W is for Weather

--Ice--

It was an extremely early morning on Thursday, the first day of our four-day W trek. The plan was ready; it was time to execute. Up and Adam, there was no time to delay.

The W trek is an end-to-end one way trek in Torres del Paine national park, in Chile. It's very aptly named, for the trail makes an obvious w shape as seen from the sky. Although, as I think about it, maybe it should be called the upside-down m trek because the lobes are rounded rather than pointy. 

Torres del Paine is a huge massif that stands alone relative to the adjacent hilly countryside. At only 12 million years old, it's a baby of a mountain range. The nearby Andes are 65MYO, but even those are young compared to the Rockies (285MYO), Alps (770MYO), or Appalachians (>1BYO). This means the Torres del Paine (TDP) massif is particularly craggy and dramatic, as it has not had eons of weathering to erode its pinnacles and spires.

Broadly speaking, the W follows along the base of the TDP slopes. The left prong of the W is bordered to the west by the lengthy Lago Gray, or Gray Lake, with the massif in the middle of the W. The bottom of the W (again, think of an upside down m), is bordered by Lago Nordenskjold, some 20 km long. The right prong of the W proceeds up a dramatic ravine formed by the rushing Rio Ascencio. The middle prong of the W is an out-and-back climb up a dramatic glacial canyon. At the top of each of the prongs is a key viewpoint. The left prong features Glaciar Gray, feeding Lago Gray. The middle prong features Mirador Britanico, or the British viewpoint, a 360 degree view up to the rim of the canyon. The right prong ends at the famous Mirador de los Torres, a spectacular view of a glacial lake and three shear towers which dominate the skyline.

The W can be done in different combinations, but we opted for a west-to-east (left to right) trek, saving the best lookout for the last day. 

But let's not be hasty.

Having rolled out of bed before 6am, we were first faced with getting to the park. This is a nontrivial facet, because the park is hours outside of Puerto Natales. Even once inside the park, one has to take a ferry or shuttle to their respective trailhead. Since it's a one way trek, it's not really feasible to leave a car somewhere. So we took the bus and planned on a short first day of hiking. 

Good thing too, as there were many surprises along the way. We've learned that everything down here happens on local standard Patagonia time...

When we got to the bus station for our 6:45a bus, we found there were several going to the park at the same time, all labeled simply "Torres del Paine". One driver looked at our pre-booked ticket to Hotel Gray (at the southern end of Lago Gray) and directed us to a different bus. We stowed our bags and boarded. The ride was uneventful. We napped, ate a bag breakfast courtesy of the hostel, and finally gawked in amazement as we rounded a bend and saw the entire massif laid out before us, towering over the amber plain in the azure sky. We arrived at the Amarga entry station where we bought park tickets and various people from the bus were redirected to shuttles bound for the right prong. Those of us who stayed on the bus were treated with a gorgeous passage along the southern edge of Nordenskjold, looking across at the massif, imagining the tiny tail at its foot. We then made another stop at Pudeto, a ferry bound for the bottom left lobe of the W; almost everyone got off the bus; we were the only two going onward.

As a traveler, you learn when it's good to go your own way and when that's a bad plan. Ellie and I had a bad feeling...

We asked the driver what about going to Hotel Gray? We made out from his Spanish that we should wait 30 minutes when we'd hop another bus to go to our destination. The time was already 10am, and it was getting late to start the trail. Still, what could we do? We waited.

Sitting at a picnic table, we surveyed the turquoise lake in the beautiful sun. A sparrow flew over to a barren branch in a tree just in front of us. But then I looked more closely- it sat weirdly upright and, look how it turns its head from side to side! Could that really be a tiny owl in broad daylight? As I checked a guide, a man had sat at an adjustment table and, hearing me debate this out loud, snapped a couple telephotos. Between us we discovered that yes! It was an Austral Pygmy Owl, a rare bird, known for being out in the day. A beautiful start to the trip.

It turned out that the man, who was Dutch, was also trying to get to Hotel Gray. We told him of our plan to take the ferry from there to the top of the W, and he asked if we had pre-booked tickets, because, you know, they seemed to be in very short supply. What would happen if we couldn't get a ferry ticket? Would the whole trek be kiboshed on day one? With trepidation, the three of us plus a pair of Americans boarded our bus - the only 5 people going to Gray out of hundreds at the bus station in the morning.

By the time we reached Hotel Gray it was already around noon. Thankfully there were seats on the ferry, but the winds were so great, they weren't sure whether the ferry would even go. We reserved our seats anyway but went to the cafe with Mattias and the Americans to wait for an hour until they would make a decision. We sat together at a picture window looking along the long axis of Lago Gray. In the foreground, a sand bar crossed the lake and ant-sized tourists scurried back and forth. In the middle ground, a massive blue iceberg sat motionless in the water. In the far background the impressive Glaciar Gray tumbled slowly into the lake. 

Finally the time came and mercifully, the ferry was sailing. A shuttle took us down the road, where we walked through some woods out into the sandbar. The ferry was moored to an island at the opposite end of the bar, several hundred yards away. It was then that we learned to embrace the Patagonian wind, for it was so strong, we staggered with our packs while being buffeted from side to side. The catamaran was fairly uneventful except for taking 45 minutes and giving us a close up view of the left prong of the W. I also enjoyed a complementary pisco sour, chilled with ice from Glaciar Gray. A hilarious gimmick for those tourists who were taking the easy way back.

Finally at 3 pm we disembarked at the top of the W, ready to start our trek. We made it!! A sign was posted at the trailhead saying it closed at 3. We were technically a couple minutes late but conveniently disregarded the sign and made our way hastily along the trail. Our goal for the day was to finish the left prong, 11km total, with modest elevation gain/loss. We had camping reservations at the Paine Grande Refugio, so we had to make it.

The trail itself was actually very modest. We followed along some bluffs above the lake, affording us nice views behind us to the glacier and across the lake to the Andes. We made good time on the well worn trail. My favorite part was passing a glacial pond at elevation; the clear water, trapped, was unable to drain into the lake a couple hundred meters below.

We finally reached camp around 6:30. The camp was a bustling village because the Pudeto ferry stopped here - many people not doing the trek could come and stay here in relative luxury. We set up our tent and headed to the hall for dinner: chicken with pasta, potatoes, tinned vegetables, etc etc, and an extremely artificial jello and merengue cake. Hiker food! Ellie heartily approved.

After a coffee in the bar (this level of camping luxury was seriously unnecessary), we turned in.

Tomorrow would be our biggest and wettest day.