Day 154 – Monday 20th February 2006

I woke up half an hour before my alarm and lay awake wondering if I had forgotten anything for my 5 day trek to the Torres del Paine National Park. It was a pretty futile exercise as at 6am even if I had forgotten anything I wouldn’t have been able to go and buy it.

I was picked up by the tour bus and driven the 2 ¾ hours to park, (paying the C$10,000 entry fee (C$900=£1)) before being dropped off at Lago Pehoe where I would take a catamaran (for another C$10,000) to my starting point for the “W” hike.

I had an hour to kill before the catamaran left so I walked about 20 minutes to some waterfalls. Just around the corner from these I was able to get my first glimpse at the mountains I would be walking around for the next few days. Although cloud obscured part of the peaks, it was still a good way to begin the trip.

The 30 minute catamaran ride took us across the icy blue waters of Lago Pehoe, before arriving at Paine Grande, which would be my camp site for the second night. For the first night I was staying at Refugio Grey, a 3.5hr, 11km hike.

After a little confusion about which path to take, myself and a British couple began the walk in earnest. The first park took us through a channel between two small hills, and then up and over a different hill. After about an hour of walking Glaciar Grey came into view. Still way off in the distance it gave us a visual idea of how far we had left to walk that day.

The path took us along a route next to Lago Grey. In this lake there were huge chunks of ice that had broken off from the glacier and were slowing floating away across the waters. As we got closer to the glacier, the more evident the sheer scale of it became. The face of ice towered above the water level. A tour boat sailed up to the face (but not too close) of the ice. From that we were able to judge the height of the ice wall, which I would guess to be around 15m from water level to the top.

With a 30 minute stop for lunch it took 4 hours to reach my bed for the night. After dropping my bags off and ordering dinner I continued up towards the glacier for about an hour, getting a decent up close view of it. By this time the sun had appeared and the deep icy blue of the glacier was perfect to just sit and appreciate. Every now and again giant booms filled the air, like distant rumbles of thunder. It wasn’t thunder, but the sound of the ice cracking on the glacier. I hoped a chunk would fall off into the water but I didn’t get that lucky.

After seeing the glacier I turned and walked back to my camp to get my dinner for the evening. After that I was pretty beat and just read for a while and had an early night, ready for another day of hiking.