Torres del Paine -- Life on the track

The "grand circuit" around Torres del Paine National Park in Chile is often listed as one of the top hikes in the world, so we were full of expectations and trepidation -- we had high expectations for seeing something quite amazing, and were trepidatious because ¨What if the weather is bad? What if we didn´t pack enough food / clothes / duct tape for a nine-day trip?" and other such questions which plague the mind leading up to a big trip like this. Once we hit the trail, though, all of those issues melted away and it became about just that day´s hike: when are we going to eat lunch, what will camp be like, etc. The big stuff was in our favor too: We had the winds, but they lessened to almost nothing by the end of the trip; we had rain, snow and hail, but the sun was dominant and it felt like summer; the trail was crowded at times and more developed than we are used to, but we found solitude and felt lost in the immense landscape.

Torres del Paine (PIE-nay) translates into either ¨towers of light blue", which could refer to the bluish-tint of many of the glacially-fed lakes, or ¨Paine¨ was the name of an early Welsh explorer. No one seems to know. It´s not the ¨towers of pain," although it´s not hard for that association to keep popping into mind both while looking at the severity of some of the peaks and also while contemplating how many damn miles until camp!

Well, we weren´t disappointed in the trip and if there are treks even more scenic than this one somewhere in the world, I'd be surprised.

So, on to the pictures. We´ll start with some pix of ¨life on the track¨ (as trails are often called down here):


Rosemary sorts out our food as we pack. We measured exactly how much we thought we´d eat each day, but knew we had a little wiggle room because we could buy food at the refugios, if necessary. Somehow, we managed to do all this packing, measuring, sorting and stressing out and still be talking to each other at the end. Just barely. We managed to still be packing at midnight...


Getting off the shuttle van with our heavy packs and ready to go. We knew right away that we weren´t going to be alone on this hike!


On our second night, I´m already trying to dispense with the cooking and just eat right through the bag. A bad sign.



Seron was the name of our campsite on our second night. Cute place set among daisy meadows; oh, and there was also some strange dead-bull thing on the wall, but that didn´t really take away from the ambiance.

They had a scale at Camp Seron, so of course we had to know how much we were trucking around. I had about 50 pounds and Rosemary had 42 -- we were actually pretty happy with that given the length of the trip. Rosemary adds--I actually thought my pack felt lighter than this, so was quite weary to know the true weight. Note: This is not the recommended way to carry a pack.


Camp Paso: RM refuses to leave the warmth of the tent until Michael has the stove going and the hot tea waiting.


Camp Grey: About half-way through the trip, we entered the really popular part of the trail, with loads of people on shorter trips. It was a bit of a shock to go from camping with about 15 other tents around to camping in this sea of nylon.



IT REALLY DOES EXIST! We found the elusive Patagonia Tree, a native species that produces very well-made but really overpriced outdoor clothing. Rosemary was able to just pop out of the tent and pick some new fruit to wear that day!