Adventurer Part 4: A Journey Unfolds

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 three posts, you know the story so far. If you jumped into Part 4 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. This post will start at the beginning of the trail and get us to Day-4

Parque Nacional Torres del Paine is the official name of what is perhaps one of the most stunning natural treasures anywhere in the world. Limited as my experience is, this is a claim I make after having been to Alaska, Yellowstone, the Big-4 in Utah and an assortment of smaller national parks in the US. It sits at the end of the world in the Chilean Magellanic region, with air over it that touches almost no other land mass (apart from the Antarctic) in the world. The closest habitat is the stunningly pretty, overgrown Chilean village called Puerto Natales almost 70 miles away. The closest town with an airport? Punta Arenas – about 200 miles away. Surprisingly even with its remoteness, the park gets a quarter million visitors a year, mostly concentrated during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer months from November to February. Of these most do not do the strenuous Q,O or W circuit multi-day trails. Many stay at Puerto Natales and do a day trip to the park to see the iconic Towers of Paine, the namesake for the park itself.

If you wish to visit, there are plenty of vistas around the park that are drivable, require a short (less than a mile) walk to a view point and can still light up your Instagram. You’ll see adorable Guanaco, assortments of different bird life and if you’re really really really lucky… a puma. These star attractions don’t require a trek through any of the trails.

Paying for day tours you might also consider a boat trip on the Lago Grey, the lake into which Glacier Grey drains. The catamaran takes you within a quarter mile of the glacier tongue that opens into the lake and you can draw a sharp breath of the clean Patagonian air as you see the glacier face, marveling at the scope of what nature has wrought.

But, some of the best vistas require hard work. They include the first view of Glacier Grey from the John Gardner pass (see post 3). Similarly, the trail views from the backend of the O – gorges, rivers, mountain slopes flowing with grass and small white wild-flowers. The views of Perros. Hiking also brings a sense of intimacy with the nature abounding Torres that a drive through just never affords. If you want to admire Torres take the tour (or drive yourself). If you want to experience it, do the hike. You can thank me later!

Our journey to Torres had been eventful. We were delayed by a day because our luggage (backpacks) had not come in with our flight from Santiago to Punta Arenas. Unfortunately, SKY Airlines could only promise a delivery of the luggage on the evening flight. That gave us a whole day and a choice to spend it at Punta Arenas or drive 200 miles to the park and then drive back to pick up the luggage. We chose to do the latter – just to get a feel for where we had to go and also to buy tickets to the park, so we wouldn’t need to queue up in the morning. We had to change reservations for our camps as well, since our plans were delayed by a day, but this was a Sunday and small town Puerto Natales observed it studiously. This left us with two choices again: try to change the reservations by visiting the camping offices in the morning or risk skipping our first camping stop (Seron) and hike 19 miles on day 1, directly to our 2nd stop at Dickson. Our backpacks came in with the evening flight and we reached a hostel at Puerto Natales at 11 p.m. Our goal was to start bright and early Monday and see if we could change our reservations. Different Torres camps in the O are run by two different companies – Vertice Patagonia and Fantastico Sur. If you had not booked through a tour operator (like us), that meant coordinating date changes with the two companies simultaneously. In any case, we managed to do that, avoiding the need to bypass Seron and hike 19 miles the very first day.

We were off to Torres.

The drive to Torres from Puerto Natales is beautiful. There are few lookout points but traffic in unhurried and you can pull over and stop to take in the scenery or pictures. We did that quite frequently and also got really excited with the first sighting of guanacos. If guanacos were this easy to see.. could there be a puma spotting in our future? Alas, that wasn’t to be, but Torres compensates in myriad other ways.

Day 1: Torres Central to Seron

We reach the trailhead a little after 11 a.m. There is a wonderful store with ‘stuff’ and coffee at the trailhead. I believe they also let you rent stuff there if you’ve forgotten any camping gear. We were all set though, since we had tent, mats and bags booked for each of the campsites, but had decided to carry everything else – food, clothes, poles, camera gear and other assorted needs. One other shout out to the Chilean authorities and the honesty of fellow tourists there. Our rental cars back door would not lock when we parked and we had a suitcase full of stuff – some clothes, cosmetics, medicine for after our trek in that suitcase. We chose to leave this in the trunk and walk away without ensuring a lock on our car door. There was no time to get this fixed. When we came back 5 days later, we found everything intact. Imagine that happening in Houston!

Our initial hike off the trail followed a rough motorable road for about the first 1/2 mile. It rose almost immediately and within 20 minutes, we were winded. But the rush of being on the trail, the beauty of the surrounding park propelled us through. Very soon, our muscles had adjusted to the dull burn and the first half of the walk to Seron was just a delight. Good dry trails, gentle slopes up and down and a problem of plenty in terms of the scenery.

About 5 miles into the trail, we hit heavy tree cover and while the ground was flat, there were water puddles on or near the trail. Nothing that bothered us on the hike, but this brought up our first challenge – bugs and mosquitoes. Novices that we were, we had not sprayed bug spray before starting and this cost us in blood. Literally. A word of caution: use bug spray

Day 2: Seron to Dickson

Learning why humans use machines to travel and making friends

Our camp at Seron was pretty. It lay on flat ground where the tree cover broke and next to fields of small white wild flowers. The fields stopped where a gentle hill rose covering the horizon. That would be our trail for tomorrow, but for tonight checking in with the camp manager and finding our designated tents was easy. The mosquitoes stayed with us, but camp allowed us to prepare ourselves with bug spray and we managed to keep the pests outside the tents. The tents themselves were large and spacious. You could sit up comfortably, but don’t expect a glamping tent with walk about space and toilets. It accommodated us and had space to bring our bags in. The sleeping arrangement were also very comfortable, with a really good 3 inch mattress pad and a very comfortable sleeping bag. We did not sleep cold, cramped or crooked and this was a blessing, because the trail did demand a well rested body.

Most of the camps on Torres follow the same pattern – a designated ground for the camp managed tents, a separate ground for campers that bring their own tents, a hut with clean toilet and kitchen facilities for all campers. Some have additional housing with bunk or room beds, but we had chosen tent camping through our stay. One thing you’ll read about Torres. They had suffered from some devastating fires a decade ago and open fires were absolutely not allowed. All cooking had to be done in the camp kitchen and nowhere else. Similarly camp fires were also not allowed, so if you’ve got marshmallows in your mind this would not be a recommended trail. This restriction on fire however, turned out to be one of the best things about camp. The shared kitchen area gathered the same group of hikers (those not doing the O circuit in 3 days …grrr) daily and helped develop a bond and some fast hiking friendships as the days progressed. This is where we met Denny and Benny and Annie (real names hidden). Denny and Benny were young consultants – on a 3 month sabbatical, hiking through South America. They had covered Ecuador and were in Chile with plans for Argentina next. I wished I had their life. Annie, a young Chicagoan, who was teaching English at a Panama school was on winter break and hiking Torres. She had done Machu Picchu before. There was also the delightful Chilean couple – smiling and always greeting, but they spoke Spanish with little English and we resorted to sign in communicating with them. Shubhi was the youngest person on the O and her age and willingness to take this trail at this age became a constant source of conversation every time we met somebody new. You could see her head expand a little. I was just a couple of years olders… but I’m used to my little sister and her dimples overshadowing me (no Shubhangi, that’s not me turning green…okay maybe just a little).

We shared a Maggi noodle with Denny and Benny. They’d had instant noodles before, but not with the Indian masalas and I think we may have converted them. Sorry freeze dry food suppliers. I think we just cost you two buyers.

Anyway, after we developed the camp routine that pretty much stayed with us till the notorious Day-4, we turned in. Day-2 was going to be long and there was a pass, that we had heard could blow you off your feet (I mean the Patagonia wind… not the scenery in case you’re thinking about my ability to wax eloquent).

The Sun shown brightly as we started Day-2. At a relatively leisurely start of 9 a.m, we had paced ourselves to take 9 hours instead of the average of 4-5 hours. Even after the first day we knew we were the slowest group in the camping caravan that was moving from camp to camp.

The day was long. Going through 12 miles is difficult. Our bags weighed in between 13 lbs (for Shubhi) to 19 lbs. (for my Dad). Carrying these and doing 12 miles was even harder. In any case, the two highlights came in terms of the pass and the last descent to Dickson.

The pass came and the wind kept its promise. After the pass – which was wide and not troublesome except for the wind, we had to descend down the side of a mountain. The trail about a feet and a half wide, with a mountain slope on one side and a drop down to a river valley on the other. For the first quarter mile down this, the wind kept up, raging against us as it climbed to find an outlet through the pass. We walked sideways holding onto brushes on the mountain side, bracing against the fierce gale that seemed to run always and measuring (we are told) up to 100 km/hr. It wasn’t scary after the first few steps, but definitely a unique experience for us.

The only other adventure on the trail was a steep climb down about a mile out from Dickson. We had to climb up a hill and at the top Dickson revealed itself – yellow and black tents spread across a wide field, nestled along the curve of a river. The most picturesque camp site amongst a crowded list. Right after this sighting, the climb down was steep and rough. The gravel slipped, the trail ledges seemed to drop off vertically on one side and the steep climb down – less than a few hundred yards, took us the better part of 30 minutes and two drops onto our glutes. Pride affected, but no harm done we descended into Dickson

Unfortunately, this is the day that we also learnt that the GoPro battery needs some diligent caring. While the trail was beautiful, specially at the start and end, we have little to annotate that with. Note to self: keep the GoPro charged!

Day 3: Dickson to Perros

Trail marking and getting through a day of rain

The third day was the shortest. We had to do just 7 miles, but this was a hike through densely covered foliage and up and down some rocky climbs as made our way to Perros. Perros is its own glacier and drains into an iconic lake (Lago Perros) by the same name. In many ways the lookout onto Perros actually resembles the Mirador Torres, which is where one has to hike to catch a glimpse of the the three Towers of Paine that the parks are named after.

For the first time on the trail, we also hiked through a full day of rain. It was on and off, but the treachery of tree roots sticking out and along with the rain, creating an uneven, slippery walking path came into play. The hike was slow and also tested our resolve to keep the boots dry. We walked along trail edges tying to avoid the muddy centers. Slow already, we should have learnt from the mature hikers that just took this in their stride, living with the discomfort of wet and muddy boots, but making up for it by reaching their destinations earlier.

The foliage was lush though and some of the scenery along with the soft rain, could have served as the setting for an outdoor spa. Flowers – bright white against the green, lush trees, contrasted lending a charm to the scenery that movie videographers probably spend a lot of digital touch up magic recreating. Also, as long as we walked the tree covered trails the trail was pretty easy to discern. Torres trail markers are not as close as other marked trails we saw in US national parks and as we hit rocky stretches, we had to strain ourselves to identify where our paths should lead. Not insurmountable, but difficult nonetheless.

The trail finally breaks as we near Perros. The first sighting of the glacier hanging of the valley between two mountains is breathtaking. We spot it from one of the bridges crossing a fast flowing stream (perhaps river?). Slowly the tree line parts as we make our way further and we are left to climb a rocky hill, up the the trail and to a lookout that gives a magnificent view of the Lago Perros, with Glacier Perros draining into it.

At this point, we have a small scare. We have a trail map that had the Perros lookout trail carved off as an offshoot from the main one headed to Camp Perros. We had forgotten about this offshoot and had followed markers to the lookout where the trail abruptly ended. We could only see the markers that we had crossed but no camp. It felt like we’d veered off the trail and landed somewhere else – beautiful, but desolate and forlorn – which summed up our state of panic. It took some retracing and a moment of suppressing our panic to see that we weren’t really lost, but had taken a short and worthwhile detour. In the Torres, especially in the rocky portions where human footprints don’t clearly mark out a trail, a pair of keen eyes are quite useful.

Camp Perros was not too far out when we had settled back into the trail and we reached camp just after it started to rain quite heavily. The camp was the most remote and least equipped, but we learnt about and got a taste of the South American herbal tea – Mate (pronounced Maa tay) from the friendly camp manager. There was a refrigerator from which we could buy drinks and we made the mistake of getting Red Bulls here. We saved it for the next day as a starter drink to give us a caffeine high knowing that Day 4 would be the toughest. Alas, Red Bulls give you wings for a fleetingly small period. The high, drops after that and is equally devastating and for a long strenuous day, you live with the drop’s consequence for a much longer period. A word of advice, marathon runners eat carbs before a marathon. Do the same. Pack a lot of Nuun, but avoid the sugary high of sodas on long trails.

We had a long day ahead and a day of tremendous mental and physical challenges next, but we did not yet know we would fail on our target the next day as we turned in early after our dinner chats with Denny and Benny. We slept soundly. Tomorrow was going to be exciting!

Next Part