Day 1 – Puerto Natales to Glaciar Gray

I wanted to throw up when Steph’s alarm went off at 6:30am.  I had managed at most 3 hours of sleep until I woke up to the sound of James falling out of the top bunk at 3:30am.  It probably had something to do with the copious amounts of beer he had drunk throughout the evening while propping up his severely blistered foot on a kitchen chair.  We met the Seattle law school graduate when he arrived in our room after completing the “W”.  His first order of business was to fish out a half empty bottle of Johnny Walker Red and take a large swig out of it before offering it too me and then rushing out of the hostel, un-showered, to complete “errands”.  Two other German girls showed up shortly after to drop their bags and , just like with James, showers were not a priority but finding beer was.  I started wondering what we had signed up for if everyone was that much more eager for a drink than a shower after 4 days on the trail. It was strange to be the only two in the hostel mentally preparing ourselves for the trail as everyone else  was  recovering from it.  It might have been James who woke me  up, but it was the sound of the relentless rain pinging against the tin roof that kept me awake with my worries.

Our last night of sleep in beds before the big trek

For those wondering what The “W” is, it is a 3 to 4 night hike (depending on one’s pace and the weather) through the Torres del Paine National Park a few hours from of Puerto Natales, Chile and one of the highlights of a visit to Patagonia.  It gets its name from the shape of the trail which looks like a giant W and takes one across roughly 70 kms and through various terrains to see glaciers, river valleys and the iconic towering stones that give the park its name.  

Trekkers have the option of camping with their own gear, dragged from their home country or rented, or to stay in the Refugios which will  cater to all one’s needs.  We decided to  camp so, as the rain poured on, my mind raced about how we would manage to  walk that many kilometers with our packs, whether we had bought enough food and whether we would be warm enough at night and then Steph’s alarm was sounding and I realized there was no turning back.

Steph in front of our hostel in Puerto Natales

After eating what we could from the breakfast that Nelson,our hostel owner, had prepared for us, we gathering our gear to head to the bus station.

The bus ride to the check in point took three hours and after paying our park fees we were transferred to a catamaran which took us across Pehoe Lake to Camp Paine Grande, the Western entrance to  the trail.

Our first campsite “Paine Grande”

We set up our tent and made sandwiches as quickly as possible, but it was still past 2pm by the time we started our first leg of hiking, 11km each way to the Grey Glaciar Ranger Station, overlooking a large glacier.

a map of Torres del Paine

Luckily it was summer solstice in Patagonia and we could count on daylight until 10:30pm. We were going to need every minute of it.  Despite over a hundred people arriving on the catamaran with us we still felt like we had the trail to ourselves for most of the time.

The landscapes changed so quickly it was like walking through the Biodome in Montreal, leaving one eco-system for another in seconds.  One minute I was telling Steph how a certain section could easily be mistaken for Newfoundland and the next Steph felt as though she was walking through the forests of BC.

Patagonia or Newfoundland?

Despite being pressed for time, we couldn’t help but sit awhile in front of the glacier, which we had all to ourselves with the exception of 8 other people. We hiked back as quickly as we could, excited for a hot meal, only to discover after arriving at 9:58pm that the cooking area closed at 10pm and we were stuck eating sandwiches made from stale bread which I prepared as an Italian guy showed Steph how to properly secure the fly of our tent which had come loose in the wind.  I still woke up constantly throughout the night worrying that the fly had come off as the wind ripped again our tent.  The fly stayed down, but the wind was strong enough to permanently bend one of our tent poles.  Welcome to Patagonia…

Glaciar Gray