November 29
Accurate translation? Probably not.
We’re based in Puerto Natales for 3 days as we head into Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. This is home to the famous W and circuit hikes. TIming and lack of planning won’t allow for us to do these hikes which is a bit of a bummer, BUT we do have the chance to do a bunch of smaller hikes in the park that allow for some amazing views.
Day 1 in the park:
Just driving down here and seeing some of the views was worth the hassle of getting here. We were able to see some incredible sights before even getting into the park.
Laguna Azul
Right at Laguna Azul we had the opportunity to hike 1500 meters up to a vantage point. Super worth it.
After the hike we drove into the park and grabbed a few more great pictures. To corroborate some of the struggles we’ve had while traveling in Patagonia, we met an Australian couple who were hitch hiking back to the entrance of the park. They had been planning their trip to hike the W since last February. For each night in the park, they had reserved a place to sleep at a refugio which is like a hostel in the park. They give you clean sheets, a place to shower and food, so you don’t have to camp or hike with all of your food on your back. If Michael and I were going to hike, this is how we would have done it. Well, Jason and Olivia got into this park this morning and took a bus to the catamaran crossing at Nordernskjold Lake. They arrived at the crossing at 9:30am. The larger of the two catamarans was not working, so they had been shuttling 20 people across at a time. The remaining group of people had just been told that the winds were too strong and they weren’t going to be taking any more people across for the day. No buses would be coming to pick them up. They were just stuck. So in a panic, the large group of people all were trying to figure out where they were going to be sleeping for the night since they weren’t going to make it to their refugios.
There was a five hour hike from the entrance of the park that Olivia and Jason were going to try to tackle and hope that the refugio would take them in despite their lack of reservations. They were incredibly grateful for the ride we gave them, even if it did mean that we had four people shoved in a tight backseat. Hopefully things turn around for them and their well planned, heavily anticipated vacation works out.
Besides blow your mind landscapes, we also saw some super cool animals. Like these:
We ended day 1 at Torres del Paine with an ambitious hike. We were pretty sure that this is “the hike” that creates some of the iconic Torres del Paine pictures. What we weren’t too sure of is what the hike entailed. The maps stated hours, but we weren’t sure exactly where it started and if those hours were round trip or one way. So Michael and I left Mom B and Dad B to explore on their own and we started hustling to the top. We didn’t start the hike until about 4:30, so we knew that we were going to have to hurry regardless of the length of the trip. The two of us were cranking uphill, at some times running, as everyone else was coming down the mountain. As we neared the end of the hike we talked with a few people who told us that we’d never make it to the end before dark. This was all the encouragement Michael needed to start running to the end. I waited at the first stopping point while Michael ran ahead. He ran half a mile to a camp site before deciding that we definitely were not going to make the end of the hike tonight. So he ran back and we hustled back down the mountain.
Here is the view from where we ended our hike. It isn’t iconic, but it is very beautiful and it was a great, tough hike to crank through.
