Day 56 - Hike to Torres del Paine

Its the 25th of February, we are in Chilean Patagonia, more precisely in the Torres del Paine national park and are here to do its iconic hike that goes by the same name. This blog will not go into details about the hike itself or how to plan a trip to it because that information is available in countless other places in painstaking detail and they do a much better job of explaining the logistics than I ever could.

This is one of the most popular hikes in the region and gets really busy come mid morning, so following good hiking etiquette and wanting to beat the crowds we decided to start the hike as early as possible and booked the earliest bus which was leaving at 7am from town to drop us off at the trail head. After approximately 2 hours in the bus we arrived at Torres del Paine national park only to find out there is an additional 10 minute bus that needs to be taken to the ‘actual’ trail head. We had to wait in a queue for about 45 minutes to board this next bus.

It was now 9.45am and we were finally starting our hike, not the start we would have wanted given its length of 20km which can take anywhere between 6 – 8 hours to complete and having to catch a return bus to town at 8pm which is the last one. Keeping all this in mind, we were on our way and picked up speed to get some headway. This was hard to do given the amount of people who were starting the hike at the same time and the narrow paths that would only allow one person to pass through. There were also people making their way down, they are the ones who were either camping or staying at a nearby hostel and got to start the hike early to catch the sunrise. That, unfortunately was not an option for us, as
everything was booked months in advance plus it was ridiculously expensive.
The hike started off pretty flat, then came a zigzagged gentle incline and it was mostly up and down from there.

The trail was well marked and you couldn’t be alone for more than a few minutes given its popularity. We rented trekking poles for this hike given its rocky terrain and our knees surely thanked us the next day for it. The path meandered in and out of a forest which gave some much needed shelter from the winds and rain which were a constant during the walk but the hike felt gentle for about 8.5km until we reached the part which would lead us to the viewpoint. The last 1 mile is when things got a bit interesting, let me paint a picture for you.

Imagine having slowly walked uphill for about 3 hours straight in light rain. Now imagine the rain starts to freeze and is almost like tiny hail. Add to that ferocious winds of 60km/hr that blow this freezing rain diagonally in your face so hard they start to feel like tiny pellets...and we are not done yet...you still have to climb an additional 1.3kms on a steep slope, scrambling and moving across rocky terrain fighting the wind that could literally blow you off the face of the hill. All the elements were making themselves heard loud and clear. It felt as if they almost didn’t want us to be there and yet we put one step in front of the other to slowly make our way to the mirador. At one point I wondered whether the name torres del paine translates in English into ‘towers of pain’, given how miserable I was feeling.

The torres del paine viewpoint offers views of the iconic granite towers and a lake. Given the weather we could not see much of the towers and could barely stay to enjoy the scenery or take pictures because it was freezing cold. After 15 minutes at the lake, a couple of clicks on the camera, and a quick snack we started making our way back down but as soon as we started our descent the sky miraculously cleared, the sun came out and lo and behold you had full view of the three majestic towers in plain sight! No longer obscured by clouds or rain (typical, isn’t it?).

For a moment we considered going back to the viewpoint to take some nicer pictures, but given how cold we were and also lacking a bit in energy we decided to continue our descent which were the longest 4 hours of my life! Honestly, it kept going on and on and on. We couldn’t stop to enjoy the scenery on the way back either given our bus was to leave the Park entrance at 8pm. So there was the added time pressure. We eventually did get to the park entrance with two hours to spare which we spent sat out in the cold waiting for our bus with countless others. From there it was an additional 2 hours until we would reach town and eventually our accommodation, where a hot shower was awaiting us.

Once back at the hostel, we ordered some vegetarian pizza (which was quite terrible) and because pizza wasn't enough, cooked some packet ramen (which was quite bland) and even though the meals themselves were disappointing and the weather hadn't been the best, I was not going to let it ruin my mood and the incredible day I had just had.