Mirador Los Torres
The highlight of the trail is this trio of towering granite pillars. They are very impressive and change their mood at different times of the day. Here they are at dawn...
...and later in the day...
A beautiful walk up the valley with a glacier mountain on the left, a granite mountain on the right, a river running through and turquoise lakes below.
I loved this granite mountain. The pillars on the far right are the famous Torres pillars we saw up close on the other side. At its foot was a mysterious dead forest where I got to photograph a tree runner on its nest.
An impressive glacier nestled deep in the mountains with icebergs floating in the lake at its foot.
Ice and whisky anyone?
I was fascinated by the sheer size of the glacier and went ice hiking to explore up close. My first time wearing cramp ons and I loved it. Blue crevasces wherever I looked and ice that went on forever. I also tried my hand at some ice climbing. Surprisingly easy. Left pick in. Right pick in. Left foot up. Right foot up. Hug the rock and repeat. Next step, Everest!
Lakes
Lakes are the jewels of the Torres del Paine, Created by glaciers like glacier Grey, they contain the purest and best tasting water imaginable. Incredible to think we were drinking melted ice that probably froze thousands of years ago.
Other scenes along the way
Our tent cam in very handy again. Here we are eating noodles in our tent on a chilly night. We ate well for hikers though I sure did enjoy the big steak I had when I got back to civilisation. On the hike, I particularly relished my packets of Chilean condensed milk (dulce con leche). It gives you an amazing sugar high that gets you charging up the toughest peaks - great for a sugar addict like me. Vices do sometimes have virtues!
Thanks Robyn for your handy tool. An excellent Xmas present. Light weight for hiking, it came in very useful. Slices up salami like a bomb.
The weather was great but it got very chilly at night. But certainly not the nut clenching temperatures that Ally worried about in her previous email.
Our great hiking companions.
And here we are at the end of the hike. Tired. Dirty. Hungry. Happy.
New birds seen
- Upland Goose
- Andean Condor
- Crested Caracara
- Common snipe
- Green-cheeked Parakeet
- Chequered Woodpecker
- White-throated Treerunner
- Black-throated Huet Huet
- Black billed shrike-tyrant
- House wren
- Grey-hooded Sierra Finch
Ally's account
We had a brilliant time in Torres del Paine. Well first let me start by reassuring everybody that the weather was very kind to us so G´s crown jewels suffered not. Much to his relief!! For the hike we had two choices either the 120km round trip which takes about 7-10 days or what is called the W circuit which takes about 4-5 days. We decided to do the W as it had all the main highlights and we both did not fancy carrying enough food for 10 days.
On the first day we did the hike to Glacier Grey. It was quiet a day having to catch the bus then the ferry so we only got started at 1pm by which time we were rearing to go. The hike was beautiful and as we came
to the top of the ridge we saw Lake Grey with the icebergs. We made camp and then headed to the point where we could see Glacier Grey properly. G even managed to hook a piece of the iceberg from the lake
and eat it. G decided to go further to get more photos but I went back to camp to rest my feet and also to try our excellent vintage box wine.
While sipping this delight I decided to try and get descriptive with my writing and here is my humble effort. “In front of me lies the glacier like teeth jutting out between a green forested island into the lake. The ice-bergs float serenely by, pretending that their 10000 year old wouldn’t taste good in your rum and coke. The opaque grey water is gloshing against the stony shore with the enchanted stunted trees behind. The tents are snuggling beneath the moss covered trunks with their lights peeping through.
Towering above the trees rose the dark stark bare granite mountains with the snowy peaks stabling into the clouds. So with the scenery filling my soul and the weather blowing in my face I was forced to think that this beats the hell out of a day at the office.”
The next day we walked to Frances Valley about 20km and camped at the bottom, We were delighted that the American girls were there for some fun. I must say that we have really got our hiking meals sorted. Half
a salami for lunch and then the rest goes onto the pasta with the onions garlic and cheese sauce. We ate extremely well. We even managed to have risotto (although I did not have any peri peri this time). However we did have to put up with the bugs dive bombing our food – but I guess we should not complain about extra protein.
The Frances Valley view was incredible with the glacier and waterfalls on the right, the hard granite mountains on the left and the velvety shimmery hills and bright blue lakes in the valley below. In the morning we kept hearing thunder and wondered if it was going to rain. As we got up the valley we saw that the wind was blowing so hard that the waterfalls were actually just sprays of water being blown down the mountain and the thunder was the ice cracking and falling down in thunderous cascades.
At dinner (round the various gas cookers) G met a Chilean and a Portuguese and they ended up discussing how difficult it was to do business with the Finnish. If I ever doubted that we live in a global village that illusion is no more.
After chilling for two nights we decided to head to the highlight – the Torres (towers). We hiked with the girls for most of the time which was fun. Every so often we would come across a glacier river and fill our water bottles with the most delicious and fresh water we have ever had. On our way to Torres we went past a glacier lake. There was nothing to do but strip and take a dip that literally took your breath away. It was incredibly refreshing but we did get some very strange looks – perhaps it was rather strange assortment of hiking underwear.
We headed up to the camp before Torres and enquired about a meal. It was R100 for veggies and rice!! So we decided to stick with our gut plugging instant noodles with salami. It wasn´t bad considering it was our fourth night.
We hiked to the Torres which was sheer uphill for the last hour. The wind thought that you were its personal plaything buffeting you against the rocks just because it could.
I can´t describe the awesome of the Torres. I was expecting something great but not to just want to drink in the views. We sat on the scale rock with a lake in front of us. Behind which rose three huge granite towers (rising about 1km into the air). I stayed there for about 4 hours just trying to get the picture in mind forever.
While we were there we saw some climbers tents – through the binocs – on the middle tower. It must take a special kind of courage to climb those sheer granite faces and sleep up there!! I don´t even want to know about the toilet arrangements.
I left G behind to capture the sunset shots and as I went down a man looked up and saw that I was coming down fast, so he turned to his wife and said, “darling stand aside and let the gentleman past.” Clearly I need to do something about my hiking attire – but then it was the end of the 5th day.
On the hike down on our 6th day we met a Dutch couple who had the whole circuit (120km) in 6 days. Whereas we had done half in the 6 days. To me it felt like they were doing a forces march. No time to admire the surroundings, take photo’s or even take a breath.
We saw plenty of birds including condors up close which are on G´s life list. He had originally wanted to see 150 new birds in South America and he has seen 44 already he is going to revise his goal.
On the hike down we were fantasizing about what meal we would have for dinner. G wanted steak and I was happy with anything which was not pasta or salami. In the end we went to have pizza and I swear it was the most delicious pizza I have ever tasted. We decided to head out of Puerto Natales the next day to El Calafate in Argentina as we wanted to see Moreno Glacier.
1 comments:
I am so glad to see people happy!
Your photos are excelent.
I guess the photografer is a professional.
I wish I was with you.
thank you.
god bless.
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