Day 1
Day 1 was a miserable death march.
Backing up: I awoke that morning to an angry constellation of itchy red bumps on my forearm. Great. We went into town and loaded up on dried fruits and nuts, then caught the 2:00 bus to the park. We started hiking for the Torres campsite, the upper-right point of the W, at 5:40pm. Sunset was at 9:12pm, and the hike was supposed to take 3 1/2 hours.
Weather: cold (low 50's), cloudy, and drizzling. But the weather around here is a notorious crapshoot, and we didn't have the luxury of waiting around for it to clear. So we set out.
It was super windy. Did I mention it was windy? Because it was windy. This post is going to be like that episode of Buffy where they pound into your head how hot it is (''Record highs in Sunnydale...'' ''Please come in from the complete lack of cold.''), but then at the end of the episode it snows! And even Buffy's terrible bangs can't distract you from how dreamy Angel is.
Anyway, it was windy, and the trail was quite steep. We were hiking along a slope that fell off and followed a river far below. Despite the cold, I did manage to notice that it was beautiful.
The tiny blue dot in the photo below is Caitlin. When there were more people on the trail, their backpack raincovers gave the appearance of a row of colorful, bobbing Tic-Tacs.
I was disappointed in how slowly I hiked, both in general and in comparison to Caitlin. We soon established a system where she would walk ahead, and wait for me at the treacherous parts. So: Day 1 was a miserable death march. Cold, slow, and wet. As Caitlin observed at one point: ''The reason people do this hike in January and February is that's the only time you can be wet and have it not be completely awful.''
Even with my depressing slowness, we arrived at camp at 9:00pm. Hallelujah. Coming around the corner to the sight of that cluster of tents, I knew what Littlefoot must have felt like at the end of The Land Before Time. Also, it was comforting to know that my pace is the map pace; I didn't feel like quite as much of a chump.
We set up camp with painfully cold and numb fingers, and endured the skin-puckering sixty seconds of changing out of our damp base layers. According to my kick-ass Swiss army knife (thanks, Dad!), which tells both temperature and elevation, it was 41 degrees out.
Once layered up, we registered at the guardaparque's tiny cabin, and using his tepid tap water made some tepid squash soup from our powdered soup packets. We were too cold to want to take the time to boil water for a real meal. Also, I was oddly nauseated, I think from the pack's pressure on my sternum. So after our soup we just went and got in our heavenly, heavenly sleeping bags. I can't express how good it feels to lie down on that sleeping pad and let my back muscles slowly untighten.
We discovered, in talking, that we'd accidentally reserved the hostel such that we'd have five nights/six days in the park, instead of the usual four nights/five days. Fine with me.
Day 2
We'd hoped to see the sunrise on the Torres, so we set an alarm for 5:30am. The guardaparque's girlfriend had told us that if we wake up and can't see the stars, not to bother trying for a sunrise hike, because we won't see the sunrise either. When the alarm went off, it was still raining, so we bagged the sunrise hike. When my second alarm went off at 8:00am, I was shocked and delighted to see blue sky! We got up and started for the mirador, taking only water, nuts, and our cameras with us.
During the climb I felt exhausted. For every ten steps, I had to rest. I admit that there were some dark moments when I considered mailing it in entirely, and not finishing the W.
The trail to the mirador rises above treeline, then above snowline, and becomes a scramble over rocks. The pitiless wind made my rainshell snap (I couldn't zip it shut because there was a tiny pebble in the zipping mechanism), and almost knocked me over a few times. But damn is it worth it. Because when you clear those last few boulders, bam! There, across an opaque turquoise lake, the Torres in all their massive glory jut out of the rock. Absolutely stunning. We stared at the Torres in awe until the chill and the screaming wind (did I mention it was windy?) forced us to head back.
On the way down my legs quivered and threatened to buckle. I felt like Syd had just made me do three sets of Super Legs. I was alarmed, and even more tempted to mail it in. All I could think about was the oatmeal I was about to eat.
Mercifully, when we got back to camp, the guardaparque had water boiling in a teapot on his stove, so we literally had instant oatmeal! I don't think I have ever eaten anything so delicious. After the oatmeal I took some hangover pills, which are a mix of caffeine, asprin, and some other painkiller. Shout-out to Kevin for recommending these life-saving pills. Magic!
We'd been joking about how we should stage photos for a Spring 2010 Outdoor Clothing Catalog, because at any given time each of us was wearing at least six different brands. The morning of Day 2, Caitlin had to add another brand to the mix, since her shoes turned out to be not waterproof.
By the time we broke camp and set off down the hill, I was feeling awesome! I don't know if it was the hangover pills, the oatmeal, or the music on my iPod, but I felt great. (Thanks, Steve Perry; I won't stop believing...And by Steve Perry, I mean the cast of Glee.) I hiked steadily back out the way we came, and we camped at the Torres Lodge campsite that night. Setting up a tent is so much easier with dexterity in your fingers! Morale was high.
Remember how I said it was windy? Well, the cloud in the middle of the photo below is not a cloud, but a waterfall being blown backwards. You can see where the stream it should be falling into continues.
To understand the difference in weather between Day 2 and Day 1, compare this photo to the one of us setting out on Day 1:
For dinner we made cheesy pasta. After an interminable 11-minute wait, we opened the pot lid to the beautiful sight of cooked pasta. We ate ravenously, burning our tongues but not caring, the way Daisy does when you drop hot food on the kitchen floor. Afterwards we retired to the tent, read/dozed until dark, then played 20 Questions. (''Can you eat it?'' ''Well, I guess you could...'')
Day 3
Blue skies again! Shorts weather. What a glorious victory. Hiked along the Lago Nordenskjöld to the Cuernos campsite. Eleven kilometers (seven miles), a lovely 4 hours and 15 minutes for me, 2 hours and 45 minutes for Caitlin.
Beautiful, mostly flat landscape with some rolling hills. The hills on the other side of the lake were made from layers of rock that had clearly once been horizontal, but had been pushed up over the years into diagonal curves that looked like cresting waves. And they were covered in an almost iridescent green vegetation. Breathtaking.
Then there's the Cuernos themselves:
Caitlin wasn't feeling well when I arrived at Cuernos, so in the afternoon we laid low in the refugio, eventually setting up camp at the campsite just outside. By the way, bros, thanks a lot for not telling me about the existence of the refugios. I had no idea there'd be places where I could have recharged my iPod. Anyway, the refugios are little lodges, so on Day 3, I got to shower(!) and illicitly wash some undies.
I was amused by the quote on this flag inside the refugio, regarding what one must have in order to do this trek: ''Hay que tener cojones.''
As soon as we were safe and comfy in our cocoons after dinner (''spring rice''), the wind picked up and it started to rain. This went off and on all night. I'd wake up and be able to see stars out the almond-shaped window in the rain fly, then an hour later I'd wake up again to a fierce wind lashing rain against the tent. Then back to stars. Our cocoons:
Day 4
Camp at the British Camp, Boy?!? Two words: Hun. Yush. Anyway, sun and blue skies again! We had a long day planned: hike to the Italian Camp, set up, eat lunch, and continue on (without our packs) to the British Lookout. Total distance: 11 miles. Total hiking time: seven hours.
Certain misfortunes on Day 4 saw the creation of a new game, ''Would You Rather? Patagonia Edition.'' For example:
Would you rather change your tampon at the British Camp, or bleed in your compression shorts?
Would you rather puke on the way up to the British Lookout, or on the way back down?
Would you rather have a freakish arm rash or a debilitating heel blister?
Do you see how fun this game is?
Anyway, we woke up at 7:00am. I can never eat breakfast that early, so I was only able to stomach 1/4 cup of oatmeal. And my daily dose of hangover pills, of course. We left at 9:00am for a pleasant two-hour walk to the Italian Camp. As with yesterday, the trail continued along the Lago Nordenskjöld, but this time much closer to the shore. Maybe 40 feet up instead of 150. It misted at times, giving all the rocks and plants a vibrant shine.
Remember, kids: Don't do fire.
When I arrived at the Italian Camp, Caitlin had already set up the tent (part of our brilliant system). We cooked some curry rice backpacking food, then took a little nap. We decided to wake up at 1:40pm, see if the weather looked good toward the British Lookout, and make the hike if it did.
Blueish skies! We set out. It was supposed to take 2 1/2 hours to the British Camp, then another 1/2 hour to the Lookout. A 2,250-foot elevation gain total. I thought it would be heinously steep, so I steeled myself for the worst. As it turned out, only the first 45 minutes were scramble-over-rocks/pull-yourself-up-by-tree-branches steep. The rest was like a stroll through Lithia Park! The trail followed a stream fed by glacier runoff, taking us mostly through forest, with sunlight filtering down through the leaves. Soon I came upon the glacier, clinging to the cliff face across the stream. Massive, impressive, and occasionally chunks of ice would break off and thunder down the mountain.
The trail was clearly marked with gaping, orange vaginas:
From the British Lookout, we could see the down the seam cut by the stream into the valley below. Green treetops, turquoise, opaque, glacier-fed lake, humbling rock formations. And the sun lighting it up with a warm, golden glow. Amazing.
I started to feel sick on the way back down, and puked about an hour from camp. Bummer. I think it was a combination of heat exhaustion and dehydration. I asked for too much from my body and put too little in. A note on the water: it's potable; you can just fill up your Nalgene straight out of the streams here.
But the water made us burp a lot, like it had been carbonated or something. So we became suspicious of it and kind of tried not to drink too much of it. Thus, in the entire fours hours up and back to the British Lookout, I drank less than half a Nalgene of water.
Anyway, I couldn't eat anything that night, and could only manage a few sips of the suspect water. We got back to the tent at 7:20pm and I tried to lie in my cocoon so my stomach wouldn't be upset. No dice. Later that night I stumbled from the tent and puked again. Blegh.
Day 5
My stomach didn't feel upset in the morning, but I was still only able to eat eight almonds for breakfast. I wanted to sleep in, but Caitlin made the compelling point at 8:50am that we'd been in the tent for 13 1/2 hours, so I agreed to emerge from my cocoon.
I was wary of putting anything in my body that I'd put in the day before, so I didn't take hangover pills. Especially not on only eight almonds. Thus, the hike from the Italian Camp to the Refugio Pehoé (the bottom-left point of the W) took me 2 hours and 50 minutes, though the map said it was supposed to take two. I was so tired, and cold, and weak from being sick. I didn't even look at the scenery much, just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.
Finally I arrived at the refugio, chilled and dizzy, and hungry for food that had never been dried. Caitlin and I bought the fixed-menu lunch for the outrageous price of $16, and I voraciously feasted on the ''salad,'' which was cabbage, canned corn, and an artichoke heart. But it was so delicious. Caitlin reported that her ''dog-food meat'' was just as tasty.
Then Caitlin had the brilliant proposal of staying in the dorm beds at the refugio, instead of camping. Genius.
Day 6
Mailed it in. Mailed it in so hard. Caitlin left at 8:15am to do the 14-mile hike out to Glacier Grey and back, while I stayed in the room, journaling and reading some Barbara Kingsolver.
I do wish I could have completed the whole W, but I didn't want to ask my body for another seven-hour day. I'm happy with the ''N'' I did hike.
Regarding hiking, I would like to offer the following ode to Duct Tape:
Duct Tape! O, frictionless wonder!
Slippery, silvery, sliding.
Shoe on my heel is but a lover's breath on my neck.
Smug blister nub lies dormant,
cocooned in your adhesive embrace.
In closing, here are some parting shots of the Cuernos and Paine Grande as we left on the ferry.
