We are just back from 5 days of beautiful hiking in the Torres del Paine national park. We did the classic W trek in 5 days and decided to carry all our food and equipment, except the tent that we could rent at campsites.
I am truly happy about the experience. We saw so much in 5 days, I feel completely rejuvenated from the experience.
The first day started with a bus ride and a rocky catamaran ride over lake pehoe. It was so windy, there were huge waves... On a lake! The hike to Refugio grey was hard, with heavy backpacks and a maddening wind that prevented us from walking straight and pushed us off the trail. The view over the seemingly infinite glacier Grey and the luxurious (and cheap) Refugio Grey, which construction was finished just 2months ago made it all worth it. The bad part is that a lot of the forest on that part of the trail got burnt a month ago, but the glacier's scenery is still impressive, unlike anything I had ever seen before Perito Moreno.
On the second day we hiked up to get a close up of the glacier, then all the way down to the Paine Grande lodge (6hrs) Superb views of the Cuernos, same crazy wind and nice dorms again.
On day 3, we started with a surreal sunrise over the Cuernos, followed by 11hours of hiking! The highlight of the W is the French valley, it was in a great alpine amphitheater that reminded me of the Alps cirques. With beautiful views, fresh river water, a lighter bag (some of the food had disappeared in our stomach at that point), a turquoise lake that inspired serenity to me and glorious weather I really enjoyed that day.
The following day took us from the Cuernos Refugio to the Chileno Refugio, with even nicer warm weather, through steep trails on a landscape of alpine meadows and shrubland. I felt like I was living my childhood hiking days again. I was unstoppable and insisted on making a sunset trip to the Torres del Paine proper, extending our day to 10 hours of hiking.
On the last day, we caught a sunrise view of the towers from the tent, then had a lazy breakfast and just had to descend to Refugio las Torres to catch the transport back to puerto natales. For the fist time my ankle and legs didn't hurt in the morning... I think I just needed a couple of days to adapt and then started feeling better and better.
I am so happy we visited this park, it was not too crowded and made me reconnect to longish trekking that I really love. Seeing big mountains as always inspired me and reminded me of the Alps. Just what I needed to clean my soul after 7 years of Manhattan craziness. Maybe for people who go hiking every other week end in the Alps this park is not going to be so impressive but for me this is exactly what I needed and wanted. Any comments?
More pictures to come on Facebook or picasa soon.
JN