TR: Southern Patagonia

[zion zig zag]

I had a thread up asking for advice for a Patagonia trip so I figured I owed you guys some photos. Went the last couple of weeks of March and I'm still digging through photos but I have enough to tell the story.
It was a long day of travel getting there, and time was somewhat compressed as the forecast showed some bad weather coming and we wanted to get a hike in while it was warm and sunny. Salt Lake to Atlanta to Santiago to Punta Arenas to car rental then drive to Puerto Natales, 36ish hours.
Puerto Natales, which is the gateway to Torres del Paine:


We were doing the "W" trek in the park, and day one was the hike to Base Torres. All of the info that we were told beforehand was that this is an 11 mile hike with about 2500 feet of elevation gain. Actual stats were closer to 14 miles and 4800 feet of elevation gain.




We had clear skies and warm temps, but at two spots on the trail the wind nearly knocked me over. You hear about the wind in Patagonia a lot, and it turns out it's no joke. Wind that would have me scrambling for shelter in the Tetons or Wasatch seems to barely phase the locals.


That night in the tent was loud, and at times semi-frightening. No idea what the gusts were, but the next day there were several shredded tents around the campground. We had opted to rent tents for the hike, where they are set up for you when you arrive into the camp, so at least I wasn't worried about breakage.
The next day the weather had come in, some rain but not too bad, wind had settled some. Since we were a day 'early,' we had and extra day to drive around the park and see some other sites.


Day three we have to hike to Camp Frances. It rained most of this day, with the clouds moving on and off of the peaks. Made for some really moody looking scenes and wild creek crossings.


Trail maintenance and good trail building practice doesn't seem to be a thing in the park yet. Even though they get a ton of hikers. Lots of braided trails, running water on trails, wash outs, etc.

Camp Frances is a dank, dark hole of a place where the cafeteria is a long walk down the hill from the tent sites. There is no where warm and dry to hang out and was the worst of the camps we saw. The plus side of Frances is that it puts you closer to Valley Frances for the next days hike, makes the viewpoints (miradors) up that valley more reachable for a reasonable day. Speaking of cafeteria, we also opted to have all of our meals provided, so no need to carry food or a stove. You eat dinner and breakfast at an assigned time with a large group, family style service. Similar to some Canadian huts with more people and no dishes. A bagged lunch is provided each day.

[zion zig zag]

Sometime in the night the rain had changed over to snow, winds were totally calm. Today we were hiking to Mirador Britanico in Valle Frances, and then on to Paine Grande.


Luckily no ice on the rocks and the snow was melting quickly. By the time we got to a decent viewpoint, the clouds were closing in too much for good photography, but we spent a good chunk of time watching ice falls and avalanches come down from Cerro Paine Grande. The sounds were incredible.


We must've hit the trail earlier than other groups, because we ran into a lot of people on the way down. Good place to mention that this is a not a hiking trip for solitude, you never seem to go more than an hour without running into someone, and usually less. On the Base Torres hike it was downright crowded and at the top of the boulder field it's better to settle to in and give up trying to pass people. That being said, we went in the late season and supposedly it's quite a bit more crowded in December and January.

Later that day the sun came out and made for good views.


We made good time getting to Paine Grande campground. This is the biggest camp and has a large lodge. We checked into our tent, went to the bar and had pizza and beers. You can buy beer and wine at every campground, some have additional food you can buy. It's kind of like a refugee camp with all of the tents in a small area.


The camp ground host here told me we were very lucky, we were getting June views in March. And the new snow did make the mountains pretty striking.
The next day we did a short hike to a viewpoint of a glacier a long ways away, and then returned to Paine Grande campground and caught the catamaran back across the lake to the bus stop. From the bus stop I had to catch a bus and then shuttle to get the rental car. I had booked a hotel for that night right at the edge of the lake and my wife had been talking about hot showers and beds for the last two nights. We checked in at 2pm and they told us that the hot water turns on at 630pm. Hmmph.

That being said, this hotel has some of the most iconic views in the park, and chances are if you've seen a photo of Torres del Paine, it was taken from here. There was a large group of US tourists here as part of a photography workshop and I think they were staying at this spot for three days.




At this point I had kinda become obsessed with Cerro Paine Grande. The scale of it is huge. It's a little over 10k feet, but lake level is only a couple hundred feet. I decided I'd like to come back and climb it some day so I started to do some google-ing of popular routes. Turns out it's only been climbed a handful of times, by full on state sponsored alpine assault teams and the baddest alpinists in the world. Oh well.

[zion zig zag]

The next day we wake up and start the drive to El Calafate in Argentina. I was looking forward to driving Ruta 40, it being pretty famous for views, etc. Leaving the park there was a long stretch of road construction that was dirt road. It wasn't a bad dirt road, but it did have random, softball sized river rocks that you needed to watch. I was in a tiny Renault rental with not a lot of ground clearance. We went over a bump and the suspension compressed right on top of one of those softball sized rocks. I better check it....yep, cracked oil pan. And it's leaking fast. Luckily we have cell service and call Avis. They sent a local mechanic from a nearby ranch and he was there in about 45 minutes. He told me that the car was leaking oil and he would call the office.

The office that we rented from was 3 hours away and so we were sure that we were losing a whole day, if not worse. On top of that we had paperwork that allowed us to take the car from Chile to Argentina, this paperwork was not easy to come by and we had applied 10 days in advance, so we weren't sure how that was going to work out. Surprisingly, someone showed up in a new car, with new paperwork in about 2 hours. I have no idea where they came from and how they processed the paperwork this fast, but I'm super grateful. The guy jumps in with the mechanic and they leave us with our new car, a very small Suzuki. We head to the border feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

After going through the control to exit Chile, you have to drive a few miles before you enter Argentina. On this part of the drive we see two female hitchhikers headed our way. We decide we need the karma and pick them up. Two young women from the Netherlands traveling SA for three months, they were also headed to El Calafate so we spend the next few hours talking with them.

I wake up the next morning with an itchy throat and some chills but not too bad, so we head to the Perito Moreno glacier.


This is actually way cooler than I expected, it's huge and watching it calve (calf?) was pretty cool. The waves from the falling ice are huge. Did some hiking around all of the platforms, had lunch and called it a day. The weather was awesome, a park ranger told us that there are only about 15-20 days a year that are this clear on the glacier and it's rare to see all the way to the ice cap above.

The next morning I wake up full on sick. We are supposed to head to El Chalten but I ask my wife to talk to the hotel and see if we can stay another night. I spent this whole day in bed unfortunately.

The next day we leave for El Chalten, the drive is pretty scenic and even spending a lifetime driving around the inter-mountain west, it's fucking desolate. Like Nevada/Great basin desolate. Guanacos are everywhere, I can't believe the density of these things and they hang out on the road.


We do some tourist stuff in El Chalten, ride horses, hike etc., but the weather doesn't cooperate and Fitz Roy stays hidden in clouds. We do get some cool fall colors:


Town:


Luckily, we get a weather break on the last day as we drive out of town:


After that, a long day driving back to Punta Arenas to start the flights home. Fini.

[byates1]

wow. incredible. someday. thx!!

[Meadow Skipper]

Nice!

[danmelon]

amazing shots! Thanks for sharing. Such an intriguing land.

[BCMtnHound]

Thanks for the report. Beautiful.

[Ski to Be]

Awesome, Been on my list for a long time. Thank you

[MakersTeleMark]

Wow, that's a quick trip to go all the way down there. Glad the sickness didn't totally wipe you out.

Now, lomo, or GTFO.

[Danno]

Well done, thanks for sharing

[criscam]

Awesome pics and report! Putting it on the bucket list. Need more info on the hot lesbian hitchhikers.

[LeeLau]

Thank you

[rudy]

Rad and great pics

[alpinevibes]

Sick pics and solid weather windows!

[Buzzworthy]

What a gorgeous area. Those pictures I’m sure don’t do it justice even though they are spectacular. Love to see more if you get the chance once you’re feeling better.

[Norseman]

Thanks for sharing.

Nice photos... I'm sure you have a shitpile more! Post em up

[muted reborn]

So cool.

[easyrdr]

Dude..........awesome!

[zion zig zag]

Oh I have a ton of photos, but they get pretty repetitive because I couldn't stop taking photos of mountains.

Cerro Paine Grande:


The road to El Chlaten:




Waterfalls everywhere on the rainy day:




The clouds were awesome all over. There were wild lenticulars that I didn't catch.


More glacier:


Aggressive birds:

[huckbucket]

So cool. Thanks for posting.

[grskier]

Thanks for posting some shots. That area always looks so dang cool.

[MakersTeleMark]

Did you get to see a condor?

[leftfield]

Nice, thanks. I miss that part of the world

[nortonwhis]

Great stuff. Thanks for sharing.

[Angle Parking]

Beauty pics. Well done and thx for the stoke.