Nine days and eight nights is the longest backpacking trip I’ve ever attempted. That’s a lot of food to carry, and when you’re used to freeze-dried ready-made meals when you’re out in the woods, food-planning gets a bit hazardous, as you will see…
We had an auspicious start on Day 1 with warm, but windy weather. (Wind is unavoidable in Patagonia.) We had decided to do the full circuit instead of the more popular W-trek, as Craig had already done the W last time he was down in Patagonia. We were quickly surpassed by an acquaintance we had made at our hostel the night before, a Texan who ambitiously planned on doing the full circuit (85 miles!) in FIVE days. We wished him well, he sped on past us, and we watched him go with the firmer belief that Texans are indeed pretty crazy.
After 19km, we reached Camp Seron, which had hot showers, bathrooms with flush toilets, a sink for washing your dishes, and even dishwashing soap. To me and Craig, this all seemed like unheard of luxury. Backpacking in the States, the most you can hope for is a solar composting pit toilet that is completely open to air (which is why I never backpack without my trusty spade!). A private bathroom with a door, a sink, and soap?! What is this, GLAMPING?? We decided to forego the shower. You never smell that bad on the first day anyway.
Day 2 was another long one, 18.5km to Camp Dickson. There was a refugio there, which are basic hotels in the middle of nowhere. Theoretically, you can just hike with your clothes and toiletries, and then stay at refugios, where they’ll give you a bed, bathrooms, and meals (for an extremely high price). Craig and I, on the other hand, had to carry our tent, sleeping bags and pads, and all of our food. We didn’t meet any day-hikers on the back side (the W-trek is the “front side”), but we definitely talked about them a lot and how they were CHEATING.
When you’re carrying about 30 pounds on your back and walking 10 miles in one day, your mind tends to wander in a lot of directions. Sometimes you think about the pain you’re in (this is the last thing you should really think about), sometimes your thoughts are occupied for an hour trying to remember how a certain movie ends, and other times, you realize that the date you told your friend to meet you at a certain campsite was TOTALLY WRONG. Sonia, my friend and coworker who is also travelling around South America (for 5 months by herself–here is her blog), had planned to meet us at Campsite Grey on the night of the 11th, which we had seemed to plan out very well as our 4th night out. As I was walking along on Day 2, the realization suddenly came to me that our 4th night was actually the 10th! Crap.
But there was nothing to do but keep going on… and every now and then, Craig and I would bring it up and worry about all the possible scenarios in which we might meet Sonia or just miss her completely.
We also made some new friends at Dickson, Phoebe and Joel from Wisconsin. As Craig said about them later, “It’s pretty unusual to meet cool Americans abroad.” The Wisconsinites (as we call them) defied the norm and we felt very fortunate to meet them. As he was heating up water for the hot chocolate they were generously sharing with us, Joel insisted on getting up and showing me the trekking poles he had gotten for Phoebe (and of which I was insanely jealous, having decided renting trekking poles was out of my budget). Suddenly, the fuel canister, which had overheated from over-enthusiastic use of a windscreen, popped up and dumped boiling water exactly where Joel had been sitting. Whew! Those trekking poles saved Joel from getting some nasty burns.
We started Day 3 feeling great and we were thinking of bypassing Los Perros camp and heading straight over the John Gardner Pass, which is an intimidatingly steep climb (but not as steep as the Mailbox Peak hike–ugh!) over rocky slopes with a great possibility of gale-force winds, rain, and even snow and ice. We also thought this would give us a better chance of meeting up with Sonia. But by the time we reached Los Perros, we were kind of beat by the climb, and a park ranger told us that the Pass was experiencing higher winds and the forecast would be better in the morning. The park authorities also block the path after Los Perros camp after 2:30pm, to try to limit the danger of going over in dark conditions.
In light of all this, we decided to just set up camp at Los Perros, and wait for better weather the next day. This plan also had the added benefit of hiking over the pass with the Wisconsinites. Four people looking out for each other is better than two, right?
Los Perros camp was probably the coldest I was during that trek. For the most part, I was nearly always cold as soon as we stopped hiking, and I had tremendous fantasies about the fleece that I decided, last minute, to leave behind in California. (It’s easy to think you won’t need warmer clothes when you make packing decisions in 80-degree weather…) Craig and I would set up our tent, and then I would immediately dive in, put on all of my long underwear and any extra layers (which alas, were few!), and lay shivering in my sleeping bag for a couple of hours until it was time to cook dinner, at which point I would be warm for about 5 minutes while wolfing it down, then start slowly freezing again. It was also at Los Perros that Craig and I were coming to the sad realization that perhaps we didn’t bring enough food… a consequence of being frazzled while meal-planning and having to figure out how to eat without the luxury of the pre-made, freeze-dried meals we were used to.
Nevertheless, we woke up at 5:30am on Day 4 with the Wisconsinites to get an early start over the Pass. Thankfully, we were blessed with relatively great weather and we made it up in good time to the awe-inspiring vistas of Glacier Grey. At 17 miles long, you can’t help but be impressed by its size and beauty. They have a saying at Torres del Paine, “The Bluest Grey You’ve Ever Seen”, and we all thought it was an apt description. We lingered for as long as we could in the gusty winds until we started our even steeper descent, a slow, demoralizing pounding of the knees for 2 miles. Craig and I were also thinking this day that we would try to bypass Paso campsite at the base of the Pass, and go on straight to Grey campsite (more for trying to find Sonia), but after reaching Paso, we were just way too tired, and it had started to drizzle anyway.
We had another early start to Day 5, since Craig and I had weenied out of our ambitious plans each of the two days before. Our goal was the Paine Grande campsite, 21km away, by that night. Craig was able to get some amazing shots of the Glacier at sunrise, and the hike was much easier than the last two days, despite being twice as long.
We staggered into Paine Grande camp (a starting point for W-trekkers) and finally decided to take advantage of hot showers, since we were starting to smell. We had been hoping to intercept Sonia at some point that day, but we had failed to appreciate just how many people were going to be doing the W-trek.
Hundreds of tents, trekkers, day-hikers… it was overwhelming and we had pretty much given up hope of ever finding Sonia among the throng when, suddenly and amazingly, we found her! It was a close shave, and the only reason we spotted her was because she and her friend, Alyssa, had stopped to take out and adjust their trekking poles before trying to hike 11km in the waning daylight to Grey campsite like we had (mistakenly) planned for her to do. Trekking poles save the day once again!
They also saved our stomachs as Sonia and Alyssa brought too much food and generously shared with us. Craig and I nearly cried with joy when they even gave us a bag of Peanut M&M’s.
After the success of finding Sonia, I felt as if the rest of the trek could go to shit and I’d still be happy. Thankfully, the rest of the W flew by in increasingly warm weather. Day 6 we hiked to Italiano camp and were awed by the beautiful French Valley (and met up with the Wisconsinites again, hooray!).
Day 7 was another long day to the campsite near Hotel Torres, since the free Las Torres campsite was closed due to plumbing issues. We had to pay for this campsite with some of our hoard of US dollars, since oh, did I forget to mention? Not only were we short on food and warm clothing, but we were also short on cash, since we hadn’t figured the cost of camping would be per person versus per tent. But we spent a blissfully warm afternoon sunning ourselves and making more friends with some hardcore outdoorsy folks from the Bay Area.
Day 8 was also warm and sunny, and I felt like Pigpen from the Peanuts comic, surrounded by flies as we hiked up to the Chileno campsite. We also met the Wisconsinites there, who then accompanied us on the 18km round-trip hike up to the iconic Torres, the main attraction of the park.
Sonia also found us again at Chileno camp, and for our last night, we enjoyed some vino tinto (red wine) that Sonia had carried with her. Despite the pressing crowds and not very nice campsite, it was a great way to end our trek.
The Wongenbergs 