Round the World Chelle: Weathering the W Trek

November 29, 2011

Five hundred ninety-seven kilometers is lot of distance to cover in a day by truck-bus over roads in variable conditions of drivability. But we did it to arrive at Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park where we would set up camp for the next five nights. While I wasn’t familiar with the park before reading the information in preparation for this trip, the park is supposed to be a bit of a mecca for hikers. The popular W walk involves three major walks to take in views of the Grey Glacier and Lake, the Cuernos, and the Torres del Paine, three peaks that are featured on Chile’s 1000 peso banknote. The trek gets its name by the W shape the trails make on a map.

See where the trek gets its name?

During this part of the trip, we had the option of backpacking along the trail or staying at camp where the truck was parked and doing various day hikes. While I love hiking, I prefer doing it with a minimal load on my back. Therefore, when I read that most all components of the W walk could be seen by doing various day trips instead of renting the needed equipment and then lugging all my kit on my back, I knew I would be staying at camp with the truck. Other members of the group were more ambitious. (In hindsight, it the hike doesn’t have to be as difficult as I was imagining it would be. There are refugios strategically placed along the trek where you can stay the night in a bed and buy meals, and sometimes even leave your kit for the day, allowing the walk to be “backpacked” without carrying all that much stuff. (Several in the group took advantage this.) That said, the refugios (and the food they sell) are very expensive. On the other hand, the W walk day walks weren’t as easily accessible as I had thought they would be—two trailheads were reachable only by an expensive ferry ride and the third was an hour’s drive and then a 15 minute shuttle ride away from our camp. All in all, I’m glad I opted for approaching the trek the way I did. )

We're welcome!

Gus at our campsite

The evening we arrived was spent talking to a ranger about options in the park, setting up camp, and eating dinner. I was also able to take short walk to a beautiful viewing spot—I do love 10:00 sunsets. I’m continually impressed by nature’s awe-inspiring beauty.

View from our campsite!

The ferry across to the first trailhead left at 9:00 the following morning. Backpackers and day hikers alike boarded the boat together. The W walk called for heading up the westernmost trail to views of the Grey Glacier that first day. As there were predicted 70 km per hour winds along that trail, most of the day hikers opted for going up the middle trail of the W to Valle de Frances and wait for another day when the winds were supposed to be a little less extreme to climb to see the glacier.

Trekkers on their way

About to board the ferry

Ferry ride

The hike started out nice. The trail wasn’t very steep and the weather was fine. After reaching the first camp 8 kilometers in though, things got more difficult. The trail turned to bigger rocks and boulders to climb. The weather also got colder and wetter. There were some pretty nice views of the mountains, a glacier (We saw a mini-avalanche—amazing how loud it was!), and a river. We were making good time up the mountain (One other disadvantage of the day hike was that there were only eight hours between the first ferry arriving and the last leaving, so that somewhat limited the distance you could cover.), but by the time we made it to the viewpoint we were aiming for, it was snowing and there wasn’t much of a view.

Fire bush along the way

Suspension bridges always
make me a little nervous.

First part complete.

This is the lookout spot.

Hard boiled egg lunch.

On our way back down the mountain we ran into a woman who had fallen and evidently dislocated her shoulder. There were people assisting her, but she was clearly in a lot of pain, and there didn’t seem to be an easy way for her to get down the mountain and to proper care. We continued down and talked to the ranger at the first campsite who happened to be talking to a doctor, and they headed up to help her. It was full-on raining for the last hour of the way down to camp and the wind (and the latitude?) was making it hit us almost vertically. I was happy to make it to the cafeteria of that first refugio to wait in the warmth for the ferry to arrive, and I was inwardly cheering my decision to do the day hike option, particularly as weather was predicted to be worse the following day.

Views coming down

Wind on the water

And worse it was. As we sat in Gus to stay dry after our pancake breakfast (after a lie-in (British for sleeping in J)) with the rain pounding on the windows, we decided that today was not a good day for hiking. (We had actually met up with most of the backpackers in the cafeteria before taking the ferry back the previous evening. The verdict seemed to be that the glacier-view hike they did really wasn’t worth doing in the weather they had done it in as there weren’t any views.)

Glad I'm in here and not on the mountain.

A couple in our group (Arthur and Liz—New Zealanders in their late 60s) had managed to get the last two tickets on a boat ride to see Grey Glacier for that afternoon. It was leaving from a hotel 45 minutes from camp, and as the weather was so wet, the rest of us in camp decided to go along for the ride. As the rain continued to come down we made bets on how many of the backpackers would have changed their minds about staying on the trail for four days and be at the pickup spot when Jimmy and Clare went to pick up the three girls that that planned to stay for just one night that evening.

After dropping off Arthur and Liz, I spent the afternoon journaling and chatting in front of a fire in the lobby of a five-star hotel half a mile from camp. Not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon. (The hotel was amazing, for the record. However, I don’t know that I could ever justify paying upwards of $1200 per night to stay in a place—even if everything is included, but it was nice to sit in in for a bit.) When I returned to camp, two of the six W trekkers were there—poor Adam was sick and Darren had knee problems.

Arthur and Liz gave raving reviews of the Grey Glacier cruise, and there had been some cancellations, so four of us decided to do the cruise the following day. Clare and Jimmy decided that they needed to take Adam to the hospital in the nearest town which was 90 minutes away (he’d been sick off and on the whole trip and he really didn’t look good coming back down from the mountain), so the nice guide from Kamura (another overlanding company that had been following a similar route as us) offered to help take people to their excursions. We almost missed the boat between not being able to find the people from our group who had gone horseback riding in the morning (we were supposed to pick them up on the way to the hotel to get the boat) and the Kamura truck breaking down two times en route, but we made it in the end.

Our boat's in the distance.

Stylin' in the life jacket

The boat ride to the glacier was crazy—the boat was rocking up and down, water covering the whole front window. I actually found it quite fun, but people were getting sick left and right and the poor tour guide was taking care of the clear plastic bags full of sick. Gross.

Grey glacier was nice and the boat took us up quite close to it, but I think we’d been a little spoiled in El Calafate, and the glacier wasn’t Perito Moreno. Still, it was a good time.

Grey Glacier and me

Another view

The blue was amazing!

A rainbow!

The following morning was the final day of trekking for the W-ers, and many of us were planning on climbing the final leg of the W to the views of Torres del Paine. The night before had not been without excitement we learned over breakfast. Liz managed to impale herself with a sharp branch while going out to use the restroom in the middle of the night, and poor Clare and Jimmy had to make another hospital trip in the middle of the night. Poor Liz ended up with 11 stitches! They had just gotten back from the hospital an hour before they were to take us to the base of the hike, but Jimmy managed to get up and drive us to the shuttle stop in enough time for us to start the hike as planned.

The hike was great. The weather cooperated and the day was mostly beautiful. We summited just as the clouds were clearing from the three peaks, and I was able to get some decent pictures before they were swallowed up again. We reunited with the trekkers at the bottom and enjoyed hearing about everyone’s adventures. (Have I mentioned I’m glad I didn’t try to backpack the whole thing?)