Patagonia! (Please pass the band-aids)

On March 12, my friend Ryan and I headed to Patagonia for a six-day trek in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine in the southern tip of Chile! We completed the "W," a famous route that brings hikers to a glacier, through a rocky valley, and to the Torres del Paine themselves. We flew down to Punta Arenas, then bussed to Puerto Natales where we took another bus into the park. This map shows all three locations, all down at the end of the world!

After entering the park, we took a ferry across Lago Pehoé:

From there we hiked to our first campsite near Glacier Grey. We had hail for our first ten minutes which made me laugh as people had warned me about the crazy weather in Patagonia. The wind there is unlike anything I've every experienced. I was blown fully over twice during the trek and had quite a few close calls, especially with my balance thrown off by my big backpack. Here's our first site of the glacier from a distance:

I was pretty excited:

Along the trail the first day we met an extraordinary man named Ian from New Zealand. He's sixty-nine years-old, has one fake hip, and maintained about the same pace as we did wearing Teva sandals. Sigh. We camped next to him at our first campsite and in chatting with him I discovered he'd lived in Maine for two years and went contra dancing every Saturday at the Wescustago Hall in North Yarmouth for those two years. Yimes!

Here's a view from the first campsite, complete with icebergs from the glacier:


Also along the trail on that first day I developed some fierce blisters on my heels. I thought my hiking boots were broken in enough, but I was sorely mistaken. Here's a shot of my heels a few days later:

The blisters made the trek painful, but when I look back on the trip, I think more about the incredible place and the incredible people I met than about how much my feet hurt. Which they certainly did.

On our second day we headed back to the refugio and campsite by the lake where we got off the ferry. Before we headed back, though, we took a quick hike to a viewpoint to get a better view of Glacier Grey:


We ended up staying our whole third day at the campsite by the lake because it was pouring when we woke up and a few people who headed out on the trail came back because the weather was so miserable. There's a quincho at this campsite, which is a little enclosed gazebo-style hut where campers can cook and hang out, so it was a lovely day playing games and socializing with other trekkers in a dry, relatively warm environment.

On the fourth day we headed to the French Valley which makes up the center prong of the "W." We didn't actually make it to the very top of this climb because it started hailing and was getting dark, but the views we did get were stunning:


On our fifth day, we headed toward the third prong of the "W," at the top of which sit the Torres themselves. This hike took us along Lake Nordenskjold with its other-worldly green water:


On the morning of our sixth day, we woke up at 5 a.m. to try to have the traditional sunrise-on-the-Torres experience. We opened the tent door to a snowy, cloudy day, but decided to make the forty-five minute climb to the base of the Torres anyway, just in case. We passed many disappointed hikers shielding themselves from sleet on the trail, but when we arrived, the clouds parted a bit and we were able to see this much of the Torres:


I was glad we hiked up, even if our view left a bit to be desired. It poured for the rest of the day so we were soaked by the time we hiked down to the refugio near the park entrance, but a wood stove, a cup of hot chocolate and switching to flip-flops healed all. That night, back in Puerto Natales, we returned to the amazing vegetarian restaurant we had found and shared a beautiful meal with a couple of people we had met on the trail. Climbing into a real bed that night, complete with a down comforter, will be among my highlights of 2009.

Overall, it felt wonderful to be back in a place where I was in awe of everything around me. I love Santiago and all its smoggy personality but a reminder of the epic possibilities of nature is always welcome. I also found myself feeling incredibly nostalgic for the camping days of my childhood. As soon as I heard our tent zipper for the first time, I felt this visceral yank into my memories and suddenly wanted to be sitting around a picnic table with my parents by the light of a lantern, drinking cocoa from my purple camping mug with its matching spoon and fork. The nostalgia travelled with me for the duration of the trip and I felt a strong sense of gratitude to my parents for providing the outdoor experiences they did when I was so young. Though the trip was not without its ups and downs, I feel extremely lucky to have had the experience.