After hanging around in Ushaia until the next available bus, I was soon in Puerto Natales where I met up with Will. He´d arrived via a 4 day cruise through the Chilean channels. The next day we got a bus out to Torres del Paine, where we were stung by all the incredible prices (such as around AU$40 just for park entry - it´s a fraction of that if you´re Chilean).
We walked the popular W track, from west to east, and spent 3 nights in total camping out. Most days we were walking for longer and harder than I´d anticipated, but after 3 days on the Drake then some lazy days afterwards it felt good.
Glacier Grey at the start of our walk was beautiful, very wide, and interesting how it was split into two at its terminal face by a wee knoll. The golden granite mountains seen for most of the walk were always beautiful, depite being capped by darker, loose looking rock (thus Will and I dubbed them the choc tops). On day 3 we left Camp Britanico to get our first glimpse of the actual towers, but after persisting with a snow storm we decided to descend. The walk wouldn´t have been complete without a snowstorm though, so it was well worth it. It also coated the choc tops in a beautiful white powder, which looked great when the clouds parted on our way down.
We finally did see the towers on our last day, from the ´main` lookout point, at a small glacial lake. Definately worth the walk all the way up the valley. I was surprised that we saw almost no wildlife on the whole trip. One thing that amazed me was the geology of the place. I´ve never seen such ´exposed` structures before, expecially in the rolling hills off in the distance.
We walked the popular W track, from west to east, and spent 3 nights in total camping out. Most days we were walking for longer and harder than I´d anticipated, but after 3 days on the Drake then some lazy days afterwards it felt good.
Glacier Grey at the start of our walk was beautiful, very wide, and interesting how it was split into two at its terminal face by a wee knoll. The golden granite mountains seen for most of the walk were always beautiful, depite being capped by darker, loose looking rock (thus Will and I dubbed them the choc tops). On day 3 we left Camp Britanico to get our first glimpse of the actual towers, but after persisting with a snow storm we decided to descend. The walk wouldn´t have been complete without a snowstorm though, so it was well worth it. It also coated the choc tops in a beautiful white powder, which looked great when the clouds parted on our way down.
We finally did see the towers on our last day, from the ´main` lookout point, at a small glacial lake. Definately worth the walk all the way up the valley. I was surprised that we saw almost no wildlife on the whole trip. One thing that amazed me was the geology of the place. I´ve never seen such ´exposed` structures before, expecially in the rolling hills off in the distance.
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