Puerto Natales & Torres Del Paine

Into & Out Of the Wild 

Tuesday January 15, 2008

We've just returned to Puerto Natales, Chile (yes we've been here before) after 8 nights spent in Torres Del Paine National Park - without internet, of course. And both Puerto Natales and Parque Torres del Paine just happen to be back in Chile. 

One day after disembarking from the Antarctica cruise, Sunday Jan 6, we crammed all our stuff, including the extra person in the form of Geoff and his extra duffel bag and daypack, into the truck and drove for a little over 12 hours in order to get to Puerto Natales. On the very next day, Monday the 7th, a tour company guide showed up at our hotel around noon. After lunching in town with the guide, the tour company drove us and a few other tourists in a minibus north from the town of Puerto Natales into Parque Nacional Torres del Paine - a drive that took a little over 4 hours including a few sightseeing stops along the way. We left our truck parked in the hotel parking lot.

Much of the focus of our visit to the park was supposed to be a 4 day trek covering somewhere between 50 and 70 kilometers (I'm not really sure how far we ended up walking), but Lynn had come down with a very bad cold right at the end of the cruise, and was quite sick during the drive to Puerto Natales and the day that we drove into the park. There was no way she was going to be able to do that trek having a cold & fever. Wondering whether she would have a place to stay and be taken care of was almost as big of a concern as wondering how she'd be able to pass the time if the rest of us went ahead and trekked.  In the end, it seems to have worked out pretty well. The Eco-Camp lodge in the park took excellent care of Lynn and also took her on some short excursions (where she saw things the hikers didn't) while the rest of us were on the trail. Then after the other four of us completed the trek, we all spent the last 3 days in the park together, 2 of them at a different lodge where we took some nice day-hikes and relaxed. 

Anyway, here's the route for our long, boring drive from Ushuaia to Puerto Natales, Chile - completed safely and without incident on Sunday January 6. We crossed the Straight of Magellan on a ferry at the very narrow point between the "257" and "Y65" labels on the map.

And here's a map that shows just where this is in the country of Chile and on the South American Continent.

What is there to see and do in Torres del Paine (and why is there a park there)?  The primary feature and attraction of the park is a cluster of prominent mountains that are striking in their coloration and abrupt stature. Geologically separate from the Andes range, the formation of the mountains of Torres del Paine began 12 million years ago when a magma intrusion formed a 3000 meter high bulge in the earth's crust. The magma cooled and transformed into granite, and multiple glaciations over the eons of time scraped away much of the predominantly sedimentary rock surrounding the granite (leaving black sedimentary caps on top of some of the mountains). These glaciations created and left mountains in the place of the original magma intrusion. In the current geological era , these mountains stand massive and stark in the middle of a vast rolling plain. The surrounding grasslands are speckled with glacier formed lakes and the rivers that interconnect them and unload the constantly arriving glacier-melt downhill towards the sea. 

In Parque Torres del Paine, there are two main hiking routes - the circuit trek and the "W" trek. The circuit trek takes 6-8 days and completes a loop around the main mountains of the park. The "W," which we did, takes 4-5 days and runs from the east to the west (or vice-versa) along the southern face of the range. The "W" gets its name from the shape of the trails you walk when viewed on a map. Doing half the circuit hike would make a simple half-circle or "U," but on the "W" you spend one day hiking north up a valley, so this leg splits the middle and transforms the "U" into a "W."

The weather and trail conditions during our trek in the park included 50+ mile-per-hour winds (at least), snow, sideways rain, abruptly alternating bright sun and dark clouds, loose rubble, and slippery mud. We were extremely lucky to have it so good - seriously. Reading the guestbook notes in our base "Eco-Camp" made it clear that we had enjoyed a multiple day run of extremely good conditions. The winds weren't 80 mph, the mud wasn't up to our knees, and the rain and snow always came in small, tolerable doses. What we experienced is about as good as it gets this time of year for the trails we hiked. 

So now it's Tuesday the 15th of January, a week and a day after we left Puerto Natales and drove up into the park. This morning, the same tour company picked us up in the park and drove us back the to hotel in Puerto Natales where we could re-unite with our own truck and pass 24 hours or so doing fun stuff like repacking luggage and mailing some boxes of souvenirs and completed schoolwork to the USA before driving back to Argentina again tomorrow.  So we survived the "W" trek, Lynn survived (and got over) her cold, and we all had a great time.

This journal entry describes our drive into the park and the first day of the trek.

Puerto Natales - Torres Del Paine: 8 January 2008

This one covers the second and third day of the trek.

Torres Del Paine: 10 January 2008

This is about the last day of the trek and our "cool down" on the following day.

Torres Del Paine: 12 January 2008

And finally, we spend a couple of days at Hosteria Grey (on the west side of the park), and then drive back to Puerto Natales.

Torres Del Paine: 15 January 2008

Tomorrow it's back to Argentina (to a tourist town near another national park full of glaciers and mountains).  Fortunately, it's only a 4 hour drive. So they tell us.

-Rolf