Adventurer Part 5: A Promise to Return

This is a guest column written by my daughter. She just wanted to write one blog, but we’ve morphed it into a series that we alternately write. Two people, two perspectives, narrated in acts, like a play’s script, describing an epic journey that we took as a family to the Torres.

By: Ishani Ghosh.
February 21, 2020

If you read the first four posts, you know the story so far. If you jumped into Part 5 directly, then here’s the preamble: Our family: Baba (my Dad), Mumma (Mom), Shubhangi (younger sister) and I (Ishani) had embarked on a 6 day trek across 44 miles of summertime (December in the Southern Hemisphere) Patagonia in the windswept Torres Del Paine National park. Our plans went somewhat awry on Day 4 (expectedly the hardest day) resulting in us not being able to complete our plans as planned. Post 1, 2 recounted the start and the finish. Post 3 did a play by play for the fateful Day 4. Post 4 covered our Journey till the end of Day 3. This recounts our experience on the final day of the hike.

We knew Torres had beaten us. We wouldn’t be getting to Grey on Day 4.

Paso to Grey: Winning back our sense of self

At Paso we woke up early (it was about 3:30 a.m). It was still raining. In fact the roof of the dome tent that we had been housed in (without reservations, that was the only place at Camp Paso for us to find shelter), had leaks through which the water seeped in all night. We were too tired to care and had slept on the insulation mats using them as both pads and covers. When we woke up these were damp, musty and wet at the edges. The wind howled, whipping the plastic flaps that covered the dome entrance. We had slept for 11 hours and could have probably slept for a couple of more, but the wet mats had managed to penetrate our dreamless slumber to wake us up.

The night before we had crashed, not caring about time, place and grateful to have some cushioning between us and the wooden planks, a covering over our heads. The morning bought the realization that our plans to see the Torres Del Paine (Towers of Paine) might have to be shelved. Instead of using Day 5 to make our way back to Torres Central, we would now need to use that day to figure out an exit through the park. The closest exit point was by a ferry at Grey about 5 miles away.

At least our bodies had recovered and that gave our spirit some lift as we started off, not caring to light the stove to whip up any kind of breakfast. The goal was to see if we could hit Grey in time to catch a ferry that could salvage our Day 6 plans.

We started our trek by 4:30 a.m. hoping to cover the 5 miles in 5 hours. Dawn breaks early in the Patagonian summer and we had full daylight before 5 a.m. The trail here was better maintained, because the O circuit had started to merge onto the W. While the W terminated at Grey, people staying there would often do a day-hike up the trail to Paso to get the more scenic views of Glacier Grey. Along the way were also 3 hanging bridges. Strung on steel cables, these bridges were a highlight that Baba and I were looking forward to. Shubhi was indifferent and I knew Mumma was dreading those crossings. A couple of miles into the trail we encountered the first bridge. It lay over a deep gorge – 200? ft. deep with a raging river running at the bottom that emptied into Lago Grey. Walking the span is surreal. On one side there is a steep mountain that has a gash down its face, that a river comes crashing down and on the other the open expanse of Glacier Grey meeting Lago Grey. In the clash of water (Lago Grey) and ice (Glacier Grey), from that vantage point of the bridge it looks like the ice is winning, but as we learnt later, like most major glaciers across the Earth, the warming Earth is handicapping the ice. Unfortunately, Glacier Grey is losing the fight to Lago Grey.

After crossing the 3 bridges, we start seeing other humans again. This time not backpackers, but day trippers who are coming up from Refugio Grey. As a side note: the O is one way, till it meets the W. The W can be done any way one chooses.

The fact that we are seeing people immediately cheers us up. We smell, are the very image of what might be charitably called of “poor countenance” but a young American woman asks us to take a picture of her with Grey in the background. It is a relief to have human interaction and we happily oblige, as does she taking a picture of our family. After the past 24 hours, this is the first time we are all broadly smiling – though the tired face muscles might bely that in the picture.

There are still a few surprises that the circuit throws our way. A particularly difficult climb followed by a rock face scramble. But the two way traffic from Grey has picked up and we see an older Grandpa and his Grandson (with a guide) climbing down. We are shamed into thinking too much more about this and keep our climb up.

By this time Glacier Grey has passed the baton onto Lago Grey which keeps us company to our right. But soon after clearing the rocky scramble, we turn inland and hit a more familiar foliage covered trail. It’s here that we encounter our second challenge. A giant tree has crashed (a while back), but blocks access to the trail right before a stream crossing. We awkwardly navigate around this and make it past the stream, making it to Refugio Grey as the clock’s striking 10:30 a.m

Grey to Paine Grande: One last Challenge

Grey is a large camp. Being on the popular W trail, it has a restaurant, a hostel with rooms and bed and a camp ground. It also has a ferry stop and is a stop over for the round-trip boat tours that take you close to the Glacier tongue, but start at Guarderia Grey (an alternate entrance to the Park). We have high hopes that we’ll book a ferry to get to this entrance and catch a bus back to Torres Central.

As we get to the offices that lie adjacent to the campers kitchen (the restaurant and hostels are separate buildings), two figures run out from the kitchen and (thank God for humanity’s ability to ignore smell when there is genuine emotion involved) hug Mumma. Denny and Benny. They reached Grey about 4 p.m the day before, but were concerned when they did not see us come in by 10. Concerned enough to alert CONAF rangers. We later learnt CONAF Grey had contacted and confirmed with the Paso rangers that we had shown up at Paso, but had not updated Denny and Benny. Thus their mounting concern for our safety. It was with a deep sense of gratitude that we updated them about our adventure from the day before as Baba looked to see about our travel arrangements from Grey.

Denny, Benny had left by the time Baba came back. They had a days hiking to complete to Paine Grande and satisfied that we were safe, they got their move on. Unfortunately, Baba came back with bad news. The Ferry for the evening was fully booked and safety regulations did not allow them to take additional passengers. A party of 4 was out of the question. The camp manager was also out of hostel or tent space at Grey. These damn pesky day trippers traipsing about… (calm down Ishani, keep it Pg-13!). Unfortunately, since the fires the camps also had a strict policy of not allowing anybody to sleep in the kitchen areas, so housing at Camp Grey was not possible. Anyway, he advised that we wait till noon to see if there were no-shows and he would confirm tents in that case. He also gave us an alternate: he could call ahead and ask Paine Grande to keep tents for us if we wished to hike 7 miles down to Paine Grande. He could not reserve this but assured us that we’d have tents to call our own in the night.

We were well and truly broken. Baba had promised us an exit from the park and a hotel stay with the prospect of a warm shower at Torres Central (we had the hostel booked at Torres Central, instead of tents). Our tired feet, torn gaiters (flimsy things purchased cheap of Amazon) were party to our desolate state of mind. Shubhi revolted. I think more in an effort to buy time, Baba suggested we make use of the restaurant and get some lunch. After all we had been living of trail snacks for more than 36 hours now. Shubhi revolted again. She wanted assurance that we could find a place to stay the night or exit the park without undertaking an additional 7 mile hike. Mumma intervened and we settled down gloomily for the first proper non Maggi meal in 5 days. Shubhi played with her food – an unusual sight because she likes her food. I put down a few spoons desolately as did Mumma. Baba seemed to have an appetite and chomped down his food and some of ours. Unfortunately for us, this bought some spirit back to him and he started discussing the prospect of the hike to Paine Grande, in case we couldn’t room at Grey.

At noon we made our way back to the office. It was a short unpleasant conversation – there was no vacancy. We had to trek to Paine Grande and exit the park from Paine Grande on an open booking ferry (first come first serve). The conversation with Shubhi was uglier. She didn’t scream, but it’s hard to look into the dark face of a 12 year old, far less your sister and see them try to hide away fear, just to be a trooper. Another 7 miles! It was going to be an ugly day.

The one thing we had going for us at this point was strangely enough the fact that our backpacking was done. There would be no Torres. After Paine Grande, we would exit the park and head to Puerto Natales because we had an early morning flight to catch from Punta Arenas the day after. Our first days loss because of baggage and John Gardner pass had together eaten into any buffer we might enjoy. The best we could hope for in terms of views of the Towers of Paine would be from a distance. This meant after the next 7 miles there was no more trekking. Not a great silver lining, but drowning men…

The only other thing this did for us, is it allowed us to jettison some load. The dirty mud laden, torn gaiters were binned. So was our gas canister and food supplies (except for some trail mix). Thus, with a somewhat lighter load we started our last leg from Grey to Paine Grande.

7 miles takes a while, but maybe the break, maybe the interaction with Denny and Benny, maybe Shubhi inspiring us to be a trooper, maybe a flat terrain with a better maintained trail, maybe the sight of humans going two way all through this leg helped us do this in 6 hours. Whatever it was, we were grateful.

As we neared Paine Grande, Lago Pehoe came into view. A sign says its 1.5 km away, but we see a flat land with a grassy trail, relatively dry. We can also make out a Chilean flag fluttering and a few cabin rooftops. We rush ahead.

As much as our tired legs will allow we almost run(mmm… a steady trot?) the last few hundred yards to the Paine Grande Camp. It is closing in on 6 p.m and we have been up on our feet since 4 a.m in the morning, with a break of about 90 minutes at Camp Grey, 7 miles and some change behind. Our backs hurt, our legs have stopped hurting, which isn’t a good sign and we are worried sick that we will reach Paine Grande and not find a tent for the night. The previous 24 hours have been the absolute worst of the backpacking trip and perhaps ranked well into a top-5 list of bad days of our lives (I speak for all of us)…

If you’ve read from the beginning you know the rest. Paine Grande is a wonderful camp with similar facilities to Grey. It is also the second most scenic camp sitting as it does adjacent to Lago Pehoe’s emerald green waters, which themselves are flanked by other granite peaks like Los Cuernos.

Post credit involves us having a wonderful dinner with a large group of our hiking pals. Denny, Benny, Annie feature prominently. We don’t have permissions, otherwise this post would end with a picture of this group at the Paine Grande restaurant raising a toast to us.

Post post credit: we book the first ferry out the next day morning and find our way back to Torres central and then onto Puerto Natales by car. We stay at a wonderful hotel called Estancia Puerto Bories (our apologies to the hosts for the state of their showers after we showered ourselves and our hiking boots there), have a wonderful dinner with some generous rounds of Piscos for Baba at quaint hostel restaurant called Vinnhaus. The coffee here is great. Guanaco meat stew even better.

Torres is in our rearview, but we also see it in our road ahead… maybe a few years down the line, but we are smitten. Torres will be our one true love no matter what adventure travel we undertake next.

But if Torres has us smitten, we are also bitten by the adventure travel bug. We see Kilimanjaro in our future, Machu Picchu, Iceland, Galapagos. This is no longer just an Tolkein quest. This our journey… because haven’t you heard “The Journey is sometimes the Destination”