Coop's Adventures Abroad: Sudamérica: Patagonia: Torres del Paine; The Land of Four Seasons in One Day

Wow. Just wow. On the fifth of march I made my way back down to the real world after spending two weeks back home with friends and family. I made my way from Reno to LA to Miami and finally down to Buenos Aires on the 6th. Then early morning on the 7th I flew down to Punta Arenas to meet up with my buddy, Dustin, who was on his spring break from his studies in Santiago, Chile. Punta Arenas was our meeting point to start our adventures in the Torres del Paine National park in the Patagonia.

Making our way up to Puerto Natales, we gathered all the supplies we needed for the next ten days from cooking equipment to garbage bags (waterproofing) to food that would last us on the trail. Bussing up to the National park was beautiful, or so I heard and imagined, as I was trying to get as much sleep in as I could and pump myself full of vitamin-c packets to kick a cold before the nine day trek. Though I wasn't feeling that great, I was confident that some fresh mountain air would fix me up real quick! And so it did.

To start off the adventurous trek, we decided to start around the back side of the trek to bust out the back of the 'O' circuit first and then finish doing the 'W' portion of the circuit at the end from west to east. We got to our first campsite of the trek, Campamento Serón, and ran into a group of about twenty hikers or so returning from the pass (our next destination) due to the fact that it was closed for at least the next three days and possibly more. Taking this into consideration and not wanting to get stuck on the backside of the 'O', we decided to turn back as well. This changed our plan to doing the 'W' from east to west now and hopefully catching the pass and Glacier Grey from the other way around. This seemed to work out just wonderfully. We were incredibly lucky with catching the perfect weather every day. We were supposed to be in the shoulder season just before the start of winter which should have been torrential downpours with 100km/hr winds. With the exception of two days, we had gorgeous bluebird skies and great temperatures following us throughout the majority of the trek. The two days that we didn't get "exceptional" weather were quite possibly my two favorite. These days made me feel like I was truly in the elements and part of nature. We woke up with hail and snow dusting down over us. Halfway down the decent to our next location the skies cleared quickly and left us walking on a beautiful sun lit trail with a brisk wind to our backs. About two hours later as we rounded a hilltop, violent winds came smashing in with its lovely friend, rain. Never have I seen rain come in at such a sharp angle colliding into us with a brutal force. As I attempted to put my rain pancho on over my base layers, the wind ripped it to shreds literally peeling chunks off at a time leaving me with what seemed to be a bad Halloween costume. At last it was time to set up camp which nearly bent our tent in half with each powerful gust during the night which continually slapped the side of the tent into my face. When I finally opened my eyes at nine in the morning to see beautiful bluebird skies shining into our tent I was absolutely stunned. They're not kidding when they say Patagonia, the land of four seasons in one day.

Overall Dusty and I hiked just under 135km or about 85 miles for all you Americans out there reading this. It was quite possibly the most gorgeous 9 days of hiking that I have ever done. As I continued to improve my health and as my backpack got lighter and lighter from eating all my supplies, my smiles and happiness just kept getting greater and greater. No doubt in my mind that I'll be back one day for round two.

Until then, Torres del Paine.