W is for Wow

After a few day hikes in Chile and Argentina in preparation, it was finally time for the real thing - the W circuit in Torres del Paine, Chile. We arrived in Puerto Natales at about 11pm on a Monday night, and we gave ourselves all day Tuesday to get everything sorted. We'd read a lot of blogs and everyone had said if you're doing the W hike you have to go to a hostel called Erratic Rock as they give a free information session everyday at 3pm. That talk saved our asses, as if we'd been left to our own devices we probably would have done it a totally different, and much crappier way. We also rented all the gear we needed from the hostel - tent, sleeping mats, mess kit, gas and hiking poles. Then we just needed to buy all our food and we were set. Except for the fun part of packing everything and realising how much we had to carry for the next 5 days. 

Day 1
There are two times the buses go out to the National Park and we took the early one at 7:30am so we could get to our first camp at a reasonable hour.  It was mainly a long dusty gravel road which, combined with the fact it was like an oven in the bus, made for an interesting ride. After paying our entrance fee for the park we had another short ride to the catamaran which took us to the starting point to do the circuit west-east, which is the recommended way to get the best views. Then shit got real. Just to make it a bit easier for you all to see, here's a map of the park - just click on 'Circuito W' and you'll see the hike we did (minus the last hour of day 1 up to Campamento Los Guardas). 

We started hiking from Refugio and Camping Paine Grande, and it was a pretty tough 3.5 hours to start with. It was made even harder by the fact that the trail was pretty much all uneven rock, and a steady uphill hike. It was also bloody windy which made it interesting at times. Once we got to the top of the lookout and could see Glacier Grey we had renewed motivation as it didn't look far. Yeah right.

We soon found out how wrong we were on that one. Once we got to Refugio Grey it was another hour up to Campamento Guardas, which was recommended as being better (and free) as it's right by the glacier. What we didn't know was that that final hour would be one of the hardest hours of the whole circuit. It was a neverending uphill battle, and if we thought our packs were already heavy, they felt a million times heavier going up that nightmare hill. All we could do was keep our heads down and put one foot in front of the other, and then finally, we got to the top.  Hallefuckinglujah. We've never been so happy to see a deserted campsite in the woods. 

So after 5 hours our first day was done. Not a bad effort and we were pretty proud of ourselves. Our reward was to walk another 2 minutes to watch the sun set over the glacier. Absolutely stunning. What more could you ask for? After a gourmet dinner of instant mashed potatoes with onion, garlic and chorizo, it was lights out.

Day 2
The alarm went off at 6:30am to get us up and going for another day, but by the time we cooked breakfast, cleaned up and packed up, it was a bit after 9am. We then had to hike right back to where we started the day before, but despite a few uphill parts it was a bit easier. However, the last 2.5 hours from Paine Grande to Campamento Italiano was when the aches and pains set in and it was a killer. Sore feet and shoulders and the beating sun made a pretty moderate hike into a struggle every step we took. It wasn't made any easier by all the day hikers staying in their plush refugio beds and 3 cooked meals coming back from their nice easy jaunt with just a bottle of water or a tiny daypack saying it was an easy hike.  Fuck you all you cheating bastards. Needless to say, by the time we got to Italiano we were totally knackered. On the menu that night was instant rice with onion, garlic and chorizo.

Day 3
Up nice and early again for a morning hike up to a lookout point just past Campamento Britanico. All we can say is thank god for the guy at the information session telling us we should leave all our stuff in our tent then pack up when we got back, because it was another killer climb that would've been the hardest of the whole hike with our packs on. We only saw 2 people with full packs on that had obviously camped at Britanico, so either they didn't get the memo or they were just masochists. Despite losing the track once (only briefly) we made it up to the top in 2.5 hours and were rewarded with 360 degree views of the most beautiful scenery. Totally worth it.

Then it was back down to pack up camp and hike to the next stop which was another 2 hours to Los Cuernos, which was the only camping site where we had to pay, and surprisingly the worst camping site. It was also the only place we could have a shower, which was amazing, although kind of pointless considering we had to put the same clothes back on. But hey, getting rid of even a fraction of the stink was worth it. Dinner for day 3 was again instant mashed potatoes with onion, garlic and chorizo. Noticing a trend here...?


Day 4
Up at 6am to get started on our second to last day, we headed off for Campamento Torres, by way of a shortcut to bypass the massive hotel Las Torres. It was yet again a lot of up and down, and then mainly up for a fair bit, with a few treacherous and raging rivers (slight exaggeration) to cross. I (Keryn) would like to go back and slap an Aussie couple in the face for their comment that the shortcut was 'easy, pretty flat' because it SO FUCKING WASN'T! It was only easy for them because they came DOWN the bastard! 

Never mind, we made it to Refugio Chileno in 4 hours so we were pretty happy with that. An American guy, Justin, we'd met along the hike was there waiting, so we all headed on up to Campamento Torres so we'd get set up nice and early with the rest of the afternoon to chill out. It was a nice camping area and we got a good spot, then cooked our final dinner of packet pasta with, you guessed it, onion, garlic and chorizo. We were getting up ridiculously early to hike up to the lookout to watch the sun rise over the Torres del Paine the next day, so we were tucked up by 10pm. But then a group of about 20 Israelis thought it would be a perfect time to arrive at camp and set up 4 tents in a circle around ours. Seriously, there's a whole camping area to choose from and you set up less than 2 metres from us? They then proceeded to yell at each other and keep us awake until 2am. Seriously, fuck off you disrespectful, inconsiderate wankers. 

Day 5
So, after 2 hours sleep we were up by 4am to hike up to the lookout in the dark, and that was a whole new level of hard. It was just under an hour, but with only mildly effective head lamps to light the way and rocky track turning into loose sand/gravel, it was a mission to say the least. Just when we thought we were almost there we looked up and saw tiny pinpoints of light moving waaaaay above us, and thought to ourselves, "Do we seriously have to go up there??".  Yes, yes we do. We made it to the top just after 5am and saw the first rays of sun colouring the sky, so we settled into a good spot to watch and wait. 

It was pretty damn cold so some people had brought sleeping bags and gas stoves to cook breakfast. We weren't that hard core. The funniest thing of the morning though, was when an American girl we'd met at the beginning, Sam, appeared at the top with a rubbish bag full of shit. It hadn't occurred to her at that time of the morning to use her backpack so she'd just chucked everything (and I mean everything) into a black plastic rubbish bag and hiked on up. She's a classic though and we got a lot of laughs out of that, because everything's so much funnier at ridiculous o'clock. The only disappointment was that the towers (Torres del Paine) themselves were covered in cloud for pretty much the whole hour and a half we were up there, so we didn't get a perfect view of all three.  Still, it was an impressive sight being so close to them and the sunrise was beautiful. When we were sufficiently frozen we headed back down to pack up and hike the final leg of the circuit. It took us about 3 hours to get down and while downhill is easier on the lungs, it's hard on the knees. Yet again, we passed shitloads of day hikers coming up from the hotel at the bottom, and we were marvelling at how fresh and clean they smelled as they passed us. God knows what they thought as they got a whiff of us, but I imagine there was some gagging and dry retching involved. Fair enough too. We got down the bottom at about 11am and thought we had a couple of hours to wait for the shuttle to take us to the bus back to the bus to town, but it turned out we had 3 hours to wait. Good excuse to lie down and chill out and congratulate ourselves on making it to the end. Justin decided to walk the final 7kms instead of waiting and paying for the shuttle, and when we saw him later he said it was the worst 1.5 hours of the whole hike. High fives to us for forking out $5 each for the shuttle! We made it just in time for our 2:30pm bus back to town and all we could think about was 3 things: shower, meat and beer. We had to take our rented gear back to Erratic Rock, but we had to get some empanadas on the way. Who can wait for such delicacies after packet carbs and chorizo for 4 nights? After some long showers washing away the dirt and stink (there was a LOT) we felt like new people in clean clothes. We had all good (and sensible) intentions of going to get food straight away, but we got sidetracked by a few beers first. But hey, we deserved a few celebratory drinks for our efforts. We spent the rest of the night with Justin, Sam and Kayla, 3 Americans we met on the hike and had a great night eating real food and drinking lots of beers. Keryn had a hamburger the size of her head, and Kurt had a plate full of the most succulent and delicious lamb either of us have ever tasted. The beer and conversation flowed and it was the perfect end to one of the most amazing and challenging experiences we've ever had.