Torres del Paine Backpacking Trip Part II

May 29, 2024July 11, 2024 / Maria / 3 Comments

Despite a long first day of hiking (see Part I), I was determined to visit the suspension bridges and glacier viewpoint north of Refugio Grey. This part of the trail is known as John Gardner Pass and has a reputation as the hardest part of the O-Trek. On the O-trek, hikers come from the opposite direction and have a steep hike over the pass before crossing 3 suspension bridges along the glacier on the descent to Refugio Grey. For those doing the W-trek, it’s common to hike up to either the viewpoint after the second bridge, or all the way to the third bridge. The third bridge was too far for me with my late start, but I was pretty confident I could get to the viewpoint.

I started my hike at 6pm and was making really good time until I got to a mirador just before the first suspension bridge. What I didn’t know is that the Park recommends anyone doing the day hike to start no later than 3pm. I don’t think it’s a hard rule, but it is a good idea from a safety perspective. I ran into a ranger at the mirador and while he was really friendly, he advised me against going to the viewpoint and recommended the first bridge instead. I reassured him I had a “turn-around time” and if I didn’t make it by then, I would come back to avoid hiking in the dark (even though I was prepared and could have hiked in the dark).

He didn’t stop me and I continued up to the first suspension bridge, but the interaction really made me doubt myself. I’d been so confident I had enough time to get to the viewpoint, and now I was second guessing my ability. I know there’s a lot of inexperienced hikers in the park, so these recommendations make sense, but I also have a good self-awareness and I think that because I’m pretty risk adverse, I make good choices.

I decided I had to at least cross the first bridge. It has a big ladder to get up to the top of the bridge and it’s quite intimidating! I held on tight to the rope handles as I crossed to the other side. There were some other hikers returning from their day hike, so I stopped to talk with one guy and told him about my interaction with the ranger. He reassured me that the view was definitely worth it and encouraged me to keep going. Apparently that was all I needed and I quickly took off again, setting my doubts aside.

I’m really glad I did. My initial instincts had been right and I made it to the viewpoint with enough time to hang out for a bit and still get back to the refugio before dark. This was a case where the Ranger definitely had good intentions, but I was the person who knew my abilities best. I don’t like to break rules in the backcountry (and I definitely don’t advocate for it), but I later confirmed that they are recommendations rather than rules. Technically, everyone who hikes up to the Towers for sunrise is breaking the rules, and that is literally hundreds of people.

It took me an hour and 10 minutes to hike 4km up to the viewpoint. It’s uphill the entire way (~300m in elevation gain), so it was definitely a workout and I did it at a very quick pace. I saw another small group of people just before the second suspension bridge, but I didn’t see anyone for the rest of the evening after that. The viewpoint is located 5 minutes past the second bridge and has a beautiful view of the glacier. What made it even more special was that I had it entirely to myself! I hung out for ~20 minutes and took some selfies before starting my hike back down.

It was a lot faster on the way back, but I tried to pace myself because I was completely alone on the trail and didn’t want to get injured. It took me a little under an hour to get back and I arrived at the refugio shortly before 8:30pm. In total, I hiked 19km on day 1, so it made for a long day and I still hadn’t eaten supper!

We ate quickly and got ready for bed, realizing how woefully unprepared we were for the refugios. I’m so used to camping that I forgot we would have electricity and didn’t bring anything to plug my phone into the outlet (just a power bank). Nor did I think to bring shampoo for the shower, because I honestly forgot it was an option. But I still greatly enjoyed a hot shower on my first night before falling asleep.

There were a lot of people doing the same itinerary as us on the W-trek, but most of them do the hike to the suspension bridges on their second morning. The reason I had to cram this hike into my first day was because we had booked a kayaking tour for day 2 instead. It was quite windy, so I was convinced the kayak tour would be cancelled, but to my great surprise, it was scheduled as planned!

It’s always windy in Torres del Paine, so it takes a fair bit of wind for them to cancel the tours. Because of this, I was worried that the tour company, Bigfoot Patagonia, didn’t have a very good safety culture. I’m happy to report that is far from the truth! They pre-emptively cancelled the afternoon tour and both tours the following day because it was forecasting high winds, but our morning tour was what they consider “borderline”, so they decided to run it. For additional safety, they increased their guide-to-tourist ratio from 1 guide per 2 kayaks to 1 guide per kayak, meaning we had a dedicated tour guide for just me and Seth.

It was almost 40km/h winds, which I would never even consider going out in in Canada, but our guide was fantastic! Me and Seth were in a large double boat, so it was very stable. I doubt I’ll ever get to kayak in such windy conditions again, so we embraced it and had a lot of fun. Our guide is Chilean, but in Patagonia’s offseason, he does kayak guiding on Vancouver Island, so he was excited to learn we lived in Vancouver and we had a lot of fun talking about different trips!

The tour leaves from Bigfoot Patagonia’s base at Playa Grey and you kayak around the headland to the ice garden, which is a little bay where ice from the glacier gets caught. We paddled around the garden and along the shore to some waterfalls draining down the mountain. You can’t go too close to the glacier for safety reasons, but the wind briefly died down for ~10 minutes and we took the opportunity to paddle into the channel for a fantastic view of the glacier. The calm didn’t last long, but we got an excellent tailwind on the way back to base. If you ever get the chance, I would highly recommend this tour. We debated between Glacier Grey and Perito Moreno for our kayaking adventure, but I’m glad we picked Grey. The balconies at Perito Moreno are so close to the glacier already that kayaking seemed unnecessary.

We finished our tour just before lunch and decided to eat at the refugio. It absolutely poured while we were cooking, so the second it stopped, we hit the trail to cover as much distance as possible before the rain re-started. Seth was still popping pepto-bismal, but overall feeling a lot better than the previous day. We only had to hike 11km back to Paine Grande, so we knew exactly what was ahead of us.

We were much faster on Day 2 and made it all the way to the mirador, which is the halfway point, before the rain returned. Pretty much the entire hike is exposed, but there are small treed sections, so we took a break in the forest when it started drizzling. It rained on and off through the rest of the afternoon, but it never heavy enough to really get wet. We ended up doing the full hike in just over 4 hours, so we were about an hour faster than the previous day, arriving at Refugio Paine Grande around 4pm.

Because Paine Grande is one of the main arrival/departure points for hikers, it’s one of the flagship refugios. It’s an absolutely gorgeous building since its location next to Lago Pehoe makes it easier to transport supplies. The other refugios are much more remote, and as a result, the structures and facilities are more rudimentary. Refugio Paine Grande has modern architecture and huge windows looking towards the lake and the horns.

We didn’t really get to know the other campers in our room at Grey since I spent such limited time in the room. Two of our bunkmates at Paine Grande were from Hong Kong and halfway through their O-trek, while the other two were solo American and Canadian hikers who were doing the W-trek in the opposite direction. I got some good tips from them for our hike to Mirador Britannico the following day.

We took it easy for the rest of the day and enjoyed the views before making supper. I mentioned in my last post that there are very strict rules about where you are allowed to cook in the park, and this was probably one of the most annoying challenges. What’s really unique about Torres del Paine is that, you don’t actually have to bring food with you. If you really want to pack light, you can pre-order your meals at every refugio and get a “packed lunch” to go. A lot of the people staying at the refugio opted to eat all their meals in the dining hall, as well as some campers, but it is very expensive ($100 per day, per person).

What I found annoying is that the refugio’s only cater to people paying for meals. The cost was one reason why we opted to bring our own food, but it was also because I love dehydrating and prefer to eat comfort food in the backcountry. But if you want to cook your own food, your only option is to use the campground shelter. It’s not the end of the world, but some of the shelters were very crowded and cold. It was also really good that we brought all cold-soak lunches, because there’s no cooking allowed outside the shelters (because of the fire risk), so you can’t heat or cook food for lunch unless you’re at a campground. Regardless, it was our last night staying in a refugio, so we took advantage of the hot showers and got a good night’s rest! Check back for Part III.

Torres del Paine Backpacking Trip Part I

May 22, 2024July 11, 2024 / Maria / 3 Comments

Torres del Paine National Park was the inspiration for our entire trip to Patagonia. I’m not sure when I first learned about this park, but it’s been on my bucket list for at least 5 years. There are 2 popular treks in the park: The W-trek and the O-trek. The O-trek is a loop trail that encircles the entire park, taking 8-10 days to complete. The W-trek is the southern half of the O-trek, taking 4-5 days to complete and generally done as a thru-hike.

I would have loved to do the O-trek, but we picked the W-trek for many reasons and I think it was the right choice for us. Seth is willing to backpack, but he definitely doesn’t love it the way I do, so the shorter hike was a good compromise. It freed up more time in our itinerary to visit El Chalten and Ushuaia, which we wouldn’t have been able to do if we’d spent 10 days of the trip in Torres del Paine alone. It was a much more well-rounded trip and I felt really satisfied with our choice when we finished the trek.

But let’s start at the beginning! Our bus left Puerto Natales at 7am, so it was an early rise for us to walk to the bus depot. It’s a 2-hour drive to the Torres del Paine park entrance, where the bus stops for everyone to get their National Park Pass. If you’re doing the O-trek or just visiting for the day, you would start your adventure here. But we were starting our trek at the opposite end of the park, so we still had another 45-minute bus ride, followed by an hour long catamaran journey across Lago Pehoe to Paine Grande.

What’s interesting about Torres del Paine, is that you don’t actually have to do any camping if you don’t want to. Unlike the Sendero al Fitz Roy, Chile has sunk a lot of money and resources into developing the park into a tourist destination. The park is much more developed, but it’s also a lot better protected. You have to obtain a park pass to enter the park and get camping reservations to stay there overnight. There are rangers patrolling the park and they have very strict rules about going off trail. There are absolutely no fires or smoking permitted anywhere in the park, and all cooking must be done in the designated shelters.

There is a mixture of campgrounds and refugios spread throughout the park. The refugios are basically hostels, with shared bedrooms, washrooms, and a huge dining room. They are more expensive than your average hostel, but they’re very popular because they eliminate the need for a tent. We decided to avail of the refugios where possible and ended up booking rooms for our first two nights on the trail, followed by campsites for the last nights. However, to eliminate the need to bring our tent, we paid extra for pre-set tents and sleeping pads at our campsites. We still had to bring our sleeping bags, but we were able to lighten our packs by leaving our tent and thermarests at home.

Our trek started from Paine Grande, but our final destination was Refugio Grey at Grey Glacier, which is 11km away. As far as the terrain goes, it was a pretty easy day of hiking and in normal circumstances, I think it would have taken us less than 4 hours. Unfortunately, as I alluded to in my previous post, Seth got hit with a bout of traveler’s sickness from the ceviche he ate the night before, and it hit him on the catamaran to the trailhead. He spent most of the boat ride in the bathroom, followed by a visit to the refugio toilets, so we were some of the last people to start hiking for the day.

Fortunately, he wasn’t totally incapacitated and did start to feel better as it left his system, but it definitely resulted in a slow pace on day 1. Even so, Torres del Paine National Park is immediately a very striking place. There are several famous features in the park, one of which is known as “the horns”. It’s a set of sharp granite peaks on Cuernos del Paine mountain that can be seen throughout most of the park. We got our first glimpse of them on the catamaran, and there’s an incredible view from Paine Grande. The weather was fairly moody when we arrived, with dark clouds hanging over the horns, but it never rained and I thought it made for pretty scenic photos.

The trail to Grey Glacier starts with a gentle hike up through a small canyon, around the west side of Cerro Paine Grande. It’s a steady uphill, but not overly challenging. I decided to set Laguna los Patos as our first milestone; it’s only 3km away, but it felt like it took forever! In reality, it was only 90 minutes, but poor Seth was really struggling. We stopped for lunch when we finally arrived at the lake, but it wasn’t super restful because we got our first introduction to the infamous Patagonian wind!

Torres del Paine is super well known for its blustery conditions and it didn’t disappoint on our first 3 days. It was moderate wind on the first day, but it was forecasted to get much worse on the following two days (and it did). After our lunch break, we continued on, setting Mirador Lago Grey as our second milestone. It’s located just past the halfway mark and is the highest point on the trail for the first day. It has an incredible view of Lago Grey and the glacier, but it’s a steady uphill the whole way there, so our slow pace continued.

Fortunately, it was downhill after the mirador and our pace improved, but overall, it was a rough first day and I admit that I resented Seth a little. We arrived at the refugio shortly after 5pm, after 5+ hours of hiking, so you might be wondering what was the rush? The rush for me was that after Refugio Grey, there is a day hike to a series of suspensions bridges with a viewpoint, and I really wanted to do them. We were scheduled to go kayaking the following morning, and with rain in the forecast for later, I really wanted to hike to the viewpoint on Day 1.

So I was silently cursed Seth for most of the afternoon because I’d been dreaming of this hike for so many years and I was determined to see every highlight. I’ve had several of my big hikes interrupted over the past few years due to other people or circumstances outside of my control. But all of those hikes were in British Columbia and easy to come back for in the future. I felt like I only had this one shot at Torres del Paine. I think I was pretty supportive earlier in the day, but the more the clock counted down the remaining daylight hours, the more impatient I got. I’m sure it was very annoying.

Fortunately, my resentment dissipated with our arrival at the refugio and it didn’t return for the rest of the trip. The refugio is very cool! Each one is different and Refugio Grey is basically a big log cabin, with toasty woodstoves to dry your clothes. The rooms vary in size, but ours had 2 bunkbeds, sleeping 4 people. It says online that you have to bring your own sleeping bag (which is the case at other refugios), but this one actually provided bedding, so it felt like a proper hotel. I really liked it and Seth was stoked to have access to flush toilets and a place to lie down.

I quickly re-arranged my pack and decided to make a go at hiking to the suspension bridges and viewpoint alone. I did hiking math on the trail and determined that, as long as I started the day hike by 6pm, I could make it back to the refugio before the 9pm sunset. Just in case, I took all my essentials, including my headlamp and inreach. Seth knew where I was going and we agreed on a set time to raise the alarm if I didn’t return. Check back next week to learn if I was successful or not in Part II!

From Argentina to Chile

May 15, 2024July 11, 2024 / Maria / Leave a comment

We returned to El Calafate after an epic 3 days hiking the Sendero al Fitz Roy in El Chalten. We only had a two-day break before starting our second major hike – 5 days in Torres del Paine National Park. I must admit, these two days were a bit miserable for me. I had caught a cold a few days before and it peaked on our time off. Honestly, it was better than dealing with a cold on the trail, but I was a bit irritable in between.

It’s a 1.5-hour drive from El Calafate to Perito Moreno glacier, which is one of the biggest attractions in the town. Interestingly, both the Sendero al Fitz Roy and Perito Moreno Glacier are located in Los Glaciares National Park, which extends along the border throughout the mountains. Both attractions are extremely popular destinations for tourists, but while Fitz Roy is free to camp and hike, Perito Moreno has a 10,000ARS ($10USD) entrance fee.

Perito Moreno is very well developed as a tourist attraction, with a large visitor centre and several kilometres of extremely well maintained boardwalk extending along the hillside to provide viewing balconies for the glacier. It really bothered me to pay for Perito Moreno and not Fitz Roy. The facilities on the Sendero al Fitz Roy are in terrible condition (I’m mostly talking about the outhouses), and I really wish the government would charge campers $10 a night to upgrade some of the park facilities along the trail. The environment really needs it!

Our driver dropped us at the trailhead for the glacier balconies and we spent several hours walking the boardwalk and viewing the glacier. The weather was drizzling, but it wasn’t full on raining and it started and stopped a lot. The trail was quite empty when we arrived, which was surprising, but I think we were ahead of all the big tour buses, as it did get more crowded later, although it was never overwhelming.

Perito Moreno glacier is unlike any glacier I’ve ever seen. It’s a massive ice sheet that comes down through the mountains from the larger Southern Patagonia Icefield. The glacier extends all the way to the lake, where it discharges into Lago Roca and Lago Argentino (which is right next to El Calafate). The ice extends almost to the walkways, so you’re incredibly close to it! Until 2020, the glacier had remained constant for 100 years, meaning it was neither growing or receding, but it has started to recede since 2020. It has a large impact on the water level in the lakes and can cause flooding in years where there is a high melt.

We spent a few hours walking the boardwalks and watching icebergs calve off from the sheet. You can pay to take a boat out into the lake to get slightly closer to the ice, but you’re so close already, I don’t regret saving our money and lazing around at the balconies. There is a visitor centre with food, but there’s no food available along the boardwalk, so we had brought lunch with us and enjoyed it along some of the benches.

We spent about 3 hours at the balconies in total and then got picked up by our driver. I slept on the way back to town again, while Seth continued to count rhea and guanaco through the window. I decided that I wanted to eat guanaco before leaving the desert and Seth found us a “hip” restaurant with guanaco burgers that turned out to be a dingy pub. Unfortunately, the burger was very disappointing, but I blame the restaurant more than the animal. It was decidedly not hip, but at least I got to try something new on our final day in Argentina.

The next day we had to take a 6-hour bus across the border to Chile. In classic Maria fashion, I didn’t sleep well because I was up all night worrying about missing our bus. This resulted in us getting up early and waiting around for a bus that obviously left late. I was a little bit nervous about crossing into Chile because I had read online that their border control is very strict. We’d dehydrated all our own food for the trip, which was a pleasure to eat on the trail, so I really didn’t want to get it confiscated at the border. Argentina didn’t care at all about what we brought in, but because Chile has a big agricultural industry, they ask you to declare all food. If you don’t, you may not get caught, but if you do, you could be facing large fines. So if in doubt, declare.

To make my dehydrated food look more legit, I actually heat sealed everything into those little foil lined bags used for loose leaf tea, and created fancy labels for each packet. The vibe I was going for was “farmer’s market, but commercially sealed”. It ended up being overkill as no one even bothered to look at it. I wonder if the border guards may have been interested if I entered through an airport, but they don’t even make you take your luggage off the bus when you cross by road.

We did have to get off the bus and put all our day bags through screening, and a border agent inspected the inside of the bus, but no one checked any of the luggage (although the hold may have gotten a sniff test from a border dog). We still declared what we had, but when I said it was “dried hiking food”, they didn’t ask any more questions. I could have saved myself a ton of time on the packaging and just used Ziploc bags like I normally do. They seem to mostly be interested in confiscating any fresh fruit or vegetables. Several people did have fruit in their bag that they did not declare, which got taken, but no one on our bus got fined. It seemed like very normal border control to me, and not scary like what I’d read online.

We arrived in Puerto Natales in the late afternoon, which is the jumping off point for anyone visiting Torres del Paine National Park. It’s an interesting town. It was similar in size to El Calafate, but it had a much different vibe. El Calafate had the feel of a town that was built around tourism, whereas Puerto Natales felt like a town that tourism happened to. We selected our guesthouses based on proximity to the bus depot, so in both instances, it was a walk to get to town, but somehow it felt a lot further in Puerto Natales. The town didn’t feel quite as welcoming to me, although there were a lot less stray dogs (I’ve never seen more stray dogs anywhere than in El Calafate)!

Our guesthouse in Puerto Natales was top notch and had the comfiest king sized bed! After dropping off our gear, we had a lot of errands to run. We’d eaten all of our food from Argentina (to avoid crossing the border with it), so we had to stock up on snacks and breakfast food for our Torres del Paine trek. I’d read online before the trip that it’s easy to find hiking food locally and to not bother bringing your own, but I’m so glad we did! It was so hard finding breakfast and snack food that was filling, enjoyable to eat, and lightweight; I was so glad I didn’t also have to find 5 days’ worth of lunches and suppers! We spent a long time at the grocery store trying to find enough snacks for our week long hike, and it was chaotic because we didn’t have a coin for the shopping cart, so we were forced to run around the store with armloads of food.

Eventually I piled enough food into Seth’s arms that I figured we wouldn’t starve on the trail (obviously we ended up buying way more than we needed) and we went in search of dinner. Everyone eats late in Argentina and Chile and a lot of the restaurants don’t open until 7pm. I wanted to be asleep by 9pm and we still had to re-pack, so we walked around until we found a nice little spot that was open. It was a good meal, but the staff didn’t speak any Spanish so I ended up with something very different than what I thought I’d ordered. I thought I was getting grilled white fish (which is a comfort food for me and I was still sick), but I ended up with the most ridiculous mixed seafood platter. On any other day, I would have been pumped to eat it, but it wasn’t really a “eat mystery seafood” kind of day for me. Fortunately, it was tasty and it ended up being fine.

Seth on the other hand, had ceviche. It was a delicious meal and he savoured every minute of it, but it was many a little too ambitious for his travelling stomach on the day before a major hike. He ended up regretting it the following day (if you catch my meaning). Fortunately, there was no issue that evening and we returned to our guesthouse to repack all our food and bags to start our 5-day trek on the W-circuit the following morning! Check back next week to read about the trek!