Let "The Circuit" Begin

Tuesday February 4, 2020

Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

Base de las Torres Lookout hike.  About 20 km.

At our briefing session last evening Jose advised us that only "tourists" use the term "O circuit".  Instead, we should just call it "the circuit".  Okey dokey.

Guess what?  Yet another early day.  I had my alarm set for 5:45 but others were up at 5, so that's when we were all awake.  Nice breakfast at the hostel and our driver arrived promptly at 6:30.  We were on a 7am bus to the park.  Apparently there are 4 different companies that run buses there.  Ray & Lu were also on a 7am bus, but with a different company.

I can't recall exactly how long the ride was, but I'll say about an hour and a half.  Somewhat surprising (to me, anyway) was that we saw flamingos at a lake quite close to the park entrance.  It was then quite the process to get underway.  Stop and get off the bus at the park entrance.  Watch a short video.  Complete a registration form, hand it in and get a map.  Catch a shuttle bus to the "welcome centre".  Show passports and reservation forms and get our earlier reservation form stamped.  Go through another checkpoint and off to the refugio to store some things out of our bags.  On to tonight's campsite where we had to produce our reservation form again as well as passports and entry visas.  They provided meal tickets for us for today and tomorrow morning.  Whew; finally ready to hike!  Ray and Lu had to pitch their tent so they were a bit behind us all day on the trail.

The weather has been improving all day.  There was light rain in Puerto Natales first thing this morning after heavy rain last night.  It was clearing by the time we got to the park and the rain had stopped.  The high temperature was supposed to be about 12C but I'm pretty sure that when the sun came out this afternoon it was much warmer than that.  A beautiful day for hiking.  And - when we got to the top of the hike the towers were clearly visible.

Our hike today was to the Base de las Torres lookout.  Looking at the map it appears to be the second highest point on the entire trail.  Only the John Gardner Pass is higher.  The hike was about 18 km round trip with an elevation gain of about 1000m.  The trail was good, but quite rocky in places.  The last km was a bit of a grunt over quite rocky terrain.  I'm glad we had some warm-up hikes last week!  We had some views along the way.  A bit of forest walking.  Some walking by a raging river (nice to soak the legs and feet in on the way home).  And - a spectacular final destination with the Torres del Paine (2850m) rising behind the lake.

Along the way we spotted this wildlife up above the trail.  I'm guessing they are huemel, a south andean deer.  Apparently it is an endangered species so I feel privileged to have seen them. 

And finally - the towers............

We layered up, had a leisurely lunch and admired the view.  We didn't start the hike until shortly after 10, so it was after 6 by the time we got back to the campsite.  We're "renting" tents and sleeping bags and having all our meals provided by the refugios along the way.  Judging by the size of the meals so far we may very well be gaining weight on the trip!

Another fabulous day.  Hope the weather holds!

Some notes on the park.....  Parque Nacional Torres del Paine was established in 1959 and comprises 181,414 hectares of Patagonian steppe, lowland and alpine glacial lakes, glacier-fed torrents and waterfalls, forested uplands, and nearly vertical granite needles.  Altitudes range from only about 50 m above sea level to 3,050 m atop Paine Grande, the central massif's tallest peak.  Paine has a cool temperate climate characterized by high winds, especially in spring and summer.  Another climate description I found reads "temperate climate of cold rain without a dry season".  The average summer temperature is about 11C.  The circuit trail was pioneered in 1976.

Some of the Andes' youngest peaks, the Torres del Paine are among the most emblematic in the entire range.  Some 10 million years ago, a magma intrusion failed to reach the earth's surface, cooling underground into resistant granite; in the interim, water, ice, and snow have eroded softer surrounding terrain to liberate the spires as one of the world's most dramatic landscapes.