Who goes where?: Torres del Paine

An early start from Puerto Natales (including a two mile quick march at double neck speed) and a series of buses got us to the Torres del Paine National Park in the deep south region of Patagonian Chile. It is located in the southern tiers of the Andes. This rugged Patagonian topography features mountains, lakes and glaciers and extends for nearly 600,000 acres. Our challenge was to hike some of the 'W' Circuit (so called because it mimicked the shape of this letter) east to west.

There was a great fire in 2012, allegedly started accidently by an Israeli tourist, which devastated tens of thousands of acres of the park. Therefore, new procedures now dictate that all visitors are asked to sign papers clarifying the rules to be respected within the park, particularly the ban on lighting fires within park territory and watch a safety briefing with the same messages.

We were mindful that the weather here was notoriously changeable and so had packed accordingly. One walking guide book to the area said "if you don't like the weather just wait an hour and it will change". The winds were cold, coming in from the south west and bad weather was on its way.

The Torres del Paine (Towers of the Blue Sky) are granitic rock formations like massive blades which loom over a glacial lake, high in the mountains. Climbing these formidable beasts of sheer rock 1000m high was not on our itinerary, so instead we choose to hike up for a closer look. This effectively meant trekking up to the top right side of the 'W'. We started our 12km ascent to the viewpoint for Torres del Paine about 11am. A grey fox dashed across the path ahead of us with lunch in its mouth. The path up was well worn and lumpy I.e. strewn with rough shaped boulders and stones. You had to watch your footing or else chance a twisted ankle. From vantage points the extent of the 2012 fire was visible across the park. The squat trees had been burn to the ground and the scrub was black. These slow growing beech trees will take hundreds of years to grow back. They have not evolved to survive fire as there is no lightning in this area of the Andes. The latter section of the walk followed the path of a damp river bed and we scrambled across a huge terminal moraine. Thankfully the weather remained sunny and clear.

On the drive from Puerto Natales to the Torres del Paine National Park

Partway up the towers a helpful tree lends a limb

Pack-hoses are used to restock the refugios and provide lifts to weary trekkers

Refugio Chileno can just be seen where the stream emerges from the forest

The Tores are shrouded in cloud under the Chilean flag

A tree uprooted by the fire Patagonian winds has become a stone balancing shrine on the trail to the towers

Glaciers sweep down from the towering peaks

We reached the mirador (viewpoint) at around 1000m of elevation in four hours. I stared at these gigantic granite monoliths which had been shaped by the forces of glacial ice. Looking back at the photos the enormity of these sawtooths seems a little lost, I guess it's because of the perspective, they really were spectacular. Chris had been dreaming of seeing these stunning 1000 plus metre high granite cliffs for over 20 years since reading Paul Pritchard’s book Deep Play describing his first ascent of El Caballo de Diablo on the Central tower. I don’t think he was disappointed!

The highest summit of the range is Cerro Paine Grande which is 2884m. This South Tower, on the left of the three looks smaller but it is actually further away. It was first climbed by Armando Aste. The Central Tower of Paine (about 2,460 m) was first climbed in 1963 by Chris Bonington and Don Whillans, and the North Tower of Paine (about 2,260 m) was first climbed by Guido Monzino.

The Central and North Towers peak over the huge moraine field. The large boulder at the top right of the field is house sized - can you see the brightly coloured walkers to the left of it?

Eh voila - at last! Roughly 1000m from the snows at their base to their pointy summits!

Sarah's new crown

Magazine shots!

The Central Tower

Each night we slept at a refugio, which is similar to a mountain hostel but more expensive! We took our own sleeping bags and slept in a dormitory in bunk beds. One night Chris found himself on the top bunk, only thing was it was three beds high. Talk about having the penthouse! We ate dinner at the refugios as they provide no cooking facilities. The food was ok considering how remote these refugios were. Provisions were brought to in by pack horses. Breakfast we had brought ourselves - some potato cakes and tinned fruit, it was surprisingly good. Lunch we had prepared into daily rations from a smorgasbord of snacks such as peanuts, crackers and cheese, some nice ham, cereal bars and apples.

Cruising back after a 20km long day with the moon now well up

Sunset over the Tores

And a star trail for good measure whilst the weather is nice!

On the second day we continued west on a shorter walk to Refugio Cuernos. Although the path posed no technical difficulties, a sudden change in the weather, gale force winds and torrential rain turned it into a far more difficult undertaking. It had snowed in the night and the snow line on the Paine Massif lay only 100m above us. The wind generated foot high waves on Lake Nordenskjold which charged across its surface like a cavalry of white horses. We traversed along the north shore of the lake and the wind-whipped spray added to the downpour. Even though we were well prepared and dressed in our waterproofs we arrived soggy. Our four hour trek took closer to five hours. If continued to rain hard all night.

Looks nice - bloody freezing!

Lazy people who can't walk on their own!

A calm Lake Nordenskjold

30 minutes later the wind picked up and the surf began

The spray from the lake was carried up onto the hillside for hundreds of metres

That night we learnt that the boat schedule - our way out at the end of the trek, was to change the next day as they were entering the low season. This messed up our plans and forced us to reconsider our route. So we started walking east as previously planned on day 3 with the aim of doing a day trek and returning to Refugio Cuernos. Upon reaching Camp Italiano we discovered that the valley and viewpoint overlooking the back of the Torres de Paine was closed due to high snow fall and avalanche risk. It was still raining and the weather reports said it would get worse, so we decided to cut our loses, walk the two hours back to Cuernos and then continue back to the start of our trek.

A dry spell during the third day

Snow left plastered to the steep face during the storm the previous night

After a very long day we relaxed and dried off in front of the log burner at Refugio Norte where we met a lovely Canadian called Jeff who we ended up bumping into quite a lot during the next week or so! Next day back to Puerto Natales for a well deserved beer with Jeff!

A spot of bird spotting whilst waiting for the bus included this woodpecker