The Road Goes Ever On

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Day 1 On The W: To Refugio Chilno

One can hike the W west to east or east to west. Most common, it seems, is the former. Last year, Chile began a reservation system whereby one cannot undertake multi-day treks without reservations at either hotel, refuges, or campgrounds. We might have preferred the west to east option (but, in retrospect, not), but we simply couldn't get reservations and had to go with the east to west option. As it happened, we would not have seen the Torres had we done the west to east, since the weather closed down the last couple days we were in the park. Vicki wanted to maximize our chances of seeing the Torres, so she scheduled us for three nights in the area, at the beginning of the trek, one at Refugio Chileno and the second and third at Camping Torres, down in the valley. It worked out quite well.

On the bus ride from Puerto Natales, scanning the horizon for towers...

The Torres in sight...but not very encouraging weather

A herd of guanaco on the way

The line for buying the admission ticket into the park, declaring your intentions,
watching the dos and don'ts video

And so we hoist our packs and begin the march up to Refugio Chileno

The view still not encouraging (you can see the summits of the Torres from the
valley at the east end)

Signage in the park, though battered by the elements, was generally fine

A bit of the trail

Rio Torres

Weather improving a bit as we marched

And so we arrived at the Refugio Chileno (someone else's photo); enjoyable place;
best food we saw on the trip

Our "suite" was pretty much like this; we arrived early enough to claim 1st and
2nd level bunks; our room had a 4th level bunk, perhaps 10 feet off the ground,
originally assigned to a late-arriving codger like me; a gallant young Chilean
lass gave him her lower level bunk

So You Have Chosen The Way of Paine

We are back off the W, out of Patagonia, in a hotel in warm, dry Santiago, pleased with having done the thing, a few pounds lighter, a few considerations wiser, and, with 500-600 pix to sort through, edit, etc., way behind on the blog again.

We have done several multi-day treks...Mont Blanc, Everest, Routeburn, Milford, Kepler, Abel Tasman...but had never heard of the W until the daughter and her husband of college friends Ken and Susan did it last year. Vicki, the trekker among us, was smitten, and I certainly knew of the Torres del Paine, one of the world's great alpine scenes. So we hauled all of our backapacka gear with us to South America and did the W in a leisurely 7 days and 6 nights. We enjoyed fair weather most of the days we hiked, chilly (!), but dry and with little of the legendary Patagonian wind. It rained two of our nights in the national park and then throughout our final day's hike-out to the catamaran and bus back to Puerto Natales. Very lucky. There is much literature in print and on the web about the W, but perhaps the best source of information is the daily 90 minute talk given at Erratic Rock (a hostel/cafe/gear rental shop in Puerto Natales). The young German woman who does this is excellent on all aspects of the trek, transportation, weather, gear, food, the reservations system, etc. And very entertaining too.

It's called the W because of the trail's shape; alas, it's not a loop,
and there is much back-tracking

At the Torres del Paine mirador

What if John Goodman had played Saruman?

Thursday, February 9, 2017

Entering A World Of Paine

The blog will be suspended for a week or so now as Vicki and I hike the "W" in the Torres del Paine national park in Chile.

Return To Chile

So on Tuesday, February 7th, we took the bus from El Calafate, Argentina, to Puerto Natales, Chile. Normally it's a 5 hour trip, including checking out of Argentine immigration/customs and checking in through Chilean immigration/customs/agriculture. The border stations were crowded and thus took a bit more time, but we finally made it to Puerto Natales and our next hostel there, Nikos II Adventure. The terrain between the two Patagonia towns is the same wasteland as much of the rest of Patagonia, with occasional glimpses of snow-capped mountains and huge lakes. Puerto Natales is on the Ultima Esperanza Sound ("last hope"), which--I gather, but have not been convinced--communicates with the Oceano Pacifico. Southern Chile has got to be the wildest collection of fiords and islands and lakes on the planet.

Part of the queue at the Chilean border

In our case, Fido was let loose in the luggage compartment
to sniff for drugs; hand-carried luggage was put through an x-ray
machine

Our new home, for 3 nights

Just a block or so from the Ultima Esperanza or whatever this
large body of water is

Big mountains north

In El Calafate, I thought the occasional corrugated aluminum
was an architectural statement; here, it is the norm, retail,
residential, whatever; the norm