Tuesday Nov. 20th 2012
Spent most of the day at the hostel relaxing. At 3pm, we go to a information meeting at ''Erratic Rock'', which is a tour agency (but the information meeting is free to attend). I would absolutely recommend this meeting if you are planning to be trekking in Torres del Paine national park. They provided us a many useful tips and tricks as well as information to which we would have not thought. Also gave us infos on how the different trek could be done. Everyone should definitely go to this meeting before heading to the park.
Puerto Natales
Puerto Natales
Wednesday Nov. 21st 2012
We saved this day for preparing for the treks of the next 4 days in the National Park of Torres del Paine. Grocery, missing equipment and packing as light as possible if we want to give ourselves the least trouble possible. One important trick I could give is that the rain cover of your backpack is useless because it might not stay on your bag due to the very strong winds. You will need to pack everything into garbage bags inside your backpack. This way your backpack might get wet in case of rain, but everything inside you will want to keep dry as much as possible. In the evening we go out for a big supper since we will spend the next 4 days of eating pastas and rice :)
Puerto Natales
View to the north of Puerto Natales
Thursday Nov. 22th 2012
We are finally off to the park, we take the bus at 8h30 and get at there at around 11am. From there we head into our first trail in the park that will lead us to Refugio Chileno. It takes us around 2 hours to get to there and mostly uphill. We leave our big backpacks at the refugio and keep going towards the mirador ''Las Torres''. It takes us another 1h30 to get there and it total deception ... The temperature has completely changed while getting there and it starts snowing and it gets very cloudy. We see absolutely nothing of the three towers. We turn around before getting completely to the end of the trail because there was no point. We go back to the refugio, but I'm decided to try again in the morning and try to at least have a view of the towers. Supper and in bed early at around 9pm.
(We walked approximately 14.5km on this first day of trekking)
The first trail
The walking trails are very easy to follow in the park
It was a very cloudy afternoon
And here is what we saw when we got up close to the mirador when it started snowing
Refugio Chileno
Friday Nov. 23th 2012
We get up very early at 5am to see what it looks like outside. There are a few clouds but it is much better than the day before. So we decide to leave again for the mirador ''Las Torres'', we get there and we have a great surprise and a great view on the three towers and the lake at the bottom. There are a few clouds, but we are very satisfied and very happy to have come back. Back at the refugio at 8h30, we have breakfast before leaving again at 9h30 to go to the second refugio ''Los Cuernos''. We walk for a few hours and get there at 2pm, with an intense walk without stopping much. We went a bit strong on this one, but now we have the whole afternoon to relax. We had reserved 'cabanas'' so we enjoy the afternoon and get in the spa for a while in the evening to relax even more. Supper and two glasses of wine and once again in bed very early.
(We walked approximately 19km on this second day of trekking)
The temperature seemed much better that the day before
A little cloudy, but we were able to see the towers
Wonderful fiery flowers
Los Cuernos (The Horns)
Los Cuernos
Luxury Camping :)
The waterfall right next to the cabanas
The spa, big luxury. What?
We leave ''Los Cuernos'' at 7h30 with a couple of friends that we had first met on the tour for the ''Salar de Uyuni'' (In fact we follow each other pretty much the whole time in the park). We are going to do the trek that goea in the ''French Valley'', which is the middle leg of the ''W'' trek. It takes us the whole day to do the trail and back. Since we are sleeping in the same refugio that night, we did not need to carry our big backpacks, we leave with only our day-packs and what we need for the day. We are back in ''Los Cuernos'' at 5pm. It was a long day of walking but it was worth it completely for the scenery were awesome. Supper and in bed at 8h30pm after a few glasses of wine I am completely exausted and I fall asleep in 5 minutes :)
(We walked approximately 24km on this third day of trekking)
The morning of the 3rd day
Beginning of the French Valley
Glacier in the French Valley
A little bird nicely posed for me
Sunday Nov. 25th 2012
We leave this morning from the refugio at 6h45 to head to the next refugio ''Paine Grande'' that is around 13km of walking. We get there at 11am, in advance on the time we had planned. We decide not to go up the trail that goes to ''Glacier Grey'' to go to the mirador to see the ''Icefields''. It would at another 11km, and we knew that our nect destination is El Calafate to see the ''Glacier Perito Mereno'' in Argentina. Yes we cheated a bit on the ''W', but we can't see it all sometimes. We would have got back to Puerto Natales much later or we would have had to spend another night in the park. We did good because the next day there was huge gusts of wind and a some rain and the Catamarans were canceled all day. So we take the Catamaran at 12h30 and then take the bus back to Puerto Natales and we get there at 4h30pm. We go out for a big supper and spend the evening at the hostel.
(We walked approximately 13km on this fourth and last day of trekking)
The morning of the forth day
The burned part of the park, due to an idiot who wanted to burn is toilet paper
But sometimes nature comes back to life from it's ashes like a phœnix
On the road back, picture taken from the bus
Monday Nov. 26th 2012
Very relax day spend mostly at the hostel. We went out to buy our bus tickets for the next morning to go to El Calafate (12000 pesos = 24.85$ Can.), we go to the back and to the groceries. That's about it for this day. I spend a good part of the day working on posts and uploading pictures on the internet.
No comments:
Post a Comment