Torres Del Paine

We have completed our 8-day trek around Torres del Paine National Park in the southern region of Chile. They offer a couple of different hikes that are very popular that just hit the highlights of the park, but we opted to do the more difficult one called The Circuit. This trail includes the highlights of the park, and also gave us a chance to hike through the back part of the park. We made a complete circle around the small mountain system called Paine Massif. We hiked about 75 miles total, and we did it while carrying all our supplies and food. We were very lucky with the weather until the last two days. The second to last day the wind blew like I have never seen, and I grew up in Kansas!! It even blew me over once!! The last day it was really wet. We were soaked and cold!!! But the other days were absolutely beautiful!!
Just starting out on the trail! We are pretty excited!!

We found the first half of the back country hike to be quite flat. I believe this is the area that was burned by some guy that let his stove get away from him.

More flat land.

Now we are getting into some mountains. This was a lake and mountain covered in clouds by our second camp site. The clouds were just rolling over the mountain top.

This is the same mountain in the morning covered in snow. All those clouds were delivering a good amount of snow to that area.

A beautiful waterfall!

Woody the woodpecker.

One of the few ladders we had to climb on trail.

We made it to the top of the pass. This is supposed to be the hardest part of the whole trail. We found going down the mountain was much more difficult than going up it. Our knees were screaming at us going down!! We are very very fortunate to have wonderful weather the day we went through the pass. I can´t imagine doing this pass if the wind was blowing!

The view of Glaciar Grey from the top of the pass.

The back half of Glaciar Grey.

A closer picture of the huge Glaciar Grey.

The tip of Glaciar Grey from the side. As we were walking along it on the ridge we could hear it groaning and cracking. It was really neat!!!

In front of Glaciar Grey.

Nick standing in front of just a piece of ice that had broken off the glacier.

Far away picture of the glacier from the front.

Laguna Los Patos (The ducks lake) and the reflection of the clouds in the water.

Me standing in front of two huge peaks made up of two different colors of stone.

Walking across a big suspension bridge.

A river with Cerro Paine Grande in the background.

Cerro Paine Grande with the Glaciar Francés. We camped at the opening of this valley and during the night we kept hearing huge rumbles like thunder, but they do not have thunder down here. So in the morning Nick asked and the ranger said it was avalanches. As we walked up the valley the next morning we got to see avalanche after avalanche. It was really neat and loud!!

I caught just the ending of one avalanche. It looks like a waterfall, but that is snow and rocks.

Nick in front of the bi-colored peaks.

Neat little trail between the trees.

The view of the valley from the top of Valley Francés.

We woke up on day 6 to this wonderful rainbow over the mountain.

Lago Nordenskjold. It was very windy this day, and it made the lake seem more like the ocean creating small waves.

Nick rubbing his knee. We were worried for a day or so that Nick´s knee was not going to make the trip, but it seemed to adjust on the second to last day.

The only mountain in the park actually named a mountain. It is called Monte Almirante Nieto.

Funny looking clouds. It was really windy this day and the clouds looked really blurry and fake.

The view of the dry terrain coming up to the mountain range.

The towers of Torres del Paine. This is the most popular part of the park, but I think the tower at Fitz Roy was better.

The last day was the weather was the worst. It was raining, snowing, and sleating. This picture does not show how bad it is snowing, but it does show the snow accumulating.

Finally Mt. Fitz Roy

Okay we finally found faster internet. So we were in El Bolsón, Argentina during the last post. The town was really laid back and beautiful. It is known for being a hippy town, and we found this to be correct. People hung out in the park all day and into the night braiding hair, selling hand-made crafts, and smoking weed. After El Bolsón we rode the bus for 28 hours and hung out in bus stations for 14 hours to get to El Calafate. The guy at the tourist information center in Santiago told us Southern Argentina would be really boring, and he even compared it to driving through Kansas. We found this to be quite true, but this landscape gave a whole new meaning to flat and barren. It was extremely falt with a dry looking Buffalo grass. We only seen a few houses between the towns, and the distance between towns was quite far. Everyone raises sheep here, so we saw hundreds and hundreds of sheep. It was so flat we could see the glow of the next town 30 miles away, and we could make out the individual lights 15 miles away (there were not big towns either.) The good thing about it being so flat is we actually go to see some wildlife from the bus. We seen over 200 Guanacos (a relation to the llama) and probably 20 Rheas (look like a smaller ostrich). The Guanacos reminded me of antelope in Kansas because they were always in small herds just grazing calmly through the pastures and in the ditches. Eventually we rounded a hill almost to El Calafate and we seen the wonderful Andes mountains and huge glacier lakes out of no where.

El Calafate is the major spot to enter the National Glacier Park to see glaciers of course. This is kind of pricey though and since we are already running behind schedule we decided to skip it and go straight to El Chaltén to see Mt Fitz Roy.

El Chaltén is the youngest town in Argentina, founded in 1985. It doesn´t have banks or ATMS, so it takes planning financially to go there. Here we got to enter the the northern part of the national park. We arrived in El Chaltén at 10pm, and everywhere that rented sleeping bags was closed and the hostels were expensive, so we decided to camp in the free camping with no sleeping bags. This worked out rather well since we just put on layers, until about 5am when the wind started to pick up. I started hoping for the sun after awhile, unfortunately the sun doesn´t rise until around 8am. At least Nick stayed warm, and shared his warmth with me. In the morning we had an idea of where we planned to hike for the day, of course it was pretty ambitious though. The few books I read told us the 1st day we should hike to the 1st campsite and then take a day pack for a 2km hike to Fitz Roy. Well Nick and I saw the 2km and thought, ¨Well we might as will hike up that, and then go on to the 2nd campsite 7km further.¨ We didn´t want to be wusses. Well come to find out there is a reason they recommended just doing that small of a hike, and there is a reason they recommend only taking a day pack and not all of our shit. That was the hardest 2 km we ever did!! Another mistake we made was not eating since breakfast. It was already around 2:30pm when we started the ascent, but we figured it would be easy and we could eat lunch when we were done. It is only 2km right!! It turned out to be a steep, rocky climb that zig zagged back and forth up a cliff, and only got steeper as we went up. One hour later my legs were shaking, my knee was yelling at me, and all Nick could talk about was a Chinese Buffet and peanut butter. We finally made it to the top, and the view was amazing, but in the back of our minds we were just wondering how we were going to get down. At around 6:00pm we finally made it to camp and ate the best pasta, crackers, and salomi we have ever had. The 2nd day of hiking was better, but at the end we were starting to stuggle again. We just had too much weight in our bags. Nick´s bag weighed around 45lbs, and mine was around 35lbs, and we hiked about 25 miles total.

From El Chaltén we went to Puerto Natales (where we are now). It is the major town were people start their hike for Torres del Paine. We are planning to do this 8-day trek starting tomorrow.
Indian carved out of a tree trunk still in the ground in El Bolsón. This is the backside of the tree.

And this is the front side of the trunk.

The view of the mountains from the park in El Bolsón.

Nick reading his book in the park while we are waiting for our bus.

The nothingness of Patagonia. Patagonia is what they call the southern most region of South America. Does it look like Kansas to you?

This is not my picture, but these are the Rheas we saw while on the bus. We have seen them all over this region. They are hard to take a picture of though because they blend into the land so well. I never see them until it is too late.

We didn´t take this picture either, but this is the Guanacos we saw everywhere!

We did take this picture though. Herd of Guanacos on the side of the road.

Drastic change of scenery. The high peak in the middle is Fitz Roy.

Fitz Roy and Laguna Capri

Glacier Piedras Blancas

Nick looking cute in front of Fitz Roy.

Nick crossing a very dangerous bridge...just kidding.

Me looking cute and tired.

Fitz Roy in the clouds from the top of the 2 km hike of hell. Fitz Roy is 3405 meters high (approx 10215 ft).

The glacier and lake at the bottom of Fitz Roy after the hike of hell. This lake is at about 7000ft.

The view of the valley we just hiked through from the top of the hike of hell.

This is the trail up the ridge of the hike of hell. This is about the spot where we ditched our bags in the bushes because we didn´t think it was possible to carry them further. It is hard to tell, but it is steeper than it looks. The trail is the little while zig zag line right in the middle.

Nick pooped after returning from the hike of hell.

This is where we hiked on the 2nd day. It is called Cerro Torre. It is 3102 meters high.

At the end of this hike we got to see another angle of Fitz Roy. You can see the interesting difference in color between Fitz Roy and Poincenot. Poincenot has a red tint, while Fitz Roy looks like granite.

Laguna Torre and the glacier that feeds it.

Rio Fitz Roy coming out of Laguna Torre. We could not believe that small lake fed this huge river.

The view of the bay from Puerto Natales, Chile.

A cool resturant on the bay in Puerto Natales.

Nick standing in the cold and wind of Patagonia.

Pics of Fitz Roy coming soon...

This is frustrating because we have some really great pictures to post of our latest adventures, but we are having a hard time finding internet in these remote towns that would be fast enough to allow me to post the pictures in a reasonable amount of time. We are currently in Puerto Natales, Chile getting ready to do the 8-day trek around Torres del Paine, so that means we will just have more pictures to post. So be prepared to see a lot of pictures in the next week or so.
Puerto Natales is very close to the southern tip of Chile, so the weather has changed a lot since our last blog. Now it is cloudy, cold, and rainy. We have been warned we could experience the whole range of climates within a 1 hour time while trekking, so be prepared for anything. It should be fun!!!

From the Lake District, to the bay, and through the Andes

It saddens us to say this, but we did not get to climb the volcano. The weather just wouldn´t cooperate, and the guide canceled the trip due to it being too cloudy. Rocks fall from the top often, so it is important for the guide to be able to see so he knows which way we need to jump. We tried to go for two days, but after that we decided to move on. We left for a town called Valdivia, which was supposed to have a heavy German influence. When we arrived there all we found that was really German was a brewery though. It was a nice town though right on the bay, and it supposedly had the biggest earthquake in the world at the time. We left Valdivia on Sunday to start the long trip to the southern tip of Chile. To get there we have to go through Argentina though, so we got to go through the Andes again. It was really beautiful and had many, many lakes. We are now in El Bolson, Argentina getting ready to leave tonight for El Calafate. It was take 3 different buses and 28 hours, so it should be fun.
The friend we made at the hostel in Pucon. We called him Sparky, but his real name was shorty in Spanish.

Sparky had a thing for Nick´s arm. He couldn´t stop trying to hump it.

A lazy morning for these two dogs in Pucon.

In Pucón instead of pigeons they had falcons. They acted just like pigeons.

The beach in Pucon. It doesn´t look that nice here, but this picture was taken in the morning before the people start to arrive. The water was really nice and clear!! You can see by the clouds why our trip up the volcano was canceled.

Two sea lions sunbathing in Valdivia.

A female sea lion taking a dive.

A llama for the kids to pet. He is so cute with his little hat, but you can barely see it.

Just getting into the Andes heading towards Argentina.

This picture does not do this clif justice, but it is huge!

This is the car we drove through the mountains (ha ha). At the police stations they had all these wrecked cars lined up. I guess to show that speeding in the mountains is dangerous.

One of the many lakes we drove by. Once we crossed into Argentina it seemed lakes just went on for miles and miles. They were all extremely clear too, so much that the shores looked teal blue like in the Carribean.

The mountains changed right outside of a town called Bariloche. They were covered in a white mineral maybe...and no it was not snow.