Patagonia on (aching) Foot

As you may have surmised from my title my trip in Patagonia was not without pain. It’s amazing what adding 30 lbs in a backpack can do to your feet. So not fun. Interestingly sore muscles can be forgotten once they wake up and the movement of the next day starts, but sore feet, they remind you of them with every single step.

I learned this on Day One, with four hours of mostly flat walking it was our shortest and easiest day. And yet, Chantal and I arrived at our first campsite so tired that after taking off our boots and pitching our tent we immediately crawled into our sleeping bags and took half hour naps. If this is what four hours felt like, what would the next day of six feel like? Or two days after that, which included an elevation gain through a mountain pass and what the map said was 11 hours of walking to reach our camp. Well those were problems for future Kelsey and future Chantal. Currently we only had to focus on who was going to win our cribbage game, which freeze dried meal we were cooking for dinner, and who’s box of wine we were going to drink first in order to reduce our load.

In order to arrive at camp on Day One we first flew from Santiago to Puerto Natales, a three hour flight that hugged the Andes the entire way. Stunning. We quickly realized how underpopulated the area was as there was one runway, and we were the only plane, walking down stairs and onto the tarmac to wait for our bags at the one baggage claim. Further proof, our flight number that day was LATAM 1, our return ten days later LATAM 2. The air felt fresh, clean, the temperature 20 degrees colder than the 85 we left in Santiago, the famous Patagonian wind greeting us immediately. For those of you Oregonians out there, this part did remind me of the coast, but the mountains and lakes inland were a whole different breed.

I immediately loved Puerto Natales, here was a town with outdoor shops next to surprisingly trendy Gelaterias, hostels next to gear rental places, and makeupless people walking around in yoga pants and rain jackets (okay, so a lot of things reminded me of the PNW). Our hostel was warm and inviting, with three hostel dogs we quickly made friends with (if you think your dog is spoiled, imagine three dogs sharing the loves and cuddles of 25 new people daily). We had three days to prepare for our trek, including renting gear, buying food, and carb loading over surprisingly delicious pizza with new friends. While the other hostels we stayed in had interesting people who were easy to make friends with, this one had an additional layer. Everyone was here to hike in Torres del Paine, there was no other reason to be there. So we quickly felt kinship with all of the other crazy people who had flown themselves to the bottom of the world to take a long walk in the rain.

After our few days of prep we were up early to catch the 7:15 bus to the park. Arriving around 9:00 we then took an additional shuttle, showed all of our reservations and paperwork and were turned loose in the mediocre forests of Patagonia? Okay, our first day was not impressive, we walked through muddy fields, up slightly rolling hills and through trees that can’t hold a candle to the ones we had grown to love on our Seattle hikes. But the sun was shining, the excitement of a new adventure gave us energy, and the mountains were calling. Our trek was an 80 mile loop around the base of a set of mountain peaks called (fittingly) Torres Del Paine. They are strangely jagged and thin, three sharp blades piercing up into the sky. They would disappear and reappear (along with countless other peaks) over the next eight days as we made our way around the trek.

Day Two dawned overcast (there was the Patagonia we had been promised) but remained mild, we had only a few sprinkles during our 6 hour walk. This day felt like a walk through Middle Earth (to be confirmed with pending New Zealand adventures!), we walked first along a valley floor filled with yellow grasses, looking up an rolling green and black foothills as a turquoise blue river wiggled its way across the valley. We climbed a hill, ending up on a ridge that parallelled two stunning turquoise lakes, more mountains appearing now in the sky. It was a beautiful walk, culminating in one of the most picturesque views of the trip as we turned a corner and could see down to our campsite for the night in the middle of a vast lake with 180 degree mountain views, a glacier spilling out of two of the more distant peaks. Despite the beauty, Day Two resulted in two throbbing feet and another nap (although this time in a dorm which we very much welcomed) before we could be social.

Day Three was short, only four hours. After the exhaustion of the previous few days it was nice to have an ‘easy’ day that actually felt easy. The day took us through more forests and provided more mountain views, but the best view of the day was found at the end of a walk where we were surprised to see a glacier pouring down into a perfectly round aqua lake. I should mention at this point the friends we made along the way. One of the best parts of the experience was the little family we formed over the course of the week. The nature of the trek makes it so that you camp with the same people every night, occasionally running into them on the trail, but always cooking and eating at the same time at night. The stranger you say ‘hi’ to on the first day becomes a friend by the third day and by the last day you are nearly as proud of them for completing the trip as you are of yourself.

Day Four was the big one… The day I’d been most worried about at the offset. It involved climbing a mountain pass, reaching the highest elevation we would cross in the park. Not only that, we were skipping a campsite on the other side, so we would have to do two days of hiking in only one. Our map said it would take us 11 hours, and we’d been pretty on pace with the map for the first three days. On Day Two we’d made fast friends with two American girls from Colorado and decided to do the pass together. I was happy for the additional moral support on what we thought would be the most difficult day (it turned out it was not, but we’ll get to that part later). When hiking a long day means and early start, we were up at 4am to get ready and pack our tent. It was pitch dark and raining… Who thought this was a good idea again? We hit the trail at 5:30, headlamps on to see where we were walking. It rained steadily through the first hour, the trail mucky and muddy, I tried to avoid puddles but ended up with mud up to my ankles on two occasions. If this was how the day was starting how would it end? After an hour we made it out of the woods and onto a rocky hillside, the wind picked up and it started to snow. Okay, great. We were about to cross a mountain pass in a blizzard. But we just kept walking up, following my friend Alex as she made up the path as she went, the snow covering the rocks and any chance we had of following where we were supposed to go. We constantly re-adjusted as we looked for the orange trail markers that guided us up the mountain. Around 6:45 I realized where we were. The dawn was not quite breaking, but instead of total darkness we could see the outlines of mountains starting to appear all around us. It was beautiful, a reminder of why we were there. About this time the snow stopped, and I began to feel much better about the whole situation. Each step brought more clarity of the stunning scenery around us, reminding me how lucky I was to be there. It was more remote and more isolated from other humans than I’d ever been in the mountains. That probably should have scared me, but instead it just left me in awe. It took us three and a half hours to make it to the top of the pass, the wind fighting us the whole way, whipping down the mountain so strongly there were moments where we had to crouch down and stabilize ourselves to not get blown over. As we crossed the summit the wind only intensified, the path less rocky but everything felt colder. I was used to getting to the top of a mountain and celebrating the climb, but it was so windy at the top we couldn’t stop for more than a few minutes before we were freezing. It took another half hour going down before we made it into the tree line and had some relief from the cold and the wind. And that is where we first saw Glacier Grey. It was massive. It stretched as far as you could see across the valley below us, the jagged edges of the ice making it look like a white sea. We could just make out cravasses of deep, dark blue, that dug themselves into the ice. We had two more hours down to the next camp. They felt like relief to me, we’d accomplished the hardest part. Now it was just enduring the distance. When we reached the camp we took a much needed rest, heating up water to make tea and snacking on Nutella and Tortilla wrap ups. As we sat for an hour more of our friends began to arrive. We were definitely not the fastest, the only reason we’d made it first was our early start time, most others choosing to wait until it was light to begin walking. This made us feel like total bad asses, to be the first people to cross the pass that day. Our friends had followed our footsteps in the snow up the mountain. The rest of the day was marked by beautiful view after beautiful view of the Glacier as we wound ourselves down the mountain. There were three suspension bridges and one fairly exposed cliff walk that I did not enjoy given my fear of heights but even then I appreciated the vistas in concept, if not in actuality. The last two kilometers of the day were long, while flat and on an easy dirt path the length of the day was catching up to me. Around each bend I hoped desperately to see camp and it felt like I’d walked around 45 or so before that was finally the case. By this point in the day we were no longer walking together, we’d all settled into our own pace, just trying to get to camp as fast as each of us could. Finally I saw tents through the trees! I made my way to the lodge to check in and promptly shed my backpack. Chantal arrived shortly afterwards, and we toasted with our last box of wine. Arriving in Camp Grey was like reemerging into civilization. Instead of small camp shelters and out buildings that had accompanied our other campsites there was an entire lodge, hot showers, and a full bar. After our first shower in four days we joined our Brazilian, Belgian, and American friends for a few bottles of wine inside the cozy lodge to celebrate our victory of completing the day. I can tell you, I slept well that night.

Day Five brought our first day on the ‘W’. After the solitude of the first four days on the trail it felt crowded as we passed new people who were not part of our ‘O’ family. It was another short day, only three or four hours between camps. Because of this Chantal and I decided to go kayaking in the morning, taking the opportunity to see the glacier up close from the water. It was amazing, the chunks of ice so blue, you could see the lines where the water was slowly melting them. We could hear the crack as ice on the glacier broke, continuing it’s slow progression down the mountain, it sounded like thunder. After getting off the water for the day we began our hike. It wasn’t too taxing, this time providing views of the lake we’d kayaked on earlier in the day with the glacier getting smaller and smaller in the distance every time we paused to turn around. We were excited to reach camp that day because for the first time on our trek we were going to eat a hot meal that didn’t come out of a bag. We had splurged on dinner at the lodge. With all the activity we’d been doing our appetites were huge and the food tasted amazing, we barely spoke as we cleaned our plates.

While we didn’t know it when we set out in the morning Day Six would prove to be the most challenging day of our time on the trail. It began with a two hour walk over mostly flat ground to the base of a hill which we would then climb in order to see the view before retreating back down the same path. The good news was that for the first time we could shed our heavy packs, leaving them at the base and picking them up when we returned. The first part went smoothly, but as we began up the hill the rain started, and with it the fog. We arrived at a viewpoint and couldn’t see more than halfway up the mountains, with no stunning view for a pay off our walk in the rain didn’t seem worth it. But I wasn’t going to be the first person to say it. So we continued up, gaining enough elevation that the rain turned to snow, delicately covering the green leaves on the trees. Still we could see nothing but fog, still we forged on. After about three hours we reached the top, a collection of rocks where the amazing view was supposed to be. There were a few people up there, eating their lunches as they took a rest. We did the same and right before our eyes the clouds began to clear. First from one side of the valley, and then from the other, revealing the magnificent peaks that we had walked all this way to see. By the time we began walking down it was obvious why this valley was the highlight of many people’s trips, it was nearly surrounded in snow capped peaks. We never got pure blue sky, but at least we had seen what hid behind the clouds. On our walk down we realized how beautiful the hike up would have been on a clear day, with vista after vista revealing different angles of the mountains. It took five hours round trip to make the journey. We picked up our packs again and began the last part of our day. We’d up until that point in the day with our two friends from Colorado, but we were staying at different campsites that night. After an easy half hour walk they reached theirs. But Chantal and I had to push on another 2.5 hours before we could rest. After the seven hours of walking we’d already done that day I didn’t want to walk another ten minutes, let alone 2.5 hours. But there was nothing to be done, we couldn’t just stay on the path. The next few hours was a pure battle of willpower. With each step my feet throbbed, my pack felt heavier, my mind more bored. The time passed slowly, each minute lasting at least twice as long as it should have. Finally, to get us through the last final push Chantal started belting out Disney songs (which she knew every word to from start to finish). I appreciated the distraction. She appreciated that I did not join her in the singing. As she finished her second rendition of ‘I Just Can’t Wait to be King’ we walked into camp so tired we could barely think straight. Literally, as we checked in with the guy managing the campsite we were so tired we couldn’t even listen to what he was saying, needing to be asked the same question multiple times before providing the (simple) answer to his questions. But we’d made it! We split a bottle of wine that night, not having enough energy to talk to each other, but enjoying the cozy atmosphere and a great view of yet another lake.

I was prepared for Day Seven to be terrible, after our previous walk I wanted to prepare myself for the worst. We’d also had a challenging night of sleep, our tent was pitched in an area exposed to the wind, I heard the tent flapping all night, feeling like I hadn’t slept at all as the sun came up. The day’s hike consisted of what the map promised would be 6.5 hours of walking, first across a field and then up a steep hill to our camp. The day was sunny, hot even. My feet hurt from the first step. But there was a sense that our journey was coming to a close. Tomorrow we’d be making our final walk and then leaving the park. Tomorrow night we’d be back in town, eating real food, sleeping in a real bed again. So instead of dreading each step I was able to appreciate them, taking the time to remember the best parts of the trip while I was still on it. It was also the first day we were ahead of schedule, our walk talking only 5 hours from start to finish. And even better this was the second night we had booked in a dorm, so no more setting up tents or sleeping on the ground! We devoured grilled cheese sandwiches and went to bed early. The next morning would be another early start, we’d be climbing another peak in the dark in order to watch the sun rise over the towers.

Day Eight began at 4:30, we hit the mountain at 5:00 with head lamps to light the way. This time we were not alone on the trail, the sunrise hike was ‘the thing to do’ and seemingly everyone else was on their way to see it as well. It was not an easy path to follow in the dark, we had to constantly look for trail markers to avoid losing our way. And as the sky began to lighten we worried we were running out of time to make it to the top. There was a slim margin, if you missed sunrise you missed the magic. But we made it with ten minutes to spare. I had assumed we’d be watching the sun rise behind the towers, but it turns out the sun rose across from the peaks, spilling it’s red rays onto the three thin, jagged towers. The intensity of the color on the rock face was unlike anything I’ve ever seen in nature. It was a red/orange so intense it almost looked like it glowed in the dark, the color looked artificial, but I was here seeing it with my own eyes. And almost as quickly as it had started, it ended. The sun rose a bit higher in the sky, the rays no longer at the right angle to hit the rock, we watched as it moved across and off of the towers and then it was gone completely. It was a perfect experience to cap off our trip, and we were so lucky to have seen it. More days than not the sky is too cloudy and overcast to see the red glow, but just as the clouds had cleared for us the day we walked up the valley, Patagonia had come through for us again. The rest of the day was the slow walk down, the excitement over, all the remained was to pick up our packs again and head for the bottom to catch the bus back to town. Later, some of my friends told me this was the hardest part of their trip, the last push. But I didn’t experience it that way. With all the pressure off I found myself profoundly appreciative of the journey I was so near to completing. I was able to ignore my feet and heavy bag and enjoy another sunny day on the trail. That is until the last 2 kilometers, at which point both Chantal and I were about ready to start singing Disney songs again just to get ourselves through. Luckily it wasn’t necessary, eventually we made our way to the buses, out of the park, back to town, and to our hostel.

We spent our last night in Patagonia eating Empanadas and drinking beer with all of the friends we’d met along the way, still amazed we’d actually done it.