Torres del Paine Day 1 January 24 2012

  

The Torres

We start the day off under cloudless blue skies in Puerto Natales, a chat with the owner of the B&B emphaised how small a world it is... His son is doing a program at Thompson University at Kamloops... go figure. We are on the bus at 8:00. The road is paved most of the way, we stop for photos near the park entrance, great views of the Torres. 



   



 

Guanacos



We see much wildlife from the bus window, herds of Guanacos, flocks? of Rheas, many other small birds and even 2 foxes, it will be pretty much all the wildlife we will see here.

Captian Highliner even makes a cameo appearance as do two elegantly dressed folks who expressed trepidation about the upcoming camping adventure, seemed it might be their first...

Hosteria Torres

With the photo stop and another one for coffee for the driver, a  lecture on park rules(spanish version 3 x as long as english?) and the purchase of a park entry permit, we finally are on the trail by noon. Immediately we pass a campground, hostel and a sprawling hotel on the scale of Many Glacier Lodge.


This is a busy place. Our objective for today is the camping area at the base of the Torres. The Torres are 3 spectacular granite spires rising above the Ascension valley. The customary drill is to camp about 1 km away at Torres camp, get up before dawn and stumble up to the Mirador in the dark, then watch the sun rise on the peaks... sounds cool eh? As we proceed we learn that it is customary to say ´Hola´ to folks you pass on the trail, we find ourselves Hola´ing at a high rate of speed as the trail has many trekkers.

Ascension Valley



The walk is pleasant(other than the backpack) on good trail, in a magnificent setting. Elevation gain is maybe 400 m elevation over some 10 kms, as recorded by the GPS, from the bus stop to camp.(on the park cartoon map its a 5.5 km walk, but not very clear where the counting begins). There is a refugio and second camping area (Chilena) about 2/3 of the way to Torres camp,  looks like a nice hostel facility, but camping area very small and crowded and next to where the horses are tied... Glad we did not choose to camp there. At camp the GPS shows the distance to be closer to 10 kms, is this thing accurate?. Anyway we a arrive in about 3 hours, which does match the esimated time.



Torres camp has many sites, and most were full by evening, it is maned by a Guardaparque who takes your name and passport number and gives a short talk on the rules.He apologises for the smoke associated with the shit paper he is burning in the middle of the camp, it smolders most of the day and evening.... We find a reasonably flat spot and set up the tent. To our immense surprise we find the toilet facility to be a flush unit, water piped in from stream above, simple but very cleverly designed, light years ahead in design from of the squat units in Los Glaciors. We prepare dinner number 1 of Couscous and tuna, with tomato sauce, strangely Elaine has appetite for not even half of her portion, a martyr, I clean her bowl.

Tuna and Couscous

We head to bed early with alarm set to get up at 4:00ish.... we anticipate the forthcoming natural event like children on christmas eve....