Patagonia (or his Googled equivalent)When I was 9-years-old, I bought a beta fish with my allowance money and set up a small aquarium for my new little friend in my bedroom. Since this was the first pet I was allowed to name by myself, I spent a long time trying to come up with the perfect name for him. I finally decided on “Patagonia,” a place I had probably heard about in my social studies class or possibly in an issue of National Geographic lying around the house. I didn’t actually know anything about Patagonia – I’m not even sure I knew it was in South America – but the word “Patagonia” conjured up all kinds of romantic images of faraway exotic places in my little third-grader brain, and that was reason enough to name a fish for me.
Twenty-four years later, I finally got to see the place that had inspired the name of my wispy little fish friend. Partly because of my childhood fascination with Patagonia and, more recently, because of the stories our friends Tanya & Eric and Courtney & Patrick and had told us about their adventures there, Patagonia was one of the few places that Dustin and I had resolved we had to see on this trip. When Dustin’s appendicitis struck in Spain and we seriously considered coming home early, more than anything it was the prospect of missing out on Patagonia that spurred us to keep going.
Not surprisingly, with all of these seemingly unfulfillable expectations of grandeur and adventure, the potential for disappointment in the real Patagonia was pretty high. Our first stop in the stunning Lake District had not disappointed, but it had felt a little bit tame – more Breckenridge than el fin del mundo. El Chaltén, on the other hand, had much more of the feeling of rugged wildness we had hoped to find in Patagonia, but our brief three-day stay there had only whetted our appetites. We left El Chaltén hoping that the next section of our Patagonian travels – in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park – would give us a Patagonia that matched the larger-than-life one that lived in our imaginations and taunted us throughout our year on the road.
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Patagonia’s big hot fudge sundaeAs we drove toward the park from Puerto Natales with our small tour group, we caught our first glimpse of the tremendous jagged, black-and-white mountain-island that towers over the surrounding Patagonian plains like a kind of monolithic hot fudge sundae. I had expected Torres del Paine to be part of a larger range of mountains in the same way that Yosemite is surrounded by the Sierras, but at least at first glimpse, the Torres massif appeared to be completely autonomous – a kind of towering geologic freak show surrounded by endless expanses of the desolate Patagonian steppe. If Australia’s Uluru has a South American brother, it must be this rocky behemoth that stands lonely and wind-beaten on the Patagonian plains.
We spent the next week walking all over the national park, exploring its dramatic, glacier-carved valleys, hiking the world-famous “W” trail, and climbing up to the jagged towers (“torres”) that give the park its name. It’s the kind of place that defies easy description, so perhaps the best way to come at it is as a sum of its many unforgettable parts.
The Land Before Time
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Another view of the horns, with Lago Pehoé in the foregroundOur guides liked to describe the terrain we were hiking on as “Patagonian flat.” It didn’t take long on the trail to realize that this euphemism was a clever way of masking the fact that no place in Torres is flat. The trails go up and down, up and down – some literally straight up a mountain (or at least, that’s how the final 45 minute climb up the moraine to the towers felt). The crazy thing, though, is that none of these jagged mountains is very high elevation-wise. The tallest peak in Torres (Cerro Paine Grande) is around 10,000 feet above sea level, and nobody goes up there. Most hikers in Torres spend their days hiking on trails at around 3,000 ft, which means the usual annoyances of high-elevation mountain hiking (headaches, shortness of breath, feeling like you’re going to barf) are total non-issues. Is there anywhere else in the world where you get access to this kind of mountain splendor with so little effort required of the lungs?
Besides the towers themselves, probably the most iconic feature in the national park are the cuernos (“horns”) – the jagged, black-and-white peaks that first caught my eye as we approached on our first day. Their perfectly defined layers of whitish-gray granite and dark shadowy sedimentary rock are stark reminders of the geologic upheavals that took place there long before any human eyes encountered them.
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This particular chunk of ice was three stories tall.But lest you feel too disconnected from the long-distant events of the geologic past, Torres provides a front-row seat to a landscape that is literally changing before your eyes. Although you can’t see it from the most popular trails in the park, lurking quietly behind the Paine massif is the second-largest extra-polar ice field in the world. Among other things, the Southern Patagonia Ice Field is responsible for the incredibly changeable (and insanely windy) weather in the park, as well as the stunning Grey Glacier, whose terminal wall slinks into Grey Lake at the northwestern edge the “W” trail. We got fairly close to the glacier in a boat (“too close” according to one of our guides, who feared a calving iceberg could capsize our boat!), and we stared in awe at the turquoises and aquas and azures of the highly compressed ice. Sadly, as with so many of the other glaciers we encountered on our trip, the Grey Glacier is receding at a dramatic rate: in this case, more than 1,000 feet per year. It was, quite literally, dying before our eyes.
Blowin’ in the Wind
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EcoCamp during a kinder, gentler period of weatherWe’d been warned that the weather in Torres doesn’t like to play by the rules, and our first night there confirmed it. When we arrived in early evening, the landscape could not have been more serene. A warm summer twilight cast gentle shadows on the outlying pastures where the sheep were grazing peacefully. The massif to the west looked majestic and regal, a kind of benign big brother watching over all of the life below. Fast forward a few hours, though, and we were in a brave new world. The wind picked up and blasted the canvas walls of our tent cabin. (I’ve never used the word “buffeted” as often as I did during our week in Torres.) The temperature dropped precipitously and snow began to fall, as if to say “Summer? I don’t think so.” We managed to stay warm under what felt like 60 pounds of blankets, but nothing could keep the sound of the tempestuous wind out of our ears that night. Even with ear plugs, we found it almost impossible to sleep.
;)
First light on the towersAnd then, dawn arrived and calm and serenity descended again. Dustin got up and managed to catch the sun’s first rays as they hit the towers. If there was any evidence in the early morning solitude of the violence we’d heard raging outside our cabin the night before, he didn’t see it. This pattern was repeated again and again throughout our week in Torres – something the locals refer to as “four seasons in one day.” Even though we were only doing day hikes, we stuffed our backpacks to the brim on every hike with multiple layers of clothing, hats, and rain gear to prepare for the worst. And on almost every hike, we used all of our extra gear at some point. I should note that we were fairly lucky because we had lots of intermittent sunshine during our week in Torres, but that sunshine was almost always accompanied by gale-force winds. The wind blasted us the entire day of our longest day on the trail – an 8-hour hike up (and down) the French Valley – and included gusts of 70 mph that nearly knocked me over at one point. The wind in Torres was ubiquitous and unceasing, a constant reminder of how little control we mere mortals had in this wild landscape.
;)
We are not alone.The wind was also responsible for another unique feature: the strange, UFO-like lenticular clouds that spread out high in the blue skies overhead. I’ve seen these kinds of clouds before in windy locations, but never in such profusion and never in such startlingly beautiful and dramatic shapes. As with so many of the other features of Torres, these bizarre, vaporous spaceships added to the otherworldliness of the park and reinforced the sensation that we were in a mysterious, magical place.
Water, Water Everywhere and Many Drops to Drink
Hiking in different parts of the world throughout our yearlong trip has shown us the best and unfortunately the worst of hiking trails. New Zealand’s trails were incredibly clean – I don’t think we saw a single piece of trash during the entire month of hiking we did there. At the “worst” end of the spectrum were places like Nepal, where the trails outside of Kathmandu and the foothills of the Himalaya are were literally covered in plastic bags, gum wrappers, and the other ugly detritus of humanity. Hiking up Kilimanjaro wasn’t much better – while the trails themselves were mostly free from litter, a slight detour behind the nearest rock inevitably revealed a stinking, toilet-paper-laden makeshift outdoor latrine.
;)
We weren’t sure where Torres would fall on this spectrum, especially since we’d seen so many plastic bags lining country roads in both Chile and Argentina. But incredibly, not only were the trails in Torres pristine, but this was the first place I’ve ever hiked anywhere where you can literally place your water bottle into a stream and drink it right away. No filtering, no iodine tablets – just crystal clear, ice-cold glacier water straight into your mouth. The first couple of times I did this, it felt reckless and rebellious… like I was consciously trying to break the rules and tempt the giardia fates. But after awhile, I started to wonder how we ever tolerated anything other than fresh stream water going straight into our water bottles on hikes. It was so efficient, both for time (just fill ‘er up!) and weight (no need to carry much with you since you could refill at the next stream). And it was DELICIOUS. I don’t know how many places there are in the world where you can still drink water like this, but I imagine they, like the glaciers, are diminishing rapidly. We feel fortunate to have found one of the few remaining ones.
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Glacier-fed Lago NordenskjöldThe other striking thing about the water in Torres is the palette of blues it encompasses. Paine (“PIE-nee”) literally means “blue” in an ancient local dialect, and the lakes and rivers surrounding the massif are vivid reminders why that color would become the namesake for the entire park. The spring and rain-fed lakes are a deep sapphire blue that almost fades into the landscape, while the glacier-fed lakes beg for attention with their powder blues. These robin-egg blue bodies of water seem too blue to be true… too beautiful for an environment that is already marked by so much natural splendor. And not surprisingly, they are COLD – the average temperature is 35 degrees, which means that if you happen to fall out of your glacier-viewing boat, you have about 5 minutes to get out of the water before you turn into a dead popsicle. (Thus, our guide’s understandable concern about calving glaciers and capsizing boats.)
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A misty lake creature moves gracefully across the waterWhen the two defining elements of Torres del Paine – water and wind – meet, they combine to form strange creatures that dance across the surfaces of the lakes. These transient mists sweep from one edge of the lake to the other, morphing and changing along the way until they encounter land again and disappear as quickly as they appeared. Another otherworldly creation in this strange, otherworldly land.
EcoCamp-ing
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The approach to EcoCamp involved crossing a teeny tiny bridge. We weren’t even allowed to stay on the bus while it crossed!In case it’s not already ridiculously evident, we kind of fell in love with Torres del Paine. In a year already filled to the brim with amazing places and incredible sights, Torres, like Bhutan and New Zealand before it and the Galapagos Islands after it, somehow managed to set itself apart and make the shortlist of our most favorite places in the world. In addition to all of the reasons described above, there was one other aspect of our time in Torres that assured our long-term infatuation with it: EcoCamp. First, we have to give a major shout-out to the woman who helped to organize this portion of our Patagonian travels – Pam Bryan at Off the Beaten Path – because without Pam, I’m pretty certain we never would have found EcoCamp. And that’s because EcoCamp doesn’t want to be found. Adopting the low-impact, self-sustaining gospel that so many other “green” travel companies preach but never truly practice, EcoCamp is a blip on the radar that can hardly be found in the landscape even when you know to look for it. The entire camp is made up of geodesic canvas domes inspired by the nomadic shelters of the early hunters and gatherers who first called Torres home. EcoCamp harnesses solar power to offset its energy needs and will soon be able to add wind power (the ultimate renewable resource in a place like Torres) to its list of energy sources. With renewable energy, minimal footprint buildings and additional low-impact measures like compostable toilets, EcoCamp is entirely “carbon-free.”
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The perfect spot to relax after a long day on the trailBut as conscience-comforting as all of that was for two tree-hugging Left Coasters, EcoCamp is also just a super fun place to spend a week. The two “core” domes at the heart of EcoCamp provide a great place for hanging out, socializing, and swapping tales from the trail with other EcoCampers over happy hour pisco sours. When the wind dies down, everyone hangs out on the big deck outside that literally lies in the shadow of the famous torres, waiting for a sunset that never seems to come (on clear nights there was light in the sky until after midnight while we were there). Breakfast and dinner are communal and are served in the core domes, and after breakfast each morning, you sidle up to the sandwich-making station, where you can make as many sandwiches as you think your calorie-starved body will need on the trail that day. Then at the end of each day, after finishing the delicious dinner that night, everyone retires to the lounge dome, where cold beers and lazy board games provide the perfect respite for exhausted bodies and happy souls.
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Two EcoCampers take in the midnight sunsetWhile as many as 50 people can stay at EcoCamp at any given time, everyone who stays there is part of a smaller group that’s determined by the level of activity each hiker wants and how much time they plan to stay in the park. Our group had nine hikers in it from five different countries, and we were led up and down trails at a breakneck pace by our two awesome (and seemingly tireless) guides Jose and Juan. Our group spent one night in one of the official park “refugios” (more like a wilderness hotel) on the trail, but the rest of our seven nights in Torres were spent quite happily in our cozy dome at EcoCamp after we finished our long day-hikes each day. The upside of this system was that we had a warm bed and hot meal every night and we didn’t have to carry heavy backpacks on the trail; the downside was that we had to hike out-and-back each day (rather than through-hiking from one refugio or camp to the next), which meant we essentially hiked the “W” twice. Not a bad gig all things considered, but it did make for really long (6-8 hours) days on trail.
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Keiko was pretty shy but her toes definitely weren’t. :)Maybe it was the self-selecting nature of the folks who choose to stay at EcoCamp (as opposed to the fancy-schmancy five-star hotels in the park), or maybe it was the effect of the incredible landscape we were experiencing together, but we met some of the nicest people of our entire trip at EcoCamp. Our guides Jose and Juan regaled us with stories of crazy rescues on the trail (apparently Dutch “Go Go” pills are essential) and their INSANE plan to run the entire 63-mile park circuit on their next three days off; Remco from Holland joined Dustin in a parkour-style dash down the rocky moraine from the towers as they chased Jose at an entirely unsafe speed (I later found the three of them giggling like school boys at the bottom); tiny Keiko from Japan hiked at her own pace (even though we worried about her blowing off the mountain) and bashfully showed off her self-painted international toes at happy hour one night; American Ann was trying to keep up with her two 6’5” college-age triathlete sons on the trail everyday and seemed to be doing a pretty good job of it; and British Kate and James swapped tales of travel adventures with us over drinks every night and tried very hard to pretend like James wasn’t the spy we thought he was. (It turns out he’s not quite a spy, but we were right in not buying his “civil servent desk job” story. :) As luck would have it, Kate and James ended up in Buenos Aires over Christmas while we were there, and they joined us for Christmas eve dinner at our rented apartment and another dinner out a few days later. We’re trying to lure them to California for a visit this year, and if their impressive international travel record is any indicator, there’s a good chance they’ll come.
No Sound but the Wind
We’ve posted many more photos from our week in Torres del Paine on our Chile photo album page. Looking back at all of those pictures, I still can’t believe we were actually there; it was such a magical place for both of us. Since I’m not sure how to conclude this post about a place that captured my imagination as a child and knocked me over as an adult, I think I’ll just let the man who literally wrote the book on Patagonia do it for me…
I climbed a path and from the top, looked up-stream towards Chile. I could see the river, glinting and sliding through the bone-white cliffs with strips of emerald cultivation either side. Away from the cliffs was the desert. There was no sound but the wind, whirring through thorns and whistling through dead grass, and no other sign of life but a hawk, and a black beetle easing over white stones.
– Bruce Chatwin (In Patagonia)