the W

All you Gortex clad, hightech owning backpackers watch out for the plastic poncho wearing fools (or old farts as we now feel)! We just finished hiking "the W" circuit in Torres del Paine National Park. The ciruit is named the W because it makes the shape of a W as you hike up 3 valleys in this beautiful national park. Wow! Fantastic! Stunning! Unbelievable! Freezing! Sorry the words used in this blog are overused and a bit cornball but this is all I have to try to describe this amazing place.

The hike itself is a 76 km (47ish mile) trek. It is absolutely breathtaking and also a bit ####### the old bones. We had been doing a bit too much sitting on buses and boats, but it felt great to be "aching" the way we did. Along the trail, there are hostels that you can stay in but they were really expensive (45 dollars per person per night, in a dorm room and not including sheets or a sleeping bag, those are all extra). So, being the money pinchers that we have to be, we decided to rent all the gear in town before we left and carry it all with us. It made the hike a bit more painful but in the end we saved a whole lot of dinero. Also, being as unprepared as we were for this part of our trip, only having plastic ponchos and cross trainers and some rental gear from our shoddy little pretrek hostel, we definatley got a few sorry glances from the seriously teched out fellow backpackers that we passed on the trail.
The first night was a little disheartening as we climbed up the last boulder field to look out at the famous Torres (towers) only to wait 2 hours in a snow storm (snow blizzard) and to no avail, they were hiding in the clouds. The next moring we ran (literally) up that part of the trail again to try to catch a glimpse of the towers, but again the snow started just as we were about 45 minutes from the top, so we tucked our tails between our legs and started toward the next campsite. They warn you that you can experience the 4 seasons in one day down here.
From that time on, however, the views got better and were so amazing that we forgot that we didn´t get to see one of the lookouts. The campsite on the second night was set right on the bluest lake we have ever seen (turquoise blue) and the sheer cliffs just made us stare in awe throughout the evening (sitting at the table in our sleeping bags of course). The third day involved 11.5 hours of hiking (luckily, only 5 with our packs) to the next campsite, but the top was a cirque surrounded by glaciers and sheer cliffs and in all directions. The colors in this park are brilliant. The last day, we hiked to Grey Glacier, a huge glacier which is not really grey but bright blue. Something that I have never seen before. This park is so beautiful, it is no wonder it is the most visited national park in South America. Patagonia, what a place. This is recommended to anyone who loves to backpack (or day hike) and who needs a trip to the bottom of the globe.