Southern Patagonia - 5 days, 4 nights in Torres Del Paine

First on our Patagonia bucket list was the 5 day, 4 night "W Circuit" in the Torres Del Paine national park, a site most famous for its three granite towers jutting up into the sky like giant fingers. Setting off from the small Chilean town of Puerto Natales, we stocked up on food and layers, had a hearty last supper and headed into the wild yonder. None of the pictures we saw or articles we read ahead of time could have prepared us for the mind blowing beauty we witnessed during our 77 kilometer journey (47 miles. I know this is very un-American but I'll be listing everything in kilometers from now on for simplicity's sake, sorry!); the scraggly peaks, lakes of every color, unforgiving winds, aqua blue glaciers, questionable foot bridges and pink mountain sunrises will be ingrained in my memory forever. It was all at once inspiring, rugged, exhausting and rewarding, and in the end, we were dubbed, "The Walker Girls".

Day 1

We started the trek with an uphill 10km hike that had us questioning our readiness for the days to come. We eventually made it up to the base camp of the towers where we cooked and camped for the first night. We were told by other hikers that this was the first clear day they had seen in many, which implied good visibility of the famous towers for the morning but also a cold, frigid night ahead due to the lack of cloud cover.

Day 2

For an early sunrise view of the towers we crawled ourselves out of the tent at dark on the second day. The good thing about waking up cold is that you have real motivation to get up and ascend a mountain just to get your body temp warm.

Once we'd seen the light change from pink to orange to blue (and had sufficiently frozen our fingers and toes again), we hiked back down to base camp and departed for our second campamento (camp site), Cuernos. The 20 kilometer journey was daunting but turned out to be mostly downhill and flat trails with amazing views of Lake Nordenskjöld's milky turquoise water the whole way. The Cuernos campsite was also one of the most luxurious with hot running water and a cafeteria serving rich chocolate caliente con leche. We slept very well that night.

Day 3

After a cozy night at Cuernos, we hiked a short distance to Campamento Italiano, dropped our big packs and made our way up to view points overlooking dramatic river valleys and snowy summits for a total of 18 kilometers. The winds were truly howling at us, forcing us to just crouch down at times and let it pass us by. As the sun dropped the winds seemed to get even more fierce, ripping down the mountain like a huge wave and rushing passed our tent. Adrenaline was high, spirits were low. We definitely weren't at cozy Cuernos anymore.

Day 4

Having survived the night in a crazy windstorm, we awoke with fresh spirits and ready to head to our last campsite of the trek. This one was 18 kilometers away and took us to the stunning Glacier Grey, which completely surprised us with its vast size and unexpected appearance mid-way up the trail. It was a Double Rainbow moment to say the least.

Day 5

On our final day we hiked 11 kilometers back to where we could get picked up by a ferry and then taken back to Puerto Natales via bus. It was hard to believe our time in the park was coming to an end, but we were also pushing the acceptable hygiene limit and were eager to get back to our hostel and take hot showers, not to mention eat a real meal of something other than lentils, tortillas and trail mix.

Hot whiskey honey drinks to celebrate our return to civilization!

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