the weather. By this point, we were about 90% wet, but got up to finish off the the trek. About 10 minutes later, the wind and rain and cold had pounded us enough, and visibility was poor anyway, so we decided to turn back to camp. The way down was pretty miserable. We were completely soaked through and freezing at that point. FYI, jeans are a poor choice of pants for hiking...in the rain. After a bit though we stopped being able to feel our legs and feet, so that helped. When we got back to the camp site, everyone we had seen on the trail before was huddled under the small roofed area, giving us looks of pity and disapproval. "What were you thinking?", was plastered across everyone's face. A kind hearted trekker had taken our bags under the roof, and restaked our tent down after it had blown away. We took off our soaking, freezing clothes, put on dry clothes, and buried ourselves within our sleeping bags, trying to warm up. In the end, our body heat and the sleeping bags combined took several hours to warm us up, but eventually, we were not so miserable. Unfortunately, the rain an wind never let up, and out window to pack and head to the last leg of the W closed. We didn't mind too much though, as getting out of our sleeping bags was the last thing we wanted to do that day. We crossed out fingers, hoping the next days weather would be better, and hibernated.
The next morning was better; still quite chilly and windy, but not actively raining. We packed up and walked about 3 hours to our last camp site. The views weren't quite as spectacular that day; the fog and snow at the higher elevations restricted our view of ye mountains. The lakes weren't as blue as they had been, due to the rain, but the terrain was wonderful; except for one hill that was inappropriately steep to have to climb with our packs. The rest of the walk was a breeze; a few pit stops for breaks, and we reached the last campsite. A total of 7.6 km for that day. Originally, we had hoped to arrive the day before and complete the last leg of the W on the 4th morning of hiking, return to the last campsite and leave that early afternoon. Unfortunately, as we were sleeping-bag-bound the day before, we were unable to finish the last leg before our boat out. Granted, we could have spent the whole day hiking and go out the next day, but, if you haven't noticed, a running theme of this trip is our limitations on time, so instead, we opted to head out that day. Unbeknownst to us, we arrived perfectly on time. The catamaran leaving to take trekkers back to the entrance and buses was to leave 30 minutes after we got there, giving us just enough time for a quick lunch of...drum roll...tuna. The boat arrived and took us on a quick ride, dropping us off and a small cafe, where our bus was waiting to return us to Puerto Natales.
Hiking Patagonia was both a stunning as well as physically exhausting experience. In total, we hiked 49 kilometers, over 3 days, with awe inspiring views. Definitely as must for the avid hiker. We were not in the end able to complete the whole W, and I'm pretty sure it is near impossible to do the whole thing in 3 days, but I loved the experience, and can now say I have camped!
That evening, we showered and did some much needed sink laundry, rearranged and replaced out packs. Dinner that night was pasta from the grocery store, and the 4 extra cans of leftover tuna; not my finest culinary moment. After a bit of relaxing, we headed to bed, to leave the next morning
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