Fun on Foot: Our Trek in Torres del Paine

The original idea for our trip involved biking to National Parks and then going on backpacking trips, leaving the bikes behind. Although things have changed along the way and we've converted more to "bikepacking" - going off-road with our bikes - we couldn't pass up an opportunity to go trekking in the world-famous Torres del Paine National Park (pronounced PIE-nay). With about a week to spend in the park, we decided to hike what is known as the "O," a circuit around the massif of magnificent peaks. Here's the report of our seven beautiful days on foot.

Torres del Paine: nothing if not scenic

Day 1: Laguna Amarga to Serón, 14 km

Our day starts early as we board a bus in Puerto Natales and zoom off towards Torres del Paine. It's a clear morning, and as we approach we peer out the windows at the stark mountains. We're dropped off at the park entrance, and chaos starts immediately. People from three different buses are crowding into a small room. Some people have forms they are filling out, some people are trying to figure out where to get the forms, and other people, with completed forms, are forming an unclear, serpentine line through the midst of everything.

When we finally pay our entrance fee we have a chance to ask a CONAF ranger about the privately managed campgrounds; we´ve heard that some of them are closed, and since camping is only permitted in the few campgrounds, it´s important that we know where to go. (CONAF stands for Corporación Nacional Forestal, the equivalent of the National Park Service in the U.S.) The first ranger tells us that all campgrounds are open, but another then tells us that some are closed, but we can still camp there. "Are there bathrooms?" She shrugs.

Armed with this conflicting information and a park map that does not show distances, only how many hours it takes to walk each section of trail, we head into the next room to watch an informational video. Crammed behind a lot of surprisingly tall visitors, we listen to a series of repetitive announcements about how it is illegal to light fires in the park and how many fees and how much jail time you will receive if connected to one of these fires.
Finally released to begin our hike, we look to fill up our water bottles. Unfortunately there is no tap, and our bottles do not fit under the tiny bathroom sinks. We set off sin agua. Hardly an auspicious start.

All this provides quite a welcome and immediately inspires a conversation on management. If it's this crowded now, what's it like in high season? What sort of communication should be required between the owners of the private campgrounds and CONAF? Why are threats used in place of fire safety education? It's the start of a long dialogue that will continue throughout the entirety of our hike.

After hiking a short distance on the road, we find our friend Fabio looking lost at the trailhead. Fabio is a cyclist we've met randomly a few times before, including on our bus that morning, and we are happily surprised to discover that he is planning to do the same hike! We three cyclists set off together, awkwardly learning how to walk again.

Fabio is from Brazil and has a wonderful sense of humor that gets us through the first painful day. Although, to be honest, mostly I think we're laughing because we can barely understand him; his mix of Portuguese and Spanish is uniquely incomprehensible.

There he is, Fabio

Fabio didn´t bring what we think of as "backpacking" food, just a kilo of flour, 15 hardboiled eggs, some potatoes, butter, oil, and a jar of dulce de leche, which is like peanut butter if it were distilled from dairy and had eight times more sugar. With characteristic style, he somehow makes it work. Here, he shows us his technique for making "bread." The finished product most closely resembles bland pancakes, so he slathers it with dulce de leche and butter. Bam! Lunch.

Serón was closed as of April 1, but we were still allowed to camp there for free with no services (though there is an outhouse).

Day 2: Serón to Dickson, 18 km

We wake up in the darkness to mice scurrying around our tent, pots clanging, and people yelling about oats for breakfast. Our campground is packed with 25 tents, all way too close together, in my opinion, and this is the off-season! Outside on the picnic tables are remnants of last night's festivities: glass bottles of various liquors and wine. Never in my life have I seen backpackers carrying such things! Maybe after a few days of carrying their heavy, empty bottles, they'll have learned something.
With our sore bodies and annoyance at disrespectful other hikers, we wonder what we are doing out here when we could be in the middle of nowhere on our bikes. But, we decide to persevere.

Once we're hiking, things are quiet again and we have the trail to ourselves. The scenery gets better and better as we hike and our day ends with an amazing view of the Dickson Glacier, a massive ice chunk that looks like a fantastically iced cake. Or maybe I'm just hungry.

The scenery gets a bit more interesting as we hike towards these mountains...

...and the stormy skies add another element to the landscape.

Maybe because of the winds blowing off the giant icefield right over there, the clouds take on some crazy forms

A UFO?

We invite two Israeli guys to use our picnic table to cook dinner, since it seems to be the only non-windy area in the campsite. Rotem is recently out of the army, inquisitive and thoughtful. Eldad is a bit older, a good storyteller and excellent backcountry cook. They become wonderful new friends and we spend the rest of our trek together.

Danny and Rotem. Photo thanks to Rotem

Dickson is a pay site, but no one was around when we arrived and no one told us we needed to pay, so?


Day 3: Dickson to Paso, 17.5 or 23km*

The challenge of today is John Gardner pass, the highest pass and steepest climb on the route. We reach the start of it in early afternoon and eat a big lunch in an effort to make our packs just a bit lighter.

As we begin to climb out of the shelter of the trees, the wind starts to gust. One second we're fine, and the next the wind is blowing so hard that I can't keep my balance. Immediately I sit down and huddle under my pack. Danny, still on his feet is getting blown down the mountain, and I'm screaming at him to "sit down!" Finally he's down and the wind stops. The wild moment is past. But, Danny's sunglasses blew off his face and away, somewhere. We set off to search the landscape, hoping to find a needle in a haystack. Miraculously I find the frames, but the lenses are long gone.

We've learned our lesson. Our eclectic team (Fabio, us, Rotem, and Eldad) slowly makes its way to the top of the pass, sitting down to weather the screaming gusts of wind. Happily, the view at the top is well worth our efforts.

We hike up to the pass through shady forest...

...arriving later, far above treeline, to impressive views on the other side. That´s Rotem in the photo.

Rotem, Danny, Fabio, Tam, and Eldad waiting for the wind to pass. Check out Danny´s and Fabio´s faces, they´re priceless. Thanks for the photo, Rotem.

Rotem and Eldad making their way down...

...towards the unmistakeable, incredible, jaw-dropping Grey Glacier.

Sitting down for the wind just gives us more time to take it all in...

...before we descend to the autumn-tinged forest once again.

No lenses, no problem.

Paso is a free CONAF site. 

Day 4: Paso to Italiano, 26 or 29 km*

We wake up in a cloud of snow, and I'm immediately grateful that we came over the pass yesterday and not this morning. Fabio is tired from yesterday and tells us that he's not going anywhere today. We leave him laughing and making bread dough in his tent.

When we reach Refugio Grey, our quiet trail suddenly becomes packed. We've reached the even more popular hiking route known as the "W" - which traverses the front side of the mountains in the shape of a W - and are immediately happy that we hiked the whole circuit, that we had a chance to enjoy the scenery without the crowds. Over the next few days we find the W to be much busier, wider, rockier and more developed than the O.

When lunchtime rolls around, however, we're not begrudging of the infrastructure. One of the lodges serves as a wonderful indoor refuge from the frigid wind.

Arriving in Italiano campground, we are quickly overwhelmed by the amount of people. Tents seem to be on every inch of ground, and the cooking shelter is overflowing. It's surrounded by people crouched on stumps and rocks with food, stoves, and pots and pans all around. Somehow we squish onto one of the picnic tables and begin to eat. The other hikers at the table are commiserating over how unprepared they are. Topics include how awful their Nike hightop shoes are for hiking, how they've never used a camp stove and couldn´t cook pasta, and how poorly they set up their tents. At this point we are joined by two other hikers who exclaim that they didn't bring any food at all! Luckily they were able to buy a few cans of beans at the lodge but they had to eat them cold at lunch. Everyone groans sympathetically at how horrible this is. Danny and I are appalled. Neither of us knows what to say to this crowd; we have no way to relate.

Perhaps it's a good thing that this park provides opportunities for everyone, but I wonder, if hikers can get away with being so unprepared and the park staff doesn't make an effort to educate them, how they will learn?

In spite of all the clueless trekkers, the scenery continues to be spectacular.

The trail requires faith in some rather puny cables...

...but our worries about falling into the gorge are left behind as soon as the jaw-dropping Cuernos (horns) come into view.

Aha! Summer is still with us in the form of flowers.

But, again, the Cuernos!

I find myself saying "wow" a lot

*Distances were marked differently on the two maps we had. Since we did not measure distance along the way, we're not sure which one is accurate.

Day 5: Italiano to Mirador Britanico and back, 12 km

As we set off on our hike up the valley it begins to snow. Hikers coming down tell us that there's no visibility, but the hike is so pretty with fresh snow on the colorful trees that we decide to continue. It's well worth it. By the time we're at the top everyone else has gone back. The Cuernos are illuminated clearly by the sun but still shielded from us by a cloud of snow, appearing like a faded postcard. We start to hike down but are stopped in our tracks by rays of sun on our backs. All of a sudden the wind picks up and starts blasting away the clouds, and when the clouds clear it blasts away the snow that has collected on rock edges and tree leaves. That crazy wind becomes a great magician, pulling away white cloaks with a flourish, and revealing craggy mountains beneath. We stop, transfixed, and enjoy the show.

Back at camp, Eldad makes us some tea. He's the kind of guy who's a bit aggressive about sharing. Even if you don't ask for tea, he'll give you some anyway. And today, I'm very grateful for that. The hot liquid travels through my body and brings delectable warmth to a frigid day.

Eldad in the snow

We walked simply to see more of the gorgeous, white-robed forest...

...and the Cuernos came out to join us!

Two days ago: snow and fall colors. Yesterday: sun and flowers. Today we´re back to snow and fall, though I think we can safely call it winter by now.

What fun is snow without a snowman?

As we head down, the flurries intensify...

...but soon abate, leaving us with a sunny forest and smiles on our faces.

The turret-like Torres (towers) eventually show their faces...

...as does this picturesque mountainside.

Day 6: Italiano to Las Torres, 20 km

Ups and downs, wind and rocks, I feel as if my body is finally adjusting to the backpacking lifestyle and movement, and of course this is our second-to-last day.

As we begin our final ascent to the Las Torres campground, we find ourselves marveling again at the other hikers on the trail. I have to admit that the culture out here has been at least as interesting as the scenery. How is it that we have found hikers out for the day in brand new Gore-Tex Pro rain suits when it's not even raining, and we've also seen hikers wearing jeans and two backpacks (one on the front as well) walking the O? We've really observed the whole spectrum.

The Las Torres madhouse... er, ahem, cooking shelter.

Las Torres is a free Conaf site.

Day 7: Las Torres to Mirador to Laguna Amarga, 18 km

We wake up before sunrise to hike the steep trail up to the lake at the base of the famous Torres. After the last few days of clouds and snow, today, miraculously, is perfectly clear.

Along with some other sunrise-watchers...

...we swath ourselves in layers of down while waiting for the show to start.

And when it does, it doesn´t disappoint. Soon the tops of the Torres slowly, almost imperceptibly, accrue hues of pink...

...their broad faces dipping more and more deeply into color...

...a mirror-like reflection showing the spectacle a second time, as if that were necessary.

Gradually they turn from bright pink...

...to a flaming orange, and daylight is here for good.

Eldad reflects quietly...

...but we are more exuberant!

What a spiritual experience, and in such a cathedral!

We haven't seen Fabio for days, but there he is waiting down at the Torres Hotel when we arrive. He's had some adventures of his own, and we're happy to chat (and to see that he made it out alive after eating all that almost-raw bread dough) as we walk back to Laguna Amarga, finishing back where we began.

Of course, the ultimate finale of a great backpacking trip is making delicious food when you get back. For dinner we make a huge veggie salad and artery-clogging brownies. Rotem comes over to our hostel and makes Shakshouka, a tasty Israeli dish with eggs and veggies. Time to feast!

I should have taken another photo three minutes after this one... the pan was empty

We had a great hike, and I would recommend it. We were super lucky with the weather, the scenery was incredible, the trails interesting, and we even made some new friends. The backpacking culture and park management made it a very different experience from other trips we have taken, for better or for worse, but they definitely gave us plenty of food for thought.

If you are thinking about trekking in Torres del Paine, feel free to contact us with questions!

Snowy Peaks, May 24th-29th

El Cocuy-Guican-Guacamayas-San Mateo-La Uvita-Boavita-Soatá-Susacón

May 24th

We´re both feeling a bit under the weather today, partially because we couldn´t sleep last night due to a giant party underneath our window.  Colombians love their loud music. Thus, we decide to stay one more day in El Cocuy before heading up to higher altitudes. Rest day!
At night we have a typical Colombian dinner at our hospedaje. Here´s the menu:
Soup with made with oatmeal, scallions, potatos, big beans, and bits of beef that I avoid and try not to think about.
Main plate with lentils, boiled plantains, a boiled potato with a tiny bit of tomato sauce on top, rice, and an egg for us instead of sardines.
We´ve found Colombian food to be pretty basic and tasteless, but filling.

May 25th
We sleep well and wake up early to begin our climb! Out of town we start to go up immediately.  Luckily the road surface is far better than we expected. Muddy, with rivulets and bumpy rocks in places, it still presents challenges, but mostly it is composed of smooth, gray sand.

El Cocuy below

Our country road

We climb and climb. Amazingly, at 12,000 feet we are still surrounded by farmland, and there is more above us! The treeline here is much higher than anywhere we´ve been in the US. I try to imagine a cow grazing on top of our favorite Southern California mountain, San Gorgonio, at 11,500 feet. All morning it has been cloudy, and slowly it begins to rain.  At this elevation, it´s actually cold! Instead of being uncomfortable, we rejoice in feeling cold for the first time in ages!
Sometime around 11 am we reach our turnoff from the main road, and stop to ask if we can leave our bikes at some of the cabins there.  Unfortunately. no one is around, so we decide to bike up the side road and see what we find. Luckily, the surface on this road is relatively smooth, and in no time at all we reach the Puesto de Control. This is theoretically where they would check that we have paid our park entry fees, etc. but no one is around and the door is locked. We ride past. It´s also worth noting that we reach a new record for elevation biked: 13,100 feet!
It´s not far to the first little hospedaje where we meet Luis and his dog, Hable Do. Only a few words into our conversation, he rushes inside to prepare hot chocolate for us. As the rain clouds begin to clear, we enjoy a lovely lunch of avocado cheese sandwiches, and of course, lots of hot cocoa. Luis shows us his maps, tells us about himself, and agrees to keep an eye on our bikes while we are gone hiking.  We feel good about leaving them here.
Excited for the mountains, we pack what we need in our backpacks and set off. 

At first we hike along the road, then the road ends and we start to follow a trail. It's mostly flat, so we can talk and enjoy the view.  After a little while we turn left, and begin to hike up into another river valley. This valley has steep sections with pounding waterfalls alternating with flat, marshy sections filled with frailejones.  You might be wondering, what are frailejones (fry-lay-HONE-ace)? They look very similar to yucca plants; imagine a Joshua Tree with one stalk, extremely fuzzy leaves, and bright round yellow flowers.  Possibly the best part of this area? The water in the streams comes straight from the glaciers and it´s good to drink without purification.  We drink lots to stay hydrated at this altitude.

Big clear lakes

Frailejones!

Finally we reach a point where the valley begins to close off, and we are surrounded by mounds of rocks.  Here our trail turns and really begins to climb. Since it's the end of a long day, and the air gets thinner with every step, the going is very slow.  I rest every few minutes. Finally we reach the top and see a sign for our camping area. And wait, what´s that? El Pulpito del Diablo and the famous Pan de Azucar are right there! We can't be more than a 30 minute walk away from the snow! I didn't realize how far we had come up.

Our first glimpse of El Pulpito and Pan de Azucar

The cozy tent

So completes a rather epic day, with biking, hiking, and a total ascent of around 6,000 feet.  We´re camping at 14,700 feet tonight!

May 26th
The morning dawns chilly and cloudy.  We wander around a bit and discover that it´s clear enough to see the lakes in the next valley, obvious remnants of the glacier that still lingers on a far peak. Around us, the landscape is barren and windswept, strewn with boulders, and dotted with frialejones. We haven´t seen anyone since we left Luis's place yesterday.

Not every day that you wake up with a view like this

You have to love the high altitude plants 

After breakfast cozy in the tent, we decide to make our way up towards El Pulpito del Diablo. There are still some clouds floating around, but the sun is out, and it looks like they´re blowing through. It´s slow hiking with the thin air and freezing wind. 

The windswept approach 

Eventually, we reach the snow line at around 15,800 feet, the highest elevation either of us has ever been! The massive, reddish black, streaked and striped wall that is the Pulpito stands stark against the misty clouds. Pan de Azucar is just to its right, a gentle, friendly looking peak draped with a snowy glacier.  

At the base of Pan de Azucar 

Wow

On our way back, we see some other people hiking up.  In fact, there are lots of people! We learn that this is a popular trip for people to make from Bogota.  It´s the closest place to go if you want to see snow! Most people appear to be ridiculously unprepared for the mountains, wearing jeans and carrying shopping bags.  When you live in a city, it must be hard to know what to expect up here. At least Colombians are out and enjoying their country´s natural places.

After lunch we have some time to relax, read, and paint before we begin our trek down. Luckily, the climb down is easier and faster than the way up.  

Some beautiful flowers

Just before we reach Luis´ place, we are rewarded with a spectacular sunset that lights the valley on fire. Dinner is peaceful and yummy with more hot cocoa.  As we get ready for bed, the stars start to come out, and the Milky Way blazes across the sky.

May 27th
We wake up early with the rooster and the dog but end up leaving late.  We have to repack all our stuff and do some bike maintenance.  Our bikes did not enjoy all the wet mud they went through on the way up here.

Bye Luis!

The plan for today is to bike the horseshoe shaped road that connects the two mountain towns, El Cocuy and Guican. Since we´ve already been to El Cocuy, we figure we might as well go see Guican.  Plus, the road winds along at 11,000-12,000 feet right at the base of the park and its huge snow covered peaks.  How could it not be beautiful? Well, it doesn´t turn out quite as we expect. Even though the morning is clear and we have a great view of three of the snowy peaks, clouds move in, and gradually we lose sight of the tall mountains.  Instead, our road travels through high elevation farmland, past rushing streams and small houses with dogs that run out to chase us.  

A cool bridge 

High elevation farmland

The most accurate depiction of the mountains that we found

The road condition deteriorates until we are riding over large, loose rocks on a track that barely resembles a road.  It´s past lunchtime when we arrive, exhausted, in Guican.

Why would you ever paint a church like this? 

In the afternoon we bike a short distance to the next town down the valley and then take a long break to enjoy some food. After our break, neither of us feels like biking much more, so we ask at a few farm houses to see if we can camp in a field. At the third place they say yes. It's clear that we have found a good spot.  We have a wonderful view of the valley, the two dogs are small and don´t bark, and the household is run by two friendly ladies who invite us to have breakfast with them the next morning.

May 28th
We wake up and realize that we are covered in ants. AKK! How did they get into our tent? Closer examination reveals that they have eaten their way through the tent floor, creating about 100 tiny holes in the process.  It appears that they were trying to get at some of the bread we had with us; the small loaves are literally swarming with the little black creatures. At least they didn´t bite us.
We do our best to get rid of them, and get our stuff together.  Then it´s time to enjoy a breakfast of corn potato soup and arepas, thick fried flour tortillas.  The ladies who live here, Orelia and Ladis,  spend their time making beautiful baskets out of the grasses in the area and then selling them in town. We are both amazed by their talent. Before leaving we also spend a bit of time with Fabian, Ladis´ son.  He´s learning English in school, so we do what we can to help.
Thank you again to Orelia, Ladis, and Fabian for welcoming us into your home!

Orelia, Ladis, and a half completed bowl

Back on our bikes, we begin an extremely mountainous day.  We spend all morning climbing up about 3,000 feet, then we descend into a river valley and spend all afternoon climbing up another 2,000 feet. Along the way we pass through various cute little towns with ornate churches and central squares, and eat a lot of fresh baked bread from the local panadarias. Our road is paved in parts, unpaved in others. Neither of us can understand why you would only pave parts of a road. If you´re going to all the trouble of bringing the paving equipment up into the mountains, doesn´t it make sense to just pave the whole thing?
Our day ends with an enormous descent. The road is so steep, and the next valley so wide, it looks like we are about to drop off the edge of the world.  We see other cyclists out on the same road; looks like this hill is a popular local cycling challenge!
When we reach the bottom, it´s already getting late, so we decide to ask to camp at a small restaurant. The people say it´s fine for us to stay, so we find a nice spot where all noise is drowned out by the large river. Dinner is couscous with a ton of fresh veggies that I purchased for less than $1 today!

May 29th
When we wake up, large black vultures are everywhere.  It seems that they like to hang out here by the river. One of them attempts to steal Danny´s bowl. We pack up and head out quickly.
Immediately we begin to climb, and climb, and climb. We continue to go up until it´s 12:30 and we decide that it´s time for lunch.  After eating, we´re both tired and feeling a bit under the weather again.  Biking in these mountains is spectacular, but not easy! We decide to look for somewhere to stay in the next town.
Unfortunately, the next town only has a small hospedaje that is way above our budget.  We´re about to leave when the friendly owner shows up.  When she sees that we are young people on bikes, she lowers the price of the room to $22 a night. So, here we are now in our own cabin, complete with private bathroom, wrap-around porch, kitchen, and fridge.  

What a beautiful cabin!

The lovely lady who owns this place also lets us use the washing machine to clean our clothes, has loaned us her computer to type up our blog, and brought us water, fresh fruit juice and beers. What a wonderful afternoon it has been.
If you´re ever in Susacon, Colombia, we definitely recommend staying at La Violeta.

El Cocuy: Getting There and Park Info (by Danny)

1) Trails and Park Info

The park entrance fee for foreigners is COP$52,000 as of May 2015, and you also must buy rescue insurance at COP$7,000 for each day that you will be in the park.  The park office will give you a useless paper map with a ridiculously large contour interval (good thing you have rescue insurance!); see below for some other map options.  

About the trail to El Pulpito:

- Luis at Hermanos Herrera is really nice and apparently charges much less to camp than at the end of the road at Sisuma.  

- There is one wild camping option on the trail at El Alto del Conejo, which is just below the snow line. There are no bathroom facilities there.  Water can be found in many clear pools and streams coming off the glacier.

2) Towns and Roads Around the Park

The trailheads are accessed from the 43 km destapada (unpaved) road connecting the towns of El Cocuy and Guican.  We biked from El Cocuy, elevation 8,900 feet, up to the turnoff towards El Pulpito del Diablo, the highest point in the road at 12,600 feet.  The climb was steady and gradual, the surface easily rideable even in the rain.  The side road to El Pulpito is also rideable, though we walked some steep sections when our wet rim brakes didn't feel like doing their job.  After Hermanos Herrera, the side road gets rockier towards Sisuma.

After hiking, we biked to Guican.  This section of road was noticeably rougher than the other side and included many steep ups and downs, in contrast to the steady grade from El Cocuy.  It took us all morning to reach Guican.  Although many people told us that the road is now paved from Panqueba to both Guican and El Cocuy, the Guican side had much rougher pavement and many dirt/rock sections.  The road to El Cocuy, al contrario, is smoooooth.

3) Roads to Panqueba

There are two options to get from highway 55 to Panqueba, 2 km after which the road forks to El Cocuy or Guican.  

Option 1: Capitanejo to El Espino.  This road has some tough sections near the bottom, but after entering the canyon and turning upriver, the surface improves and takes you gradually up to El Espino, right before which the road becomes paved and stays that way for almost the whole way to Panqueba.  Beautiful scenery and no traffic.  There's one tiny town between Capitanejo and El Espino.  This road isn't followable in Google Maps, but it's in Open Street Maps and is pretty self-explanatory once you're on it.  In Capitanejo, ask anyone for directions to Cocuy or "el nevado." 

Option 2: Soata to Boavita to Guacamayas. Much better surfaces, lots of small towns, and a whole lot more elevation in the form of two big passes.  This route is mostly paved with few rough sections (locals may proudly tell you it's all paved; don't listen to them) and has moderate grades with slightly more traffic than the route from Capitanejo, though still very little.

Maps:

A picture of the map in the El Cocuy park office

The road is the gray line on the left.

These are hardly good enough quality to navigate from; feel free to contact me if you would like the full-size files.