Encounters at the (almost) end of the world
Posted By Missy on January 24, 2010
(Thank you for your patience.)
Here I am in the air, having left New York City approximately 36 hours prior (I spent a night at an airport hotel in Santiago to avoid any travel delay-related snags, which, if you know me, are among my Top Things That Stress Me Out. And allow me to state that it was the Right Thing to Do. Another person on the trip had her bag held up at one of her layovers, unbeknownst to her, and had to buy most everything anew, including hiking shoes, in a hurry the morning we disembarked from our rendezvous point). Though all of western coastal South America was interesting to fly over, it wasn’t until Patagonia that my energy about-faced. Finally, exhilaration overtakes fatigue!
Mountains and glaciers–GLACIERS!–somewhere over the Patagonia region of Argentina and/or Chile
I flew into Punta Arenas, Chile, which is on the Strait of Magellan. This is the Strait of Magellan.
The Straight of Magellan. It’s doesn’t look exciting, but remember where it is. The bottom of the human earth as we know it, that’s where.
The drive from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales, the gateway city (what they really mean is town, because you can cover it all quite easily on foot) to Torres Del Paine National Park was 3 hours north.
The view form Puerto Natales, the day I arrived.
The view form Puerto Natales, the morning after. While a fellow traveler hunted for emergency clothes and shoes, I hung out by the water.
I tried taking a few timer shots of myself. The result was less than satisfactory. Incidentally, there are lots and lots of stray dogs in Puerto Natales, where the people do not believe in neutering. You can’t not be followed by them everywhere you go. One jumped into my shot.
A potato-type dog, which is a made-up nonsense name to describe my boyfriend’s dog, who also happens to be a potato-type dog. I thought this was some sort of sign from her. In reality, the dog probably hoped that I had a scrap of food in my hand.
By this time I had met up with my group (5 of us including myself) and our guides. We drove another three hours to get to the park, on mostly gravel roads. Here was our first lookout point, where I and others were overwhelmed by the wind. I submit that you have not felt wind until you have traveled to Patagonia.
Me, Torres Del Paine National Park, and Lake Sarmiento. The sediment from glacier activity turned the lakes interesting colors.
Waiting for our boat on Grey Lake to take us to our first stop on the ‘W’ trek. (We moved west to east instead of the standard east to west, starting at Refugio Grey.)
Clearly, I really liked that boat ride.
Oh my.
Our first day of activity included a hike on the glacier, which was maybe the awesomest thing I’ve ever done. This view is from the landing, before we got into our harnesses and crampons. It’s okay to snicker at those words.
Part of Glacier Grey, seen from Grey Lake, which is actually very, very grey. You have not seen grey water like this.
This is what hiking on a glacier looks like. It looks like a bunch of packed snow but I assure you it is ice. And those crampons hold you to it, even when you’re walking up what feels like a vertical incline.
We also got to peer into scary, deep crevasses. A guide would plant himself and his crampons into the ice and grab your harness and basically let you dangle. If you think such activity would send mild waves of terror straight to your sphincter, you’d be right. Kick a rock down there, and you’d count one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand SPLASH.
Aw, it’s shaped like a heart.
Later that day, we hiked down the first part of the W to Refugio Paine Grande. I had to keep looking over my shoulder, because seriously:
I should mentioned that, technically, I had four cameras on my person: Holga (film), Olympus OM-1n (film), point & shoot (digital back-up), and iPhone (back-up to the digital back-up). It was around this point that my back-up camera, the point & shoot, wheezed for a time until it ceased working altogether. I had just put in a new card, one with way too much memory (16Gb!) for the machinations of this Nikon cheapy to handle. I wanted to cry but we had to keep moving. I mourned it for a time, wondering if the awesomest activity ever, that being glacier hiking, would make it out of that camera and off of the card alive. (It did, obviously.) But I had gotten over it by the time we reached the refugio, assuming that I’d have to fill gaps in my timeline with drawings.
Sketch courtesy of Adam, who wasn’t there and was going by my description.
Aside: the refugios are in fact like hostels, only you don’t worry so much that someone’s going to steal your stuff. I mean, you’re carrying all your crap on you for the trip; why bother with additional crap? Also, the range of ages–in addition to nationalities–makes for fun dinner conversations. Incidentally, there is booze onsite, though you’re pretty much limited to Austral beer and low-priced Chilean wine.
View of a ranger station, Paine Grande and the Cuernos from Refugio Paine Grande. The clouds were never not dramatic in Patagonia, but we were blessed with pretty much perfect weather.
The next day was a long hike up into the French Valley. We made it only to the first lookout (though I had it in me to press on to the second lookout…but I was with a group).
Paine Grande, the source of several avalanches. So exciting! And loud!
By the look of my glistening upper lip, I was either sweating embarrassingly, or I had just gulped from my wide-mouthed water bottle.
(In case you’re wondering–I stressed out over it for quite a time while preparing for the trip in fact–I decided I would purchase a SteriPen for water sterilization. No gastrointestinal problems for me! This in spite of the facts that (1) By the end we were all kind of “fuck it”, drinking stream and tap water without fear or shame, and (2) Refugio Los Cuernos, our post-French Valley lodging, had been rumored to be diseased, many people including staff had gotten ill, as we learned from groups traveling east to west, that being our only source of communication what with no phones or anything except radio communication in cases of emergency.)
Oh, here’s where I mention the point where Camera Disaster #2 struck. As I finished up a roll of color slide film (which, by the way, I’m slowly putting up on Flickr, along with other photos seen and not seen here, in larger sizes, so go there and check back), I felt the unthinkable as I turned the crank: the film snapped from its attachment in the canister, which meant I couldn’t rewind it and I was now down a second camera. What was happening to me? Was I not supposed to be here? Is Patagonia the Bermuda Triangle of cameras? Later, ingenuity struck when I discovered I could use my sleeping bag as a black bag, hand roll the film around my fingers, and shove it into an empty plastic film canister. Also! Because I had been too lazy to tape up the light leaks on my Holga before I left home, I had a roll of electrical tape with me! I could tape up the canister! Better still, I later learned that LTI (my local color lab) didn’t even require an explanation; they had a line item for “Roll in black canister. Open in dark room.”
The view looking down the valley to Lake Pehoe. Salvaged from that not lost roll of color slide.
The next part becomes sort of fuzzy in my mind because we hiked through lovely meadows along Lake Nordenskjold–for nearly two days we were in the company of Lake Nordenskjold. It’s lovely, and the view across the lake is lovelier still. Kind of like Ireland or something. I also–and don’t tell anybody–pocketed two rocks from the shore. There were white rocks and black rocks and no sand or anything else and those rocks spoke to me.
While in the meadow we encountered a team of horses. Supplies come into the park on foot, by boat (if accessible to water), and on horseback.
Another view of the Cuernos, from the meadows on the other side.
Next we rounded into the Ascencio Valley. So lovely. You can see the trail on the left, and the roof of our refugio to the right of the river. That trail gave a vertiginous thrill, especially when a team of horses came past.
The following day we got up at 2:50 am to hike in the dark to see the Tores Del Paine at sunrise. Most people had headlamps. I brought my bike light, which is ill-advised if you use trekking poles, as I did, because you don’t have enough hands. Also: trekking poles! A couple of the greatest things I’ve ever owned, for serious. My knees give me trouble and, although these hikes were mostly mildly challenging treks rather than miles of up, up, up followed by a reversal going down, down, down (seriously - I did virtually no prep work and my body was fine), those trekking poles were, as they say, game changers.
Anyway, that was a tough hike. The last half mile is basically straight up on loose dirt and rock. You could see the little headlamps above you on the trail, too. Frighteningly, there was a rock slide during that last half mile. All lights stopped moving, and voices grew quiet while we strained to see where it was coming from. It was on the other, untraveled side of the hill, and nobody was hurt. A total pants-peer moment.
Approximately 5 a.m. See the person at the bottom for scale.
At sunrise. On a lucky day, those things blaze a bright orange. Though not orange on this particular day, I count myself fortunate that they weren’t under cloud cover.
The last part of the trek was where the W hooks down, like you’re writing in cursive or something, where we spent a low-key evening (though, most evenings were spent in the company of a wood stove, a book or a card game, and always booze) at a refugio run by a mother and daughter who spoke no English and who served the best lamb & lentil stew I’ve ever had. (The rest of the time, the food was kind of blech. Like, pasta and canned vegetables kind of meals. Like I said earlier, limited supplies.) This was the view from our living room, with the three towers in view:
The view from our living room at, no joke, 11 pm on the longest day of the year:
The next day we left the park to see some wildlife and do some hiking in the Sierra Baguales, a range separating Chile & Argentina, also home to massive, massive ranches (or, estancias)…some with tens of thousands of sheep, and few humans that we could encounter. (On the ‘W’ trek, you’re never alone. I’d say you never go more than 15-20 minutes without encountering another group or couple.) This is where we saw the guanacos!
Some don’t fare too well.
There’s not as much wildlife in Patagonia as what I’m used to with other hiking trips. There’re oodles of tiny orchids all over the place, but a dearth of animal life inside the park. Aside from guanacos, there are wild horses in the mountains (which our guide Boris has made a living taming–he’s an actual horse whisperer), some emu, nandu, and, believe it or not, flamingos. Boris’ wife told us that the dumb flamingo wade out into water when it’s cold and then get stuck when the water freezes overnight. Come morning, you’ll find a third of a flamingo because the foxes come down to eat the trapped birds. Now, that is nature working at its finest.
We did see some of the ranchers (gauchos) taking cows to pasture, or sheep to be shorn. All accompanied by herding dogs, who also tried herding our van. Those dogs are constantly working and running, never not trying to keep things in order, always responding to a series of different whistles. My boyfriend’s dog, by contrast, sleeps for about 20 of the 24 hours in a day.
On our final day, we went horseback riding around Puerto Natales. I hadn’t been riding since I was about 12 and in Girl Scouts or 4-H and it was a much different experience this time. I’m aware that horses can sense human emotion and fear and, well, I was really kind of scared out of my mind for no reasonable reason.
Dolly, a former wild horse tamed by Boris and who really only wanted to eat grass.
What else can I tell you. I lost a lot of hair trying to detangle at day’s end. I was so happy I remembered to pack a camping clothesline, which allowed me to wear the same pants every day and keep a clean pair available for evening lounging with my book and beer. I used this pack and these poles and recommend both. It went without saying that the scenery will knock your socks off. The hikes won’t kill you, unless maybe you do the full W circuit that loops around the mountains to put you back where you started. I had no trouble getting around despite knowing about five words in Spanish. I’m so glad I did it! Please check Flickr for additional highlights. And, feel free to email me if you want more details about the hiking or are interested in the travel company I went with.
