PN Torres del Paine

The Torres del Paine circuit is seen as one of the classic treks of the world. If you were a trek spotter, this would be high on your hit list. If you are Albane, the prospect of 6 days in the wilderness, carrying all your gear on your back and being subject to the mercy of the weather is not so appealing. But after some subtle persuasion from me, she finally caved in and, with rucksacks laden with tent, sleeping bags and mats, stove, clothes and food for 8 ays (including 2 kg of porridge - enough, it turns out, to feed a small army for a month), we arrived at the Park entrance. While most people took the minibus that covered the 7 km of dirt road to the start of the trek, we opted for the purist approach and walked.

On the first day, the trail took us east through a woodland of Southern Beech before dropping down onto a river meadow thick with daisies. Bright white and swaying in the wind, they looked like a light dusting of snow on the ground. In the open, we walked, bent double, into a headwind so strong that, at times, Albane had to grab my arm to prevent herself from being blown to a standstill. In the late afternoon, we reached our campsite at Puesto Seron and cooked soup and dehydrated potato with a cheese sauce for dinner. Haute mountain cuisine.

The next day, we followed the flooded river upstream, climbing steep bluffs where the route was underwater or cliffs blocked our way. The clouds, which had threatened throughout the morning, started to lift and a light breeze made for pleasant walking conditions. The landcape, shaped by huge glaciers in the past, was a wide U-shaped valley with the opaque, opal-coloured river meandering in the bottom. Dead tree trunks stood in the shallows and, in the distant, we could see a ridge behind which, several hours later, we found Refuge Dickson and a grassy site for the tent. It had been 6 hours of walking and the final hour, made worse for Albane because she had slipped on a river crossing and soaked both feet, seemed interminable.

We took it easy the next morning as we only had 4 hours to walk. A steep climb through rooty woodland brought us to a look out from where we could see rugged mountains, glaciers and the brightness of Lake Dickson. We ate a lunch of crackers and peanuts washed down with glacial lake water before contouring up a hidden valley, a noisy but invisible river somewhere down to our right. Los Perros campsite, sheltered in a muddy wood, lay within a few minutes of a lake at the bottom of a huge hanging glacier, its blue and white chaotic mass looking like shaving foam sprayed on the cliff. I threw stones at icebergs while Albane called me childish. The mosquitos descended in squadrons in the evening. The repellent kept them at bay, although a couple dropped in the pasta.

The fourth day was the big one. We left early and laboured our way through a maze of tree roots, mud, streams and deep bog. It took time to work out a dry route through the wet transitional vegetation and we reached loose scree at about eight. From the end of the treeline, we climbed on rock for another hour and half to the Gardner Pass where we were treated to the huge vista of Glacier Grey below us. Its snout, several kilometres to our left, poked into the lake where we would camp that night; its beginnings somewhere in the cloud high on the Southern Patagonian Ice Field to our right. It was a stupendous view and one worth walking three and a half days to see. The descent from the Pass was steep and painful on the knees, but it was dry and we made good progress. Over the next few hours, we dropped through woodland with the white of the glacier shining through the gnarled, wind-shaped trunks. We reached Lake Grey ahead of the crowds and bagged ourselves a prime spot right on the shore - we could see floating icebergs from the door. A long and utterly rewarding day was made complete by a scaldingly hot shower.

Day five and, under cloudy skies with a very light drizzle, we headed south, undulating high above the lake, to a refuge on Lake Pehue. Faced with the option of catching a boat from the refuge to connect with a bus back to Puerto Natales that night for proper food, a bed and a shower, we slung the rucksacks on our backs and headed east for another two days of walking. The sun had stopped the rain, though the high peaks were largely covered by cloud and it was a long few hours to reach our campsite in a damp wood crammed with tents. With the forecast predicting rain, we took advantage of dry weather and, in the evening, walked up the aptly named French valley to watch huge chunks of ice thunder down from hanging glaciers. A glorious good bye to the hills.

We left at 6am the next morning in rain and walked pretty solidly for 6 hours to reach the trail head and a bus back to town. It had been a great trek through an everchanging landscape and it was a fitting farewell to Patagonia. In a few days, we will be in Brazil. Now that is going to be different!

Perito Morreno Glacier

Icefall Sequence



The Glacier

Mount Fitzroy and Cerro Torre

El Chalten was built by the Argentinians in 1985 to stake their claim on the remote territory surrounding the jagged peaks of the Fitzroy massif. With one main street, two supermarkets and five campsites, it is not the town itself which attracts visitors, but the stunning mountains which lie just to the north. Named after Robert Fitzroy, captain of the Beagle, the ship that brought a young Charles Darwin to Patagonia as naturalist, the steep rock towers and spires dominate the landscape.

Battered by the howling winds which scream off the Southern Ice Field, climbing the peaks is a serious proposition undertaken by few. First summited by two French climbers in 1952, Mount Fitzroy is still only successfully climbed on average once a year. Our more modest undertaking was a 3 day trek taking in the views of Mount Fitzroy and, a few hours to its west, the spire of Cerro Torre.

It was raining when we left the township and it did not stop for the next 12 hours. Cold rain driven by cold winds, our hands were numbed and we zipped ourselves into our cocoons of goretex. We pitched the tent on muddy ground at the base of the mountain, invisible in the low cloud, and walked to a nearby glacier to watch small chunks of ice falling into the lake. It was a gentle introduction to the Patagonian weather; locals told us that the wind can get so strong that cars are blown off the road. The morning brought perfect blue sky and we climbed a steep path ahead of the groups to an amazing look out nestled beneath the cliffs. The peaks looked impossible to climb, but we saw two small teams of climbers, laden with gear, snowshoe their way off across the glacier.

In the afternoon, we walked west through mature woodlands. The path was smooth packed dirt, a foot wide - it would have made the perfect mountain biking trail - and, as we descended, I mentally rode my bike through the corners, over the drops and between the trees. We camped in a small woodland by the outflow from Lago Torre and, after soup, climbed the loose glacial morraine behind camp. From the ridge, we looked across the ruffled water, hemmed in by steep cliffs, to a glacier at the far end. Albane climbed to a look out twenty minutes up the hillside to get a better view of the snout of the ice while I sat scanning the cloud for a glimpse of Cerro Torre.

In 1959, an Italian claimed that he and his climbing partner, who was swept to his death by an avalanche on the climb, reached the summit. The claim has been disputed by most climbers due to inconsistencies in his account and the lack of equipment on the route. The fact that the alleged route was not climbed until 2005 supports the doubts over the claim. What remains undisputed is that the weather is the predominant factor in climbing the peak. Many climbers wait a month to even see Cerro Torre.

At dawn the next day, I climbed alone to the ridge and saw the dawn light on the mountain. The morning was cold, but the view of the rock, ice and cloud kept me there until I shivered and jogged back to camp for porridge. We walked back to El Chalten in hot sun and ate cherries watching the wind blow dust clouds down the main street.

Chilean fjords

You won´t find it on any website or in any guidebook, but behind the blue door next to the ironmongers in the tin-shacked town of Castro is the office of Naviera Austral ferry company where, for the princely sum of eleven pounds, you can buy a ticket on the Alejandrina. A converted freighter, she carries vehicles, supplies and passengers from the southern tip of Chiloé island through the fjords of southern Chile to the port of Chacabuco. A journey of 2 days and 2 nights.

At the port, we watched bemused as the locals, young and old alike, sprinted up the ramp and onto the ship. It became apparent why they had done so when we boarded. The passenger accommodation consisted of a small cafeteria with a few tables, two televisions at full volume and the locals. The smokers and the ignorant found themselves on the canvas-covered rear deck. We spread out our sleeping mats and bags on a couple of benches, and settled down in our new home for the next 48 hours.

A group of men drinking whisky from beer cans cut into cups and excited families returning home or going to visit relatives meant that we slept little, but that we didwitness the 5 am dawn - the ridges of the multitudes of islands silhouetted against the warm orange light. A few hours later, we lowered the ramp onto a concrete slipway of a small village and vehicles took the men, workers on the salmon farms, to remote inlets and bays to feed Europe and North America. People trooped off into waiting boats, leaking oil and peeling paint, and disappeared with their families to God knows where. An old man and his kids sold fresh fruit from a trailer to locals - ripe plums, trays of peaches, kilos of deep red cherries and pregnant water melons.

This pattern repeated itself as we chugged at a leisurely 9 knots in and out of the labyrinthe of islands, inlands and narrow straits. I wandered up to the bridge and, with no terrorists looking to bomb the ship or any of its destinations (for example, the carless island of Seno Gala - population 150), the captain showed me the radar, the GPS, the compass showing magnetic north (its direction varying according on the composition of the surrounding mountains) and the lever to steer the boat port and starboard. He laughed when I told him that I wouldn´t even be allowed to step on the bridge of a UK ferry and he suggested that I drive. And so, with the Alejandrina under my control, Captain Cooke finally re-entered the southern Pacific.

Late on the second night, we reached Purto Cisnes, the first and only time before our final destination that our route would meet the carretera austral - the road built by Pinochet all the way down Chile to remind the Argentinians that he was watching them. The boat almost emptied and just us and a single tent, pitched forlornly under the strip light, remained on the rear deck. I slept like a log. Dawn on the second day brought clouded skies and the hint of rain, though the bridge´s barometer held a steady pressure. While Albane talked to a woman who had married her second husband only 30 days after meeting him, I spent a couple of hours with the captain who was just starting his 48 day shift. He had worked all over South America including Antarctica where we had witnessed a pod of 300 orcas, Easter Island and the Juan Fernandez islands where Alexander Selkirk spent 4 years before becoming the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe.

By late afternoon of the second day, we were travelling up the Aysen fjord towards our final stop. The trip had been a great experience - we had meet some interesting people, glimpsed the lives of those working and bringing up families in this remote region, watched dolphins and sea lions from the ship, and seen some of the most untouched landscapes of South America. We disembarked with a sense that it had been a privilege to travel the way that we had. Dry land felt like a new world.

Volcano Villarica

The last day of 2006 and it seemed like a good idea to stand on top of the world. And the nearest we could get to that in Pucon was Volcano Villarica, 2,847 metres of perfect cone-shaped mountain. We signed up to the ubiquitous "last two places" and were fitted with solid boots and purple and orange branded jackets and trousers. The forecast for the following day was looking good and we went to bed dreaming of blue sky and white snow.

We woke at 6am to low cloud and an ominous darkness. Neither of us said anything, but we will were both wondering if the trip would be cancelled. We met the other 25 punters at the Politur office and we geared up before boarding a bus for the 40 minute drive to the Villarica ski station, a decaying set of three lifts and a tin-roofed cafeteria. As the road headed uphill, we broke through a low sheet of cloud and found ourselves in perfect weather. The carpark was already full and, at a conservative estimate, we would be sharing the hill with 200 tourists. Like Disneyland, but a little bit more dangerous.

The guides "recommended" that everyone took the ski lift to cover the first 400 metres of the 1,400 metre climb, but Albane, I and a tall Brazilian called Luis decided to walk and spent the next half an hour climbing steep, loose pumice. It proved to be the perfect tactic because, instead of being in a group of 10, we had one guide, Jorge, to ourselves. We donned helmets and unstrapped the ice axes from our rucsacs and started the climb. It was easy walking at the steady pace set by Jorge, but even so we overtook a number of plodding lines of people. The view was stunning - ranges of snow-capped mountains, white volcanos and green lakes.

About halfway up, we caught the main Politur train and ate cold pasta in a building wind. The snow steepened and the guides were shouting commands at their charges. We strolled past and rached the final section with a long line of people strung out beneath us. The summit was a surprise - a 100 metre wide crater spewing toxic green, sulphuric acid gas into the air. The wind swirling it into a towering column and the odd whiff that we caught was choking. It was the smell of chemistry lessons at school. We took in the view, snapped a few pictures and then descended in a slightly less cautious manner than the ascent.

We must have slid the 1,000 metres to the top of the ski lift in under an hour, skidding down steep channels in the snow like out of control kids. Our ice axes were supposed to slow our descent, but served only as lethal weapons as we careered down the slope. It was excellent fun and a little mad, but we all loved it. Back on dry land, we packed our kit into the rucsacs and ran down the scree slope to the car park. It was a great day out, not as hard as we had expected and a cool way to see out the end of 2006.