Parque Nacional Torres del Paine

Hi,
I don´t know how far we are from Canada anymore ever since we travelled a few hundred kilometres on Route 40 in Argentina, a gravel highway. I do know, however, that we hiked about 80km in the last six days. We did what is known as the 'w' in Torres del Paine National Park, just outside Puerto Natales, Chile. This was to be one of the highlights of our trip. It almost wasn´t, but in the end it lived up to our expectations.
We arrived in Puerto Natales on Tuesday (hard to believe that was already a week ago), and spent that day stocking up on food, camping gas, and some much needed advice for two rookie trekkers. We actually hooked up with two Germans and a Korean. The one German was on our ferry and the other two we met in Calafate. The gringo trail is not a myth. We see the same people all the time, it´s crazy. Anyway, we all stayed in the same hostel. Alex and Lee only had two days to hike so we split up once we got to the park, but Birgit had six days so we let her hike with us.
Wednesday morning our bus picked us up promptly at 7:30. I was running a little behind because at 7:00 I went to the station of the previous day´s bus to see if they had found my Tim Horton`s cup, which I had left on that bus. It wasn´t there. Sorry Julie. Our first day in Torres we only hiked two hours. Our goal was to stay at free campsites the whole week, and the first night we stayed in the plain just south of the Torres and Cuernos (the most popular mountains of the park) which gave us a great view while walking towards them. On night one we encountered our first problem, mice. We hung up our food in the shelter, but that didn´t stop the mice from crawling around our tent, trying to get in. We were up till 2:30, swatting the side of the tent to get rid of them.
Day two was to be our hardest day, a seven hour hike to Glaciar Grey. The weather was cloudy and windy, but not too cold. During some parts of this hike we felt like we were in a wind tunnel. And at one point the bridge was missing part of it. Birgit and I walked through the water, which wasn´t deep, and Clay walked onto the bridge and used the parts that were there to replace the missing part. Nothing much exciting happened after that. We arrived at our campsite at 7:00, just as it was getting dark. The last hour was a grueling up and downhill climb. We set up our tents, checked out the glaciar at dusk, and ate noodles for supper. No mice at this campsite.
Day three was when things started going sour. It rained hard all night which meant we started late because we waited for the rain to stop to take down the tent. The hike was partly back to where we came from the previous day(you backtrack three times on this hike, which gives the trail the shape of a 'w'). It rained on and off, so we had to stop to put on and take off our ponchos, since they are necessary when it rains but very annoying when it´s not raining. We arrived at Campamento Italiano sometime before it got dark. Thankfully it wasn´t raining while we set up the tents. We had noodles again for supper. By the way, we bought a gas stove to use with our cooking set. We can use the water from any stream in the park, both for cooking and drinking. As we were getting into the tent we saw a mouse inside the tent. I put on a glove and was determined to catch it, and make it suffer very badly. I lost it somehow, so I took everything out of the tent and handed it to Clay who shook it out. No mouse anywhere. I t was a mistery until the next night Clay saw a hole in the bottom of the tent.
Saturday we had planned to walk up and down the Valley de Frances, but it was raining again so we opted for a two hour hike to Cuernos, a paid camping sight. We got very wet. At first we tried to avoid the water on the path, but when the path is a creek there´s not much you can do and once you`re feet are wet you might as well walk right through the creekpath. The timing of this rainy day could not have been better. The price of camping uncluded being able to use the lodge (where rooms cost $38), which meant we could cook and eat in a dry place, and dry ourselves and our clothes. Unfortunately, it was supposed to rain the next two days as well. We were all disappointed that day, with the rain, the mice, and the leaky tent. However, having grown up in Belgium, I automatically associate camping with rain, so maybe I was a little more prepared than the other two.
Sunday we couldn´t have asked for a better day. In fact, the reason the weather changed was probably due in no small part to asking. We had a long hike ahead of us but it was made much shorter by the sunshine, which made for spectacular views. We arrived at Campamento Las Torres (free again) early enough in the afternoon to take the 45 minute hike up to the Torres. This made our week. It´s pretty nice up there. The next night was quite cold, and Birgit and I got up a 5:30 to hike up to the Torres again and see them at sunrise. The reason I was able to get out of bed that early was knowing I would warm up by walking. Well, the view was pretty nice and definitely worth getting up for.
That was yesterday. We got back to Puerto Natales in the afternoon and had fries for snack and steak for supper. That´s all. Thanks for reading.
Pieter
By the way, we finally got those pictures of the Perito Moreno glacier posted.