Patagonia, The W Trail

Wow, almost two weeks later , and I still can't believe all of the beauty I got to see in the Patagonia in Southern Chile.  Sorry to have lacked so much on this post, but coming home and the holidays have been quite the whirlwind! Anyway, here is the outline of the Patagonia backpacking excursion. Our group got so close during our trek (maybe closer than we would have liked!), and I want to give a big thanks to Laura, Ellen, Nolan, and Nathan for making it as incredible as it was!  The trip started off with quite the large amount of traveling... a bus, a flight, a transfer bus, another bus... and the next day there was another bus, and a boat! Woo! But well worth it. Here's the itinerary we stuck with, along with some daily details.

Friday, December 7th:
--7:30am: Take 2 hour bus from Puerto Natales to the catamaran inside of Parque Nacional Torres del Paine
--11:15-11:45am: Visit Salto Grande waterfall.  At this point, we knew it was a 15 minute walk from where the catamaran picked up to Salto Grande, and so we decided around 11:15 that we'd better get a move on if we wanted to see it.  With a lot of wind and rain along the way, we made our way up there, and it was beautiful! The only downside: on the way back, when we were on our way back to catch the catamaran, we checked our watch, and it was 11:55am. We were on the other side of the lake, and still had about a 10 minute walk to where the boat picked up, but usually things in Chile run a little late, so we thought we'd be okay. But that was before the boat engine turned on and there was no one else left walking there! So, with little time to make and still needing to grab our backpacking packs, we decided to run the last 10 minutes. Thankfully they waited for us, and our packs got to go on top of the pile of backpacks so we were the first off! Everything turned out okay.

The crew at Salto Grande

--12:30pm: Get off the catamaran, make a quick lunch, and start the 11km, 3 hr hike to our first campsite at Refugio Grey.  Along the way, the winds were so strong that we were literally walking around like we were drunk. Feet crossing each other, walking on and off the trail, and trying to keep ourselves and our heavy packs from falling down! To give you an idea of how windy it actually was: 2 buses driving around the park that day were actually blown over, with people in them and all! Pretty scary!
--4:00pm: Arrive at Refugio Grey, pay $4000 each for campsite (free campsite was closed in that area during our time there), set up our tents and leave our stuff to go on an hour hike to see Grey Glacier up close and personal! When we got back we just rested, made dinner, and went to bed.

Glacier Grey

Saturday, December 8th:
--6:30am: Wake up, make some oatmeal, pack everything up and get on the road by 8:00am to head to Campamento Italiano.
--11:30am: Arrive back down to starting point from the day before, make lunch.
--12:15pm: Start walking again
--4:00pm: Arrive at free Campamento Italiano.  This campsite was definitely the busiest, because it was a possibility to stay there for two nights for some people if necessary. At this point we were in the middle of the W of the W-trail.  To get to the camp, it was necessary to cross a rickety wooden hanging bridge, held down only by a pile of rocks and a couple of steel cables. From the bridge was a great view of mountain ranges covered in glaciers and waterfalls. Not too shabby!
--6:00pm: Make dinner, settle down for the night, and head to bed.

Sunday, December 9th:
--6:30am: Wake up, oatmeal, pack up the girls tent and put all of our stuff in the boys tent while we do a day hike up the middle of the W, through Valle Francais.
--8:00am: Start hiking, get to end of Valle Francais by 10:30am.  This was one of our favorite sections of the W, and we were really glad to get an early start because we were able to avoid most of the cloud cover and see it when it was clear. It was also pretty nice to be hiking without our packs, at least for a couple of hours!

The crew in Valle Francais

--1:30pm: Arrive back at camp, make lunch, pack everything else up, and head on our way to Refugio Los Cuernos to cut off some time on the following day's hike.

On the way to Campamento Los Cuernos

--4:00pm: Arrive at Los Cuernos, set up camp under a tree, relax a bit at the campsite below ours and read with the great view we had! Later made dinner, read some more, and headed to bed to rest up for the longest day of hiking the next day.

View from campsite at Los Cuernos

Monday, December 10th:
--6:30am routine wake up and schedule, hiking by 8:00am

--2:30pm make it to Campamento Las Torres.  We made surprisingly good time this day considering there was so much terrain to cover, but we hiked pretty quickly and kept the breaks short.  The casualties of this day included me slipping down a dirt path on a steep path and falling into a thorn bush with my left arm and hand, Laura later on landing in another thorn bush, and some wet tennis shoes during some water crossings.
--3:00pm: The campsite was set up on a 30ish degree slope, and the park ranger suggested to us that we set up our tents at the bottom, because there was better wind and rain protection, so we did. A little bit after we set them up, it started raining pretty hard, and we were pretty wiped, so we just decided to read a bit and nap. About an hour and a half later, when we woke up, it was still down pouring.  I took a look out of the vent of our tent, and immediately said, "Umm... guys? I think we might have a problem!" Turns out that having a tent at the bottom of a hill after two hours of rain ends up with our tent being located in a puddle, with a small stream running next to us! Because it was still down pouring, we just laughed it off, decided there was nothing we could do about it for the time being, and we warned the boys what was going on. However, rather than laughing it off and waiting it out, they had a slight diva freakout (don't be mad about my adjective usage guys, you know it's true), and decided to pack everything up in the middle of the storm and move their tent uphill. They did, and it ended up being fine. When the rain let up a little later, we ended up doing the same, with the tent still intact but to a new, drier spot uphill. I'm not sure what the park ranger was thinking, telling us to camp at the bottom. He must have enjoyed watching us struggling to move our tent over logs and other people's tents in the rain! Typical Chilean.  After struggling to find room in the covered cooking area to make dinner, we finally did, and after being well fed, went to bed early because the next day was an early wake up.

Tuesday, December 11th:
--4:00am: Wake up.
--4:15am: On the trail of death (straight up!) to hike up to see Las Torres at sunrise (meaning yes, we had to hike in the dark with our headlamps for most of the way up).  We brought our packs, but they only had sleeping bags and warm stuff for the top to watch the sunrise in.
--5:00am: Arrive at the top, bundle up, and enjoy the view! We spent an hour up top.

With Las Torres in the background

All bundled up at 5:30am

--7:00am: Arrive back down, pack up camp, and make breakfast. Head out around 8:15am.
--11:00am: Arrive down at the base, make lunch a little later, and then it's the waiting game until the transfer bus back to the regular bus at 2:30pm.

When it was all said and done, this trip was absolutely amazing. The sights, company, and even the food (at times) were really great! It was the perfect ending trip to an amazing 5 months in Chile, and the trip of a lifetime.