Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

On Sunday 8th October we took an 8am bus from El Calafate to Puerto Natales, crossing the border from Argentina to Chile in the process. Our first impressions of Puerto Natales weren't overly favourable, possibly due to the snow we encountered as we approached the town, then the heavy rain once we arrived. It had the feel of a wild west town, and being a Sunday there wasn't much open, so the place was pretty deserted. Luckily we only had a couple of hours to kill there since we booked a bus to the Torres del Paine National Park as soon as we arrived. We braved the rain to stock up on supplies at the supermarket, then hung out at the bus station while we waited for our 2:30pm departure.

We arrived at TdP in torrential rain, and checked in at the Laguna Amarga ranger station. We were lucky that we had (inadvertently) arrived on National Environment Day, meaning we didn't have to pay the 30USD park entrance. We then took a shuttle bus to our accommodation within the park. We were staying at the Torre Central refugio and had booked full-board for 4 nights. The bus dropped us off at the visitor centre above (although you could barely see it in the rain that night) and we walked the couple of minutes to the refugio.

The refugio was awesome! You stay in bunk rooms sleeping 6, with communal bathroom facilities. Nic and I were lucky enough to have our room all to ourselves for the first two nights.

Our room also had a great view of the towers, which got us excited about our walking over the next few days.

All meals were served in a communal dining room, and the food totally exceeded our expectations, especially considering we were in the wilderness of Patagonia! Dinner was a 3-course affair starting with soup, followed by a main meat and vege course (with salad and bread), then finished up with dessert. It would be absolutely amazing after a big day in the hills, but we felt slightly fraudulent having done nothing more exerting than spending a day travelling. There was a bar, but you were also allowed to bring your own alcohol with you, so we were glad that we had stocked up on a couple of bottles of malbec in Puerto Natales.

Breakfast was also good -scrambled eggs, toast, ham and cheese, cereal, coffee/tea and juice, all with another stunning view.

Our first full day was pretty chilled. The weather was pretty overcast, but at least the rain from the previous evening had stopped. We acclimatised with a nice morning walk exploring our immediate surrounds

The lunch section of our full-board is meant to be a packed lunch (sandwich, trail mix, muesli bar, chocolate bar and a piece of fruit), but when we arrived, the receptionist told us that if we were going to be around during the day, we could book in to have lunch in the dining room, which we did. It turned out to be another awesome 3-course meal (though not quite on the same scale as dinner). WAY better than a packed lunch, plus we were the only ones in the dining room apart from a couple of tables of staff having their lunch. The weather had brightened up a bit for the afternoon so we went for a three hour or so wander to walk off our lunch.

Tuesday had the best forecast of our time there, so that is when we did the main event... The walk to the base of the towers. 

This was a magic day out, one of the best days I've ever had on the hills. The scenery was just awe-inspiring. Below you can see our walking track on the left hand side, about a third of the way up the mountain.

It didn't take too long before we hit snow.

Nicola did incredibly well, considering she was only wearing a pair of trainers, whereas I had  pretty rugged, waterproof walking shoes with really good grip. The last hour or so of the walk is a gnarly steep uphill section all on snow and ice. It was super slippery and pretty precarious at times. Nonetheless, we took our time and made it to the top, where the views were well worth the effort.

We probably spent a couple of hours in total just hanging out and soaking up the views. It really was an incredible place. It is hard to get a sense of the scale of the place through these pictures, but where I am standing is approximately 900 metres above sea-level, and the tallest of the three towers is approximately 2500 metres above sea-level. We couldn't believe what a perfect day we had for this walk. I literally took hundreds of photos, so it was pretty tough to narrow down to a 'sensible' amount for this post...

It ended up being close to an 11 hour day, but I loved every last minute of it (except maybe the steep downhill trail on the slippery ice we had to endure for the first hour or so of the walk back home...). We certainly felt like we deserved our 3-course meal that evening!

The next day also ended up being an 11-hour plus day with more unbelievable scenery. We started with a shuttle back to the ranger station at Laguna Amarga, then from there we took a bus for 40 minutes or so to the Pudeto cafe, which was right on the Pehoe lake.

We chilled out here for a bit, waiting for the 11am ferry to take us across the lake to the Paine Grande refugio. It looks nice, but I swear, crossing that lake was the coldest and windiest I'd been on our whole trip! I've got 4 layers on my head in the pic below -merino hooded base-layer, woollen hat, thick merino hooded jumper, then my gore-tex shell. Even then it was barely enough... To be fair, we could have gone inside (like most of the sensible people did!) but I wanted to make the most of the view, and it was certainly invigorating!

The boat trip took about half an hour. The Paine Grande refugio was pretty flash. It was in a primo location close to the lake shore and surrounded by mountains. If I ever make it back to this part of the world it would be worth a stay for a night or two.

We had come all this way to do the trek up to the Frances lookout in the French Valley. It was always going to be pretty tight, since according to the track guide it was meant to be more than 6 hours return, and it was already close to midday, with the last boat leaving at 6pm... 

Our plan was to get to the Italiano ranger station and campground, and reassess there whether we would have time to make it up to the lookout. We set off at a fair clip, although there is always time for photos along the way.

We made it to the Italiano campground in about two-thirds of the recommended time, and chatting with the ranger there, he was confident that we could get up to the Frances look-out and back in plenty of time for our boat. We took his advice, and were very pleased that we did. The French Valley was absolutely beautiful with incredible vistas in every direction.

You could hear the constant rumbling of avalanches, and every so often you would manage to see one come crashing down the mountain. Again, to put things in perspective, that mountain is over 3000 metres above sea-level...

We did a nice little photo-shoot at the lookout, plus there was another woman up there who was happy to take some photos for us, so we managed to get some rare pics of us together.

There was a bit less pressure coming down, since we knew how long it would take us to walk back (plus we figured we could do it a bit quicker than that since it was mostly downhill). Nic did take a tumble at one stage, so, being the good friend that I am, obviously my first instinct was to record the moment!

I also took some nice shots of her.

We made it back to the boat with about half an hour to spare. Tired, and a bit cold, we decided to stay inside for the return journey, although Nicola did pop out with the camera briefly to take some pictures of the mountains looking moody and threatening.

Thursday 12th October was our last day in the park. We were taking the 2:30pm shuttle back to Laguna Amarga, and from there we were booked on a 4pm bus which would take us directly back to El Calafate. We were pleased we didn't have to go back via Puerto Natales.

We packed up and checked out of our room by 10am, then headed off for one final walk for a couple of hours on a track up behind the refugio which gave lovely views of the lake. We then headed back to the refugio for one final impressive lunch. By now we had both a favourite waiter (who did things like fill our water carafe with fresh fruit like below, then gave us wine-glasses to drink it from), and a favourite (extremely good-looking!) chef, so it was nice that they were both on duty for our last meal.

 

At Laguna Amarga we had an hour and a half to kill before our bus, so we stashed our gear in the ranger station and went for a final wander around the Torres del Paine National Park. It really is a special part of the world with some of the most stunning scenery I have ever come across.