W Treck - Refugio Central > Mirador Base Torres
Saturday, November 12th: Torres del Paine, Chile > Puerto Natales, Chile
We were anticipating a long and intense hike up to the base of Las Torres, over estimating the length (but not the difficulty). After misreading the signs on the trail the day before, we thought we had 14 KM up and 14 KM back with 7 KM to the bus stop at Laguna Amarga. Fortunately, it was only 10 KM up, 10 KM back to the refugio and a cheap shuttle ride to the bus stop. We also had plenty of time to get there by 7:45 PM (compared to those on the 2:00 PM bus back to Puerto Natales.
Our hostel mate, Mark, invited himself to hike up with us and we were nervous he would slow us down or talk too much. He kept up pretty well and wasn’t a nuisance.
The hike up was steep with several rock scrambles. The park rangers are on strike for better working conditions and pay. They left signs posted at each of the park ranger stations and along the trail, attempting to deter hikers to the base. We had heard that they constructed barriers on the path and were actively protesting and preventing hikers up the trail… we were prepared to make a bribe if needed. After approaching the obstructions on the path, we realized most of the trees were probably caused by erosion rather than protesting park rangers. However, they did string up rope across the trail, making it look like the green lasers guarding a precious piece of art in a spy movie. It wasn’t too difficult to weave and bob around the rope. Shortly after, we approached several people upturning rocks on the trail for maintenance, but we mistook them for park rangers preventing us from passing.
We made it to the top of the lookout at the base of the towers. It was beautiful. We spent 45 minutes eating lunch in the sun on a table top rock. We climbed down and made it back to the refugio with several hours to hang out before our bus. We ordered a chicken pizza, smashed a bag of Doritos and played Solitaire in the common area.
The bus ride was shorter than we expected and we arrived back to Puerto Natales. We dropped our gear at the AirB&B and ate at La Forastera hamburgueseria. We had a freshly made mango juice that was blended upon ordering, ginger lemonade, fries smothered in queso and bacon and two burgers.
Mileage: 14.49 Miles
Total W Mileage: 65.24 Miles
