Torres Del Paine - Hobbit

I know it´s been a while, but it´s hard to find a computer that will allow us to download pictures, and what´s a blog without pictures???

So we have arrived in El Calafate, Argentina. We are moving north and slowly making our way out of the cold weather. Our last stop was Puerto Natales, where we prepared for our first big trek at Torres del Paine. A little geography lesson, this park is located in southern Chile in the Patagonia - which by the way is incredible!!

We arrived the night before our departure, so it was a mad rush to get our packs prepared, dumping all unnecessary gear. Of course, there were beers involved thanks to Sebastian. 7 AM the next morning the bus arrives and off we go to the park arriving about 11 AM. Perfect day, sunny nice breeze, probably about 60 degrees. We ate our lunch and began. It all started out very innocent, flat and smooth trail and we were all smiling. About an hour in I began to notice that my pack ws quite heavy, heavier than ussual. Hmmm, eh, what do you do? Continue on, it´s is only a five hour trek!! Well, things turned when the trail started to climb, up and more up, and then some more up. This is when I relized that packing while under the influence is a bad idea - I had all the freaking food!! This went on for 3.5 hours, brutal!! Sarah and I were slow and steady with many stops along the way. Sibylle and Sebastian on the otherhand were flying up the slopes, I guess that´s what happens when your from the Alps!! We get to the top of the pass and it was all worth it, beautiful views of the valley that were breathtaking!! After that three more hours of up and we arrived at the campsite. Cooked and slept!!

The next day we were supposed to get up at 4AM and climb to the Torres for the sunrise view. Well this didn´t happen. We slept in and headed up around 9 AM, another steep climb. It actually was the best because we were all alone up there and it was completly out of this world!!

We returned to camp, and headed out for a five hour trek. We´ll that´s what the map said atleast! Everything was going great, another perfectly sunny day, the breeze was a bit heavier but not bad and the tempurature was about 50 degrees. This time we were going mostly downhill with several shorter climbs - I like it!! Then, catastrophe strikes - we lost the trail!! So here we are at the bottom of some STEEP hills, no trail, surrounded by beautiful secenary and little time before the sun goes down. Sebastian, in typical French fashion begins to climb the hill sides looking for the trail. About an hour later, we land the trail!! But, looking at the map, we just wasted about two hours and moved foward on the trail about 500 meters.....sad day!! We head off on the trail, arriving at the next campsite about 9:30PM, exhausted after 10.5 hours on the trail we set up camp, eat and sleep. The wind that night was howling, I´m guessing 70 mph gusts. You could hear it coming down the mountains, it sounded like a stampede of horses. Then it would hit the tent and I thought we were going to be blown away!! After a bit though I was fast asleep.

Third day of five, right? It all started of very innocent, nice trail, a bit windy but not to bad and overcast. We were looking at a five hour trek according to the map. About an hour in, we came upon the shore of a beautiful blue lake, or so it seemed, the lake turned out to be the devil´s spawn!! All of a sudden the winds off the lake picked up and came at us with a vegenance!! 60+ mph wind gusts coming right at us driving lake water into us so hard it hurt! We were soaked and it wasn´t even raining!! Sarah and Sibylle were both blown off their feet. You could see the gusts coming because of the wave of water in front of it, that is when we all learned to stop, drop and hold on...absolutly the craziest weather I´ve ever hiked through!! This lasted over an hour and finally the trail turned inland.

There we found shelter from the wind, and things were good again, although the temperature was dropping. Oh yeah, and it began to RAIN!! We stopped for lunch at a shelter and headed back out, and it rained, and rained and rained some more! The wind picked up and at the peak of the storm it was a complete downpour in 70+ mph winds and about 35 degrees outside. DEATH MARCH!!! We finally made it to the refugio, total time - about 9 hours. Exhausted, cold, sore and wanting to die we sprang for a bed that night. At this point a meeting was gathered and we decided to abort mission, the last two days seemed like a horrible idea. A cold beer and the comfort of a hot shower and hostel seemed like it was neccesary.

So the last day was spent traveling back to Puerto Natales and enjoying the company of fellow travelers! We spent two more night in Puerto Natales and headed to El Calafate, where I sit now. The two nights were not entirely uneventful nights! On Saturday Juan, the owner of the hostel, propsed a parilla - grill out for you gringos. This meant, collect money from fellow guests, go to the meat market and buy a ton of lamb, and start cooking. The cooking went on for hours. We all stood around the parilla eating the meat as it came off the parilla. All the while drinking beers, which eventually ran out and in typical Chilian fashion it was Pisco time!! After a bit of Pisco it was Salsa time, once again until the sun came up!! It was a whole lotta fun, we were with several porters from the park that are friends with Juan and they were fantastic! Sebastian stole the show when he went outside the bar and returned with a dog, which he was dancing with on the dance floor!! It was a great release after 3 days of absolutly brutal hiking!!

As if we haven´t learned our lesson, we are about to embark on another trek around the Fitz Roy....IDIOTS!!