Patagonia: Torres del Paine and Punta Arenas

Growing up, I looked forward to the National Geographic magazine landing in our mailbox every month. Often those issues included a beautiful map that I would unfold and pore over, sometimes for hours. On our family room bookshelf, next to the worn Websters Dictionary and an entire set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, was a large atlas binder which stored all of those National Geographic maps, carefully glued in place.  It was both a reference source and a book of imagination. All of these years later, I can still spend hours with a paper map, using my finger to follow rivers, traverse mountain ranges, and navigate entire regions of the world using latitude and longitude lines.

That old map book came to mind during the latter days of our Patagonia adventure. A couple of weeks earlier, on our first hike in Ushuaia, our local guide was amused at how awed we were by the legendary Patagonia wind. At the time, I didn’t think much about his explanation of the “Roaring Forties” and “Furious Fifties” or his offhand comment “wait until you get to Torres del Paine”.

The southern hemisphere’s Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties, it turns out, are notorious latitudinal zones, known for their violent westerly gales, caused when warm air from the equator drops south to meet cold air traveling north from Antarctica. These winds swirl across the southern hemisphere from west to east with very few land masses to slow them down, making them much more potent than the winds at 40° N, where large land masses like the Continental Divide obstruct the airstream (Denver sits precisely at 40° N).

It all made sense when we arrived at Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park, which lies at a latitude of 51° S and has some of the harshest weather on Earth with winds known to routinely reach up to 100mph.

Torres del Paine sits just within the Furious Fifties. We never want to experience the Screaming Sixties in the Drake Passage.

This would explain why, as we stepped out of the van, we all looked like those ridiculous meteorologists forced to stand in a wind tunnel to simulate the power of hurricane-force winds. At times, the only way to remain upright was to hold on to someone and hope you didn’t go flying like a tumbleweed. This was nuts.

In Torres de Paine you’d better hang onto your partner or they might fly away.

Three immense granite towers give Torres del Paine its name,  Spanish for “Towers of Paine”, with paine ( pronounced PIE-nay) an old indigenous word meaning blue. The towers are just one part of the Cordillera Paine, a mountain range that rises between wide glacial valleys. By human standards, the mountains of Cordillera del Paine are quite old. But compared to the Rocky Mountains (up to 70 million years old) and the Appalachians (480 million years), the Cordillera del Paine are actually very young – only about 12 million years old. We would spend three days in the national park with our final hike taking us to the base of the towers.

We were eleven days into our journey when we entered Torres del Paine, and although we’d spotted a wide variety of wildlife, there was one very special and notoriously elusive species that we were still on the lookout for. El puma, vigilante de la montana. The cougar, guardian of the mountain. And then suddenly, this powerful creature appeared.

As our guide spotted this puma in the distance, he safely pulled off the road and we watched as it moved across the landscape.  Similar to mountain lions in California, the hermit-like Chilean puma can weigh up to 220 pounds, run at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour and jump as high as 18 feet.  Our guide guessed that this was a full grown puma, measuring about 8 feet long. We celebrated our good fortune to receive a gift from nature… from a safe distance.

Team Pea at the entrance to Torres del Paine.

Our first hike in Torres del Paine took us on a sandbar across Lago Grey, with icebergs floating in the distance, and a suspension bridge spanning a river of glacier water. Our destination was an outlook that would normally provide a spectacular view of Grey Glacier but, unfortunately, low hanging clouds and mist had settled over the glacier and hid it away.

The sandbar across Lago Grey with icebergs that calved from Grey Glacier in the distance.
The sandbar was plenty wide but that wind sure was cold!
The park service limited the number of people allowed on this bridge at one time, for obvious reasons.
Sunrise from our room on Lago Grey; day two in Torres del Paine.

On our second day in Torres del Paine we said goodbye to Lago Grey and headed deeper into the park for a tough hike with views of the Cordillera del Paine range. After a short warm up, the trail suddenly went straight up and we were trudging through sand. All we could do was plant our poles, pull ourselves upward, slide a few inches backward, and do it all over again until we were standing at the summit breathless. Once at the top, the views were stunning as the trail followed a ridge line for several miles before descending back down to the glacial valley.

The luckiest man on earth. And what a nice way to start a hike.
Heads down and slogging to the top of the hill.
The climb was hard work but the views were worth the effort.
A pretty nice lunch stop on the trail.
We never grew tired of this.
And down we went back to the valley floor.
Our guides surprised us with beer and snacks at the end of the hike. Deb and I toasted to another great day.

Our last day in Torres del Paine featured what was billed as the ” grand finale hike”. If the weather cooperated, we’d hike right to the base of the three massive towers and sit in awe of them. We set out from our lodge and headed toward the Valle Ascencio, where we would begin the long climb up to the towers. The forecast showed zero chance of rain but it’s Patagonia so, naturally, a cold rain began falling about one mile into our twelve mile roundtrip hike. Undeterred, we  dug out our raincoats and headed up through the pass. The rain fell harder, the trail became muddy, and the towers disappeared. We paused briefly to get out of the rain at a rustic outpost about half way up the trail. The skies kept pissing rain and soon we were breaking out the rain pants. Soaking wet, we kept moving forward until deciding that hiking the final section to the base of the towers would take too long and be too dangerous. So, the “grand finale hike” was slightly less than grand but there were hot showers and beer on tap waiting for us back at the lodge. All in all, a good day.

The towers made a brief appearance before completely vanishing.
Can’t we just assume that every mountain pass in Patagonia is windy?
Carlos, our leader for the entire trip, had no use for rain gear (he could also remain upright in ferocious wind). We couldn’t have asked for a more adventurous and knowledgable guide.
Oddly, there was an outpost about half way up the valley. It offered coffee, bathrooms, and a horse taxi service for the return trip. We were tempted.

Back at the lodge, the reward.

The final leg of our “In Patagonia” Wilderness Travel trip took us to Punta Arenas, Chile, which sits on a peninsula just north of the Strait of Magellan. The strait is a natural passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and is named after Ferdinand Magellan, who first traversed it as part of a Spanish expedition in 1520. Although he is commonly credited with “discovering” the strait, indigenous peoples had navigated it in canoes long before Magellan showed up. Punta Arenas was originally established as a penal colony in the mid 19th century and has a long history of social protests. Riots had broken out several months prior to our visit, triggered when Chile’s president announced a 4% hike in fares for Santiago’s metro service. Protests spread nationwide, encompassing broader issues impacting living conditions in a country that ranks as one of the worst among developed democracies for income inequality. These were the largest demonstrations of their kind since the country returned to democracy following the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in the 70s and 80s. Walking around the city we saw evidence of the unrest, from widespread graffiti to vandalized monuments. We felt safe walking in the city centre but after spending two weeks hiking in remote sites at the end of the earth, it was a rude return to civilization. There was also word of a virus from China that seemed to be getting a lot of attention. Hmmm.

Bev impersonating a sculpture at a stop on our way to Punta Arenas.
At the center of the main square in Punta Arenas, Chile, is a bronze statue of Ferdinand Magellan.. Below him, is an indigenous Patagonian whose low-hanging foot has been rubbed to a shine by travelers headed out to sea.
The gang hanging out in Punta Arenas. Photo by Deb.
Jenny was going to ride horseback all of the way home.
On our urban wandering in Punta Arenas, Bev and Julie took us to a high point overlooking the city.

 

Patagonia: Perito Moreno

This is the fifth in a series of posts about our trip to Patagonia, which took place during the first few weeks in 2020, before the entire human race began playing tag with a deadly virus and “social distancing” was in response to somebody’s bad breath or body odor. Ah, how we crave the “old normal”.

In our last post we were hanging out at the Blue Lagoon and getting our very last look at the Fitz Roy Massif. We said goodbye to the nice folks at the very remote Estancia Helsingfors and headed to one of Argentina’s major tourist attractions , the Perito Moreno glacier.

Presently, ten percent of land area on Earth is covered with glacial ice. Covered areas encompass nearly six million square miles and there are thousands of glaciers worldwide. So what makes this particular one so special? Quite a lot, it turns out.

Continue reading “Patagonia: Perito Moreno”

Patagonia: The Blue Lagoon

This is the fourth in a series of posts about our trip to Patagonia. This was a pre-pandemic adventure when toilet paper was plentiful, nobody had converted their basement into a face mask factory, and people could hug each other without the fear of dying. Ah, the good old days of January.

In our last post we were waving goodbye to Terry The Mystery Dog and the Fitz Roy Massif. We were sad to be leaving El Pilar, our home for the previous four nights, until our guide Carlos announced that our next hosts had a “VERY special lunch” planned for us. Sometimes I am ashamed at how easy and transparent we are.

Continue reading “Patagonia: The Blue Lagoon”

Patagonia – Los Glaciares National Park

This is the third in a series of posts on our January 2020 trip to Patagonia. Ah, good old January, just eight weeks ago when we only had to avoid impeachment news instead of other human beings and global economic catastrophe.

When last seen, Bev was determined to sneak a penguin out of Tierra del Fuego, name him Ferdinand (after the Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan), and provide him a good home with no threat of predators.

Continue reading “Patagonia – Los Glaciares National Park”

Patagonia: To the End of the World We Go

This is the second in a series of posts on our January 2020 trip to Patagonia. We joined 13 other intrepid travelers (including four friends who decided that they could stand two weeks with us) on the In Patagonia trip offered by Wilderness Travel.

After spending a couple of days in Buenos Aires, we boarded a flight to Ushuaia (roughly pronounced ooshwhy-yah) in Tierra del Fuego. Here is where I get to profess my ignorance. I knew that Tierra del Fuego was somewhere south. I also knew that it was somewhere cold. How did I know this? I surmised it from the lyrics of a Michael Franks song.

You got the nicest North America
This sailor ever saw
I’d like to feel your warm Brazil
And touch your Panama

But your Tierra del Fuegos
Are nearly always froze
We gotta see saw
Until we unthaw those
Popsicle toes Continue reading “Patagonia: To the End of the World We Go”