Torres Del Paine: Days 3 - 6

Torres Del Paine Part 2- I will say, right off the bat, that this is a long post and it is mostly full of pictures. I had a hard time narrowing down the photos because of the huge variety in what we experienced each day of the hike. Each valley and hike was something completely different. I was particularly captured by the landscapes, the different textures, colors, and the sounds we experienced on the hikes. The calving glaciers cracked like the sound of thunder every few minutes. That is something you'll never forget. The images speak for themselves. I find these landscapes all beautiful- but I'm the photographer, I traveled thousands of miles to visit here, and I love enjoying outside... so I would say that. I hope you enjoy :)

Day 3: On this day we started at Refugio Grey and ended at Campamento Italiano.

Putting the heavy packs on again after a day off made us reconsider why anyone, including ourselves, would choose backpacking for fun, but we stopped our whining, steadied our packs and diligently retraced our steps back to the lodge.

The red moss makes this summer view seem very fall-like

So many fields of flowers!
By this time on Day 1 we were too tired to stop and take pictures

Purple Foxglove Flower

At the pass it was extremely windy. I've since heard that that's more typical for this part of the park then what we experienced due to it's location next to the ice field.

Hold on tight!

The wind was not on the top of your mind when you were climbing hand over feet up a few steep portions of the hike:

There was a forest fire in 2012 that destroyed 68 sq miles of the park. Apparently it was a backpacker that burned his toilet paper after using "nature's toilet." Don't do that.

Back to the Lodge and Lago Pehoé, where we started:

The trail turned along the lake and you started walking towards the impressive Los Cuernos mountains (or the Horns) to get to Campamento Italiano.

The campsite was just across that bridge and we were happy to get there. Problem was, our dream site had a few small rocks sticking up in it so what seemed like a simple task to remove a pebble, became an obsessive task to unearth this huge rock. We wound up switching sites anyway.

   Eli the (curry) chef

Day 4: What day is it? It's day 4 of sleeping, eating and sweating outside. whoo hoo -->

From Campamento Italiano we walked up into the French Valley (Valle Frances) to the Britanico Lookout. Then we picked up our stuff at Italiano and headed out towards Campamento Cuernos. The hike in was supposed to take anywhere from 2-4 hours one way but fortunately, since we still had a 3 hour hike to the other campsite to squeeze in that day, it took us only about 3.5-4 round trip.

Almost the entire first half hour of the hike was dominated by this massive glacier. Hard to tell, it is probably about 4 or 5 glaciers separated by about 500 feet of vertical drop between one and the other. This is a very active glacier and would calve every couple of minutes (10-20 or so) leading the whole valley to echo with this thunderous sound. When you looked up you quickly scanned for the avalanche that just occurred with the falling glacier face. It was very entertaining.

We reached a clearing about 45 minutes up the trail showing most of the valley

The view back onto Lago Nordenskjold was pretty impressive too

Further up the trail leveled out and you could see the whole French Valley. From this clearing you were surrounded by 180 degrees with stunning mountains. This is the Cordillera del Paine and you are more or less standing in the middle of it.

At the top, the views weren't actually any better. However we enjoyed sitting on this giant bolder, still surrounded by mountain peaks, while we had out lunch. This is the view from the Britanico Lookout.

Marmot Twins

On our way back down we bumped into some Navimag friends. What do you think, Marmot, is this an ad campaign or what?!

Eli's fountain of youth

Eli stopped to take a drink and 10 minutes later was still staring at the stream. "This is the clearest water I have ever seen," he eventually said. Haha, I've never seen him so captivated.

Back in front of this gigantic glacier, we stopped for a while just to listen. If you are hiking this trail, or don't think you have time to hike this trail as part of the C-Trek, walk the 45 minutes up to Mirador Frances, it is worth it.

Finally back to Italiano we realized we were only halfway done with the day. Put on a happy face 'cause we're still walking!

Lago Nordenskjold (in both this picture and the next one)

Los Cuernos from a new angle

The end of a tiring day

Day 5: The campsites next to Refugio Cuernos were really nice. They were on raised platforms and we actually felt like we had room to dry out our stinky clothes on the porch it provided. How lovely! This day would take us from Cuernos to Refugio Chileano and it was a short day of hiking.

The morning started out cold however we were still given a show from the calving glacier even this far away. Every 20 minutes or so the sound of thunder would rumble out of the adjacent valley.

The hike quickly got warm. Look at our  perfectly sunny day!

Another small, glacially blue lake in the wide meadow of most of our hike

This looks like a nice place for lunch

Our trail, the Cuernos cut-off, is written up in guide books as being difficult to follow and in poor condition. Neither was true. I found this hike to be scenic and relaxing. If we had had to go all the way down to Hotel Las Torres and hike that ungodly hike back up, this day would have been miserable. Here is where the two trails meet and you can see we are already high above the riverbed in the background where the Hotel Las Torres trail starts from.

This is how the food, water and gas make it up to the Refugios

The rest of the walk to Refugio Chileno was gorgeous. To the left, tucked in a little cove, are the Torres- our last stop of this hike. They are visible really only from the base of them. The campsite is down by the river.

The Patagonia flag and an itty-bitty part of the Torres rising up behind it.

Our Refugio Chileno campsite. 

Day 6: The last day of our hike started at 4:30 am. We got up with many other campers to hike the remaining 2 hours of trail up to Base Las Torres in order to catch the towers in the sunrise. Supposedly the towers glow when the sun is directly in front of them which only happens at sunrise. The trouble is, you don't know if its going to be a clear day or not at 4 in the morning, so you have to commit to going and hope for the best. It could be mesmerizing and the greatest, holiest, perhaps most life changing experience you will have in the park, or just an early morning hike up some challenging footing to see some spires. We, unfortunately, felt raindrops on our hike up and knew which experience we were likely to have. But we still were happy enough to try the hike in the dark.

The sunrise from the top reflected nicely on the lake below.
As our big show that morning it did not disappoint.

We were however (while waiting for the fog to clear on the Torres) extremely tired and extremely cold.

I'm not sure I've ever been  more cold then I wound up being that morning. The hike was difficult up to the Base and I was drenched by the time I got there. At the top the sun still hadn't risen so it was cool and windy and there wasn't much to do. We huddled behind rocks and tried to capture sunrise images by popping up and quickly flashing them. Then we'd quick look over to the Torres and try to see if any sunlight was reflecting on them. Fortunately, or unfortunately for us, they were covered by a cloud and inaccessible so we knew we weren't missing much. An hour or two after sunrise we decided the amount the cloud had lifted was probably it for our experience and got out from our rock hiding to take some photos. Despite the decision by mother nature to shroud this park's most iconic feature in a grey gloom, we found the lake, the towers themselves and the glacier carved bowl to be pretty magnificent. They were tall, grand, foreboding... I think the message came across. However, of all the days on our hike and of all the scenery we experienced, how could this possibly compare? It wasn't our favorite hike in the park but we were definitely glad we made it.

There are three towers. From left to right they are Torre Sur, Torre Central and Torre Norte. 

Back lower in valley we were much warmer. Also we got to see what we hiked up

Back at our campsite, we celebrated the last time we had to pack up

Still cloudy when we left so we knew we weren't missing anything

The end of the trail. The Hotel Las Torres is in the background-right.

Eli rinsing off in the glacial river. Just dipping your hair can give you a head freeze

Finally made it back to Hotel Las Torres, where the microbus takes you out to the road to meet the town bus. Inside the hotel we got some good advice:

Lavamanos = sink (wash hands) not toilet, for your information

Back waiting for the town bus, with the Torres in the background finally clear!, we celebrated with some Patagonia brand beer.

All that was left of our food- I thought we had packed too much but I was
with Eli who doubled what I purchased and in the end he was right :)

And finally my favorite picture of the Torres- from the road leading into the park. Any way that you can appreciate them is worth it. Over this beautiful valley, with a glacial lake in the foreground and some of my favorite meadow colors, was the perfect ending to our hike.