As part of our time in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, we were given the option of doing the 4 day/ 3 night trek called "The W" (for the shape of the route). Of course I did it.
Early on 2/8 we set out for the ferry across Lago Pehoe to start the trek. The lake was that beautiful turquoise blue and the Cuernos del Paine were huge right across the lake. This was actually the picture I saw when I was 10- Lago Pehoe and los Cuernos del Paine and I took that picture on the ferry! YESSSS!!!! I was really happy. The ferry took us to our first camp at Refugio Paine Grande. It was sort of a cheater camp- you got off the ferry, walked 500 ft and set up your tent. No backpacking required for day 1. After setting up camp in the city of tents, I had a 13 mile day hike up to the Mirador Glaciar Grey (Glacier Grey overlook). The first 3 miles of the hike was actually really boring- and REALLY hot and windy! It was so windy sometimes it would completely stop me from walking. It was nice to have the hot sun though after such a cold trek in Ushuaia. After about 3.5 miles, I got my first glimpse of the glacier. It is huge! It´s one of those glaciers that is really wide and kinda flat, like a huge river flowing between rugged mountains with more glaciers on them. The glacier is a branch of the southern Patagonian Icefield, but one of the smaller ones (it didn´t look small to me!). It terminated at lago Grey, a huge milky mint green lake with icebergs in it! Sometimes when the light changed, the lake actually looked just flat white, it was so silty! After this first overlook, the trail slowly descended to the shore of the lake and rambled along through a dryish forest (with foxglove blooming!) to the overlook. At the overlook I was really close to the glacier, only a little strip of the lake separated me from the glacier! To my right was a little bay circled by massive granite peaks with some bright blue icebergs floating in the minty water. The glacier itself was so blue! Some of the crevasses almost looked navy! They were so dark! It was beautiful and well worth the hike. The return was pretty uneventful, although the wind had decreased dramatically.
I got up early enough on 2/9 to see the end of the bright peak sunrise hitting the top of los cuernos. This day I had about 5 miles to my next camp beside a raging glacial river and the towering Cerro Paine Grande. They hike was really easy with some nice rolling hills and great views of los cuernos. I also caught glimpses of a far away range across the bright blue Lago Skottsberg. When I arrived at camp, there was a couple packing up, so I decided to take their spot and chatted with them for a bit. The guy grew up in Bend. Ridiculous. Oh and also, there is a guy in our group whose daughter´s inlaws live in Bend. Ridiculous. Anywho, after setting up camp, I had a 6 mile day hike up Valle de Frances and back. The hike started along the Rio de Frances next to the massive Cerro Paine Grande and the sprawling Glaciar Frances. The glacier was constantly groaning and creaking and cracking and smashing and I saw a couple avalanches roar down upper chutes to the many waterfalls on the granite cliffs below. I even saw a condor soaring around the mountain´s summit. AWESOME! The hike climbed up the valley along the river and through lenga and coigüe forest with occasional glimpses of the ring of peaks at the end of the valley. The weather was amazing once again, which made the hike that much better. At the end of the trail I was rewarded with a stunning 360 degree panorama of the granite spires and massive walls of the Cordillera Paine and peaks with hanging glaciers and huge waterfalls and distant lakes and ranges back down valley. It was so beautiful that I stayed up there for 2 hours just staring and taking pictures.
Day 3 was my hardest and longest day so I got up really early again on the morning of 2/10. This morning was much more cloudy with the faraway ranges actually getting some rain and the top of Cerro Paine Grande obscured in cloud (though still the glacier was booming and breaking and cracking!). I hiked for awhile along Lago Nordenskjöld, eventually even walking on its perfectly pebbly shore with some great light for pictures back in the direction from where I came. Above me, I could see the granite walls of the cuernos again, here and there puntuated with thin waterfalls. As I continued east, a rainshadow effect became really obvious with the lowlands taking on the look of eastern Oregon! At lunch, a condor flew pretty close to me. Those birds are so big. They are amazing to see- like a small plane almost! As I turned north and headed up Valle Ascensio, the number of people increased exponentially- this was now the dayhike route to the moste famous overlook in all of Chile...the Mirador Las Torres. I arrived at the high camp in the valley in the early afternoon, set up camp and then headed up to the mirador. On the walk up, I saw the glaciated peaks at the end of the valley and the dry, brown, but still dramatically rugged mountains across the river from my camp. Gradually, I began to see the tops of the Torres del Paine and then all of the sudden there they were! There is a little turquiose lake with granite cliffs leading up to the Glaciar las Torres and then to the towers themselves. Three massive granite spires, their summits often in the clouds, were completely clear and cloud free for me! Again the weather amazed me. The granite cliffs just above the lake where streaked with dozens of waterfalls coming off the glacier. Eventually a pair of condors even came and cirlced around the towers. I was in heaven! I went to bed early in preparation for my hike to see the sunrise on the Torres in the morning.
On the morning of day 4 (2/11), I got up at 4:45 and with Ivan (one of the drivers) walked up to the overlook again. There were probably at least 50 people up there, but believe me, it didn´t take anything away from what was, by far, the most spectacular sunrise I have ever seen. We got up to the overlook in the dark just before 6, but if you squinted you could already see some reddish glow on the towers. When the sun finally hit them, it was beautiful pink and then pink with lavender clouds and then bright gold with lavender clouds and then bright gold with gold clouds and then the sun eventually went behind a cloud itself so we lost the light. These pictures, though, have probably made my trip. They look fake. The colors are incredible. It is so hard to describe, it was just the best sunrise I have ever seen! It was perfect colors and lighting and everything (and my new camera is amazing so that helped too!). I was so happy. After the sun went behind clouds, I wandered back to camp, slept a bit, then packed up and hiked out to where our group met to take a shuttle back to our campsite.
It was such an amazing trek! I am SOOOOO happy I did it! I did about 46 miles in 4 days though so I am thankful for the rest days I´ve had today and yesterday. Now we are in El Calafate, back in Argentina. We saw the Perito Mereno glacier today, which deserves an entry all its own which I will do later. Tomorrow we head to El Chalten to see the other classic mountain of Patagonia- Cerro Fitz Roy. Until next time- Chao. I love you all and hope all is well at home!
