Angie Vasquez

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Puerto Natales and Torres Del Paine




From El Calafate, I headed to Puerto Natales, Chile with an Australian couple that I had met on the Ruta 40 trip. Puerto Natales is one of the two staging cities for hiking Torres Del Paine. Here we rented camping gear and then headed out to do the famous "W" trek. Fortunately the weather was more cooperative than it was in El Chalten. The first day we hiked next to numerous floating icebergs in Lago Gray and experienced the craziest wind I've ever been in - I'm guessing consistent winds of at least 45-55 mph in some of the exposed areas. We had to stop and take the waterproof covers of our packs for fear that the wind would rip them off. After about 6 hours, we set up camp next to Gray's Glacier. The views were spectacular, and this ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trek. We spent a total of 5 days and 4 nights trekking. The scenery varied each day, from the glacier on the first day, to hiking along snow-capped mountains watching numerous avalanche's, to rushing waterfalls, and more tropical forested areas. The final day we got up early to bolder up the Rio Ascensio for a view of famous towers. The weather was perfect and as the sun rose, it lit up the towers with a warm, golden hue. The emerald-green lakes were so pristine that we could drink from them without filtering the water, and despite their popularity, the trails were kept litter-free. After 5 days we took a shuttle back for a much needed shower in Puerto Natales before heading to Punta Arenas.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home