We arrived in Puerto Natales after a 6 hour bus journey from El Calafate, of which 3 hours were spent at the border going through first the Argentine and then the Chilean customs (and sweating about the food in our bags). Puerto Natales was nowhere as well groomed as the previous places we had visited in Argentina, mostly being made out of wood and corrugated iron, but actually having much more character.
We were greeted off the bus by the usual room touts though, and went with a guy called Ivan (there is apparently a strong Czech link here) to his house where he and his brother Juan let a couple of rooms. We spent two days here, humming and ha-ing over whether to do the shorter 5 day "W" route which just took in the main attactions on one side of the Torres, or the (minimum) 8 day "El Circuito" route which went the whole way around the towers on less travelled paths, taking in the "W" at the end. The longer route involved an ascent of about 1000m over two days, then a rapid and slippery descent above Glacier Grey with apparently spectacular views of the glacier, which was missed out by the "W".
While cooking dinner we met a couple who had just returned from "El Circuito" and were about to continue their 3000km cycle for charity along the Andes Mountains. They cajoled and encouraged enough for Alison to decide we would have a go at the longer route. We then made our final arrangements and booked our bus tickets to the park. We were rapidly discovering that although camping in Argentine Fitzroy was a good way to save money (the park was run as freely available for everyone), Chilean Torres del Paine was a money making machine for anybody who could charge us for anything.
Upon arrival, we paid our 15,000 pesos each to enter the park, and set off on the first leg, accompanied by a girl we had met in the hostel called Suzi. Suzi was apparently a bionic woman, as she set off at a rapid pace which was a bit of a shock to the system after our leisurly strolls around Fitzroy. We made the first camp of Serron in about 4 hours and 20km to find it closed, which meant no showers were available, but at least we wouldn´t have to pay to camp! Alison made short work of introducing herself to all of the other people at the campsite as they arrived, while I got on with making dinner.
I should spend a minute introducing our trekking gang, as we spent the next couple of days camping at the same places, and got to know some of these people pretty well. Firstly, Jim and Dona were an almost retired couple from Seattle who were working their way around the "23 Greatest Treks in the World" after buying a book of the same title, Suzi was a German (with a sense of humour!) who we met at our hostel, Maro was a super fast German who liked to talk about outdoor gear even more than me, James from Guernsey tried to keep up with Suzi but struggled, Herman the tranquilo (aka chilled out) Chilean who was on his holidays and then there was anopther German couple who kept mostly to themselves.
We spent that first evening getting to know everyone and their reasons for being here and cursing the horrible mosquitos! Was really nice and we went to our sleeping bags looking forward to the next day. Suzi and James had left the site the next morning before the rest of us were even out of our sleeping bags, as they had both said that they wanted to skip the next campsite in one really long day. The rest of us agreed with Herman who said "I am on my holidays, muy tranquilo!" So Alison and I got up to another glorious and sunny day and had our breakfast of porridge (the best trekking breakfast there is!) and set off on our second day.
This involved a steep climb of a couple of hundred meters after about half an hour, and then the track looped around a wide open plain which reminded me of the African savannah, except that it was ringed by mountains. However, we didn´t have many large wild animals to worry about, except the shy Puma. We had been advised to hold our rucksacks over our heads if we came across a Puma so that we looked much larger than it, I thought this may be difficult if I was running at full speed in the opposite direction!
The landscape looked untouched, other than the path we were walking on, and after the initial ascent the trail gradually dropped and went in and out af some lovely little stream valleys surrounded covered with Southern Birch trees. We passed a few groups of people coming the other way (including one weird bloke who walked down the slope backwards?!) as well as passing and being passed by some of the people we had been camping with as we all took many breaks to absorb the lovely scenery. We all exchanged plesantries and were having a wonderful day.
The day´s walk ended by climbing an ancient morraine covered by trees and bushes, to over look Refugio Dickson which was our next campsite. This looked fantastic with a grassy area by the river with a few log cabins on it, backed by Lago Dickson with Glaciar Dickson spilling into it right in the background. We descended down a really steep hill to the campsite which was still open, and waited for the rest of the walkers to join us. We were a little disappointed to learn that although the refugio and shop was open, they had run out of both beer and wine as it was nearing the end of the season. I was discovering that Jim had as much of a liking for the odd drop as your average student does. We were, however, able to get a nice hot shower which was much appreciated after two days of trekking.
Next morning we were getting into the routine of trekking, and we started to ascend towards John Garner Pass, which we would reach the next day, going up 400m on the first day, and a further 700m the next. The route started really steeply and we were soon out of breath. We had gone up about 150m and stopped to admire the view of the refugio and glaciar behaind us, when we saw Mauro charging up the hill at a rate of knots. We were getting used to seeing this now as the guy seemed walk as if he had a rocket strapped to his back. We exchanged plesantries and then watched him disappear in the distance, knowing we wouldn´t see him again until the next camp.
The route then levelled off a bit and took a really nice winding path through a deciduous forest, with lots of waterfalls and rickety wooden bridges. It was nice when we emerged from the forest to see a glaciar which we knew was hanging above the next refugio which was called Perros. The only problem was we knew we had another 200m to climb before we would get to it. A couple of hours later we arrived at the camptise to find that this refugio had also closed, but there was a shelter of sorts made out of logs and plastic sheets, along with a 44 gallon drum with a chimney in which we were able to light a fire. We were also greeted by Mauro who had made a nice cup of tea for us, as it was getting colder as we went up, as well as a little bit wet. This was much appreciated and we all dried out our socks and made dinner in the shelter, and lamented the fact that we had no spirits to share!
The fourth day of trekking involved our going over the high point of the route, which was at about 1250m high and well above the treeline. Our guide book had mentioned that the weather can be bad on the pass as it is a low point in the mountain range which can channel high winds of the roaring 40’s though it. We woke to rain and quite a lot of wind through the campsite, even though it was well sheltered by trees. Everyone decided they were going to go for the pass, so after breakfast we packed and donned out rucksacks, crossing which you could call a “bridge”, but was more a log across a raging river with a rope at eye height to hold on to. We immediately started ascending through the trees and soon came to a really horrible boggy patch which I could only describe as similar to a mangrove swamp. It was really frustrating trying to force our was through this, and we were soon muddy from the waist down with half the swamp in our boots (this is where Alison performed many acrobatic trips and falls). Not to be deterred, after an hour or so we crossed the river again on another “bridge” and emerged above the treeline to get our first view of the pass.
However, the wind was also much more noticable now, and we could see Jim and Dona slowly working their way towards the pass above us. The route was marked by cairns and ws really rocky, but it would have been fine apart from the wind. Every now and then it would gust so that you could do nothing but stand where you were until it passed. I shouted to Alison to keep going whenever you could, stuck my head down and tried to force my way up the slope. After about 1 ½ hours of this, we were slowly gaining the pass, but Alison was really struggling to keep her footing in the wind. We had nearly caught Jim and Dona, and Mauro was approaching from behind us, when a huge gust of wind picked Alison off her feet so I had to catch her and hold her down on the ground. The higher we got the worse the wind was, and we were also looking at a very steep descent on the other side once we crested the pass.
Mauro caught us and confirmed that we were 350m below the pass with his altimeter, and seeing that Jim and Dona were making virtually no progress above us, we decided to turn around as we were no longer having fun. The only problem was that we had to slog our way back through the swamp for a good hour and a half (we later discovered Jim and Dona found a different and easier way on the other side of the river).
However, when we arrived we at least knew there was a shelter we could use and made full use of this to get changed as soon as we arrived. However, all the remaining firewood was wet and for a good while we thought that we were not going to be able to light the fire, until I poured a whole heap of stove fuel on the wood before I tried to light it (dangerous I know, but very necessary at the time).
