Torres del PaineTorres del Paine

Published on November 19, 2019 ⋅ 11min read

Windswept boughs, bent and bowed, stubbornly resisted the relentless wind. Leaves clung desperately to the branches; though many had long since let go. Without any moment of respite from the howling gale, the trees had to be steadfast, their snaking roots seeking whatever purchase there was to be had on the cold, barren rock. When they weren't battered by the wind, they were pelted with torrential rain. It was a cold, harsh, and unforgiving place; that was, until the sun came out...

With my knee swollen, there was no way I was capable of hiking for 9 days. We had little option but to abandon our plans to do the O Circuit. I was really disappointed, since the hike had been the thing I'd been most looking forward to in our whole South America trip. Instead, I spent another 6 days in Puerto Natales lying in bed and popping pills, waiting to see whether the swelling would diminish.

There was nothing to do in Puerto Natales, so Dad spent a bit of time each day walking circles around the town and taking photos of various "interesting" houses.

He was pretty bored -- as was I!

But after a few days, it became apparent that the swelling was slowly receding. We reevaluated our plans. Since we'd booked to do the O Circuit, which included the shorter W trek as part of it near the end, we still had our reservations for the campsites on the W. I perused the map, and it seemed like it could be feasible for me to attempt part of the W trek. Most of the "hard" parts were the arms of the W, which extended up the mountain valleys to lookout points, but with the way we had booked the camps, it was possible to skip them. If I could change just one of my campsite bookings, then I could alternate one day of walking along moderately flat track, with a day of rest. Meanwhile, on my days off, Dad could hike up the arms and do the full W.

This meant I'd only do about 25km of the walk, 2 days of "proper" walking, but still camp in the park for 4 nights. I'd continue to take my ibuprofen, and walk carefully, so hopefully I'd not exacerbate my knee. It wouldn't be much, but it certainly seemed better than nothing!

With this plan in mind, we visited the Vertice office and we were pleased to discover that the booking could be changed, only one day before. It only cost $2 USD to change the booking, which was the price difference of the camp sites. We stocked up with some food from the supermarket, paid a visit to the bus station to book our ride to the park and buy our park entrance ticket. Then we repacked our bags, leaving some unnecessary stuff at the hostel, so we'd have a lighter load for the hike.

The next day, we rose early and caught the 7am bus to the park.

By the time we reached the park, it had already started raining. Since we were doing the W track in reverse (starting west and heading east), we had to get off at the final bus stop, then wait an hour for a catamaran to come and take us north along a lake. While waiting, we had our first glimpses of the wind. I say glimpses, because you couldn't just feel the wind, you could see it too. It was so strong, the surface of the lake was whipped up into a white wall of water, that swirled and saturated anything that crossed its path. The sudden accompanying gust of wind threatened to blow you over, if you hadn't already braced against it.

When the catamaran pulled up against the dock half an hour later, the rain had turned torrential and the wind a constant gale.

Fortunately, for me, the Paine Grande campsite was only 400m away from the dock. Unfortunately, for Dad, he had 11km to hike before he reached his campsite. Standing in the porch of the Refugio, he was already dripping from head to toe. It was going to be absolutely miserable. We briefly said goodbye and he marched off, while I went to check in to the campsite.

The rain didn't ease up all afternoon. I waited a few hours, shivering in the campsite cooking area (it was a covered shelter, but with no heating I could still see my breath, it was probably only around 2-3 degrees), until eventually I decided to pitch my tent. The howling wind made it difficult, especially since I had to put up the tent from outside-in to avoid the inner tent getting soaked in the rain. I had to tie my guy lines to a nearby wooden lattice structure to hold the fly in place while I tried to peg the fly down at the corners. The wind proved more of an issue than the rain. After some difficulty, I managed to get it fixed in place. Then it was just a matter of clipping the inner tent to the poles and -- BAM! -- my tent was up.

I spent the rest of the afternoon snuggled up in my sleeping bag listening to the rain, rather than shivering in the cooking area.

The second day started out promising. The rain had eased back to a measly drizzle, although everything was still wet. Not knowing when Dad would arrive, nor how the weather would pan out, I awoke at 7am and after half an hour lazing around, decided to pack up my tent before the weather got worse.

It was a good thing I did, because as I was finishing packing the tent away, it started snowing.

With nothing to do but wait for Dad to arrive, it was a slow morning. The weather gradually improved, with the clouds parting at times to reveal a spectacular mountain looming over the campsite. By midday, I was starting to get worried. I didn't know when Dad would leave, but I was expecting he would be arriving around midday... It was just after 2pm when he came staggering into the camp, looking rather worse for wear.

His first words to me were, "that was really tough." Looking at him, I believed it.

Within an hour of leaving the camp the day before, his boots had been soaked. The rain had been so intense, the track had flooded to the point where he had basically been walking up a creek the entire time. The wind had whipped his poncho away immediately and he had been reliant on his rain jacket, which had soaked through. He'd been thoroughly drenched for most of the hike to the camp. The wind had been relentless, and several times he'd been sent running, as a gust threw him off balance and he struggled to stay upright with his pack. He'd slipped on the rocks several times, hurting his knee. He'd limped, cold and alone, there and back for 5.5 hours each way, since the weather had slowed him down so much.

By all accounts, I was glad that I hadn't even attempted it. With my knee still swollen, it would have been very difficult and I would very likely have injured myself more.

Dad asked if the catamaran was leaving today, and then said to me, "an hour ago, I was ready to quit. But now I've made it here, I'm resolved to finish."

I was more dubious than ever about doing the hike. The catamaran was departing again in only a few hours... Not so long to wait. But no! We weren't ready to quit just yet. Dad wanted to keep going and, despite my skepticism, I wanted to at least try walking before giving up. So, after a bite to eat, we headed out.

It was approximately a 3 hour walk to the Italiano campsite. The weather held out for us in the afternoon. The wind blew fiercely, it rained on and off between the sun peeking out from behind the clouds, and the track was muddy, yet traversable. We didn't have to wade the river beds like my dad had the previous day. My knee held up, although I did have to brace myself against the forceful gusts of wind and carefully tread over treacherous rocks that littered the trail.

We reached the campsite around half past five, and set up our tents in the nick of time. It started to pour with rain shortly afterwards. As we were preparing our dinner in the cooking shelter, a group of girls turned up to the camp, thoroughly drenched. They can't have been more than half an hour behind us. We were glad to have stayed mostly dry; Dad certainly didn't want to be soaked for a second night in a row -- he'd only just started to dry out!

Our third day began relatively early. In the shelter of the trees, we were able to pack up our tents without too much difficulty. It was still drizzling, but the canopy cover prevented most of the rain from reaching the forest floor. This day was meant to be a rest day for me; my only task was to hike about 30min to the next campsite and set up there. Meanwhile, Dad would hike up the hill to the Frances lookout point.

We set off at the same time, although in entirely different directions. After managing well the day before, I had briefly considered attempting the climb, but decided against it as I didn't want to push my luck and we still had a decent amount of hiking required to get out of the park. It wouldn't be wise to injure myself now.

Once again, by Dad's account, I'm glad I didn't attempt it. The path was steep and slippery, covered in snow and ice. There was poor visibility at the lookout point due to the clouds, so it was questionable if it was even worth it hiking up there (Dad said it was, but talking to other hikers on the trail, they said otherwise).

The Frances campsite was an interesting one. Set on the side of the hill, there were raised wooden platforms for each person to pitch their tent on. Fortunately I had a free-standing tent, since it was impossible to peg anything down. I managed to tie some guy lines to some neighbouring trees and hooks on the base of the platform. I just had to hope that the shelter of the trees would be enough to protect my tent from the wind!

I arrived at the campsite around mid-morning, and spent pretty much the whole day lying in my tent. It was wet, cold and muddy everywhere else, and with no proper shelters except the toilets/showers, there was little else in the way of places to relax. In the evening we cooked our delicious rehydrated meal packs, enjoyed a hot shower (an unexpected luxury, I had been prepared for 4 nights of no showering!) and headed to bed.

Our fourth day was the "big day" (or, at least, the biggest it would be for me). Fortunately, the good weather had finally arrived! The sign said 13.5km to the Central campsite, which required hiking almost the entire length of the lake at the base of the mountains. With the track staying close to the mountainside through low lying brush, we were mostly sheltered from the wind that had been howling incessantly on the previous days. Every now and again, we would have to climb up over a ridge, where we were battered by gusts, but we'd soon drop back down again into shelter. With a vivid blue sky under a strong sun, we finally appreciated why the park was held in such high regard. It truly was spectacular in good weather.

It's just a shame the weather is so horrendous half of the time!

We stopped for short breaks every couple of hours, spreading out our lunch across the breaks to keep our bodies' energy levels consistently topped up. In-between meal breaks, there were also frequent photo stops, with Dad taking full advantage of the good weather after not wanting to take out the camera in the rain and snow during the earlier legs of the hike.

It turned out, the signs were all inconsistent with each other. At the start it had said 13.5km to the central campsite, but after about 6 hours of hiking we came to a fork in the track and a sign that said it was another 5km to Central... While also saying it was 13km back towards our previous campsite! When we finally reached Central, we were coming close to 8 hours of hiking and almost 20km travelled (according to both Dad and my phones', which after the multiple inconsistencies in the signage, we were more likely to believe). In terms of kilometres per hour, we hadn't maintained a great pace, but considering the constant up and down nature of the track, and the fact that both my knees, and Dad's, were injured in some way, it wasn't too bad. It's not like we were in a rush to get anywhere else, anyway!

It had been a long day and we were glad to pitch our tents for the final time.

The sun rose the next day, shining pink and golden on the mountain peaks. It was an ideal day to climb up to Lago Torres for "the" famous view of the mountain peaks. Unfortunately, Dad's knees were not in good shape. Since falling over in the relentless wind and rain on the first day, they had progressively gotten worse and worse, to the point where it was painful for him just walking on flat ground. While my knee had held up for the 20km hike the day before, it was still a little swollen. The hike was 9 hours long, 700m up and then back down again. Basically a constant ascent/descent all the way. I'd not put that sort of strain on my knees since the swelling had begun, and I was very reluctant to do so now.

Ultimately, we decided it would be foolish to attempt the hike. We weren't even half way through our entire trip yet! We still had plenty more hiking ahead of us that we were looking forward to. It just wasn't worth risking further injury for a photo and to be able to say we'd hiked up there. We already hadn't done the full track, so we couldn't even boast of completing the hike if we did do it, but more importantly, while we were here for a challenge, we were also travelling for our own enjoyment. I hadn't enjoyed lying around in bed for 8 days waiting for my knee to get better -- hurting it further when I'd only just got back on my feet was simply foolish. I'd much rather sacrifice the hike and prioritise being able to do more in the future.

So, instead, we caught the midday bus back to Puerto Natales, ending what was to have been our "big hike". While I hadn't managed to walk as much as we had originally planned, I was glad to have done some of it at least, and despite only walking 2 of the days, camping for 4 nights in the park had still afforded me an experience which felt authentic. I was pleased that I didn't skip doing the W trek entirely. The parts that I did do still afforded me some worthwhile memories.

We spent another couple of nights in Puerto Natales before returning once more to Argentina, this time heading to the city of Ushuaia, in Tierra del Fuego, the End of the World. On the Monday, exactly 3 full weeks after arriving in Puerto Natales for the first time, we left, never to return...