We survived three nights and four days hiking along the W Trail of the Patagonia. There were amazing views along the way and we met some interesting people. There were many that we could barely communicate with because of language barriers, but sharing the same experience and struggles on the trail allowed us to share laughs.
On the first day we entered the park and it was beautiful out. We immediately headed up to the Chileno campsite and set up the tent. It was a solid two hour hike up hill with our heavy packs; a great challenge to start our trip. From our tent we packed a day bag and hiked another few hours to Mirador Las Torres which was an incredible view. When we returned to the campground it was absolutely packed with tents. What had been plenty of room earlier was now crowded, and people had set up tents only a foot away from us. We went to bed a little before ten and it was still pretty noisy. We felt like we we sleeping in one tent with forty people, and the tent was way too small! Not to mention it was like trying to fall asleep to the Spanish channel. In the end we were exhausted and sleep came relatively quickly.
The second day we woke up and packed up our gear. We hit the trail before nine, and we were pretty much the only ones awake. Apparently they get a much later start in Chile! We began hiking towards Italiano, another campground. It was another day of perfect weather and awesome views. We arrived at Cuernos campground around one in the afternoon completely exhausted. This was a full service campground so we stopped for a warm lunch (pasta) and replenished our water supply. It was amazing how good the warm food was. Afterwards, we tossed on our bags that were seemingly getting heavier by the minute and hit the trail again. We arrived at Italiano around five and found a good spot for the tent. Absolutely exhausted we watched an episode of The Wire on the iPad while lying in our tiny tent (modern day trekking for you!). We then hung out for a little bit before passing out early.
We awoke on the third day to light rain. We packed our bags and changed before getting out of the tent and taking it down. We decided not to trek to the French Valley, instead to go straight to the Pehoe Lodge, our final resting spot. However, after 45 minutes of up hill climbing with all our stuff we began to get the feeling something was wrong. Sure enough, we missed our turn! We retraced our steps and hiked the few hours through the cold rain to Pehoe. Nothing like an extra hour and a half hiking with 30 lb packs that feel more like a 100! Reaching the lodge we got a room. There is no camping in this part of the park because of the recent forest fire. In fact, along the hike it was interesting to see all the burnt land, as there was a clear line of where the fire had reached. Seeing that it was relatively early, we played a bunch of cards (Andy kicked butt) and ate a warm meal. We ended up sharing a bunk room with two people we had seen multiple times on the trail who were from Switzerland. They had the same plan as us for the next day which worked out well because we all agreed on an early lights out and wake up time.
The fourth day was back to blue skies. It was incredibly windy and really cold. The first half of the hike was like walking through a wind tunnel. At times it was difficult to keep moving forward. We kept jackets, winter hats and gloves on for most of the hike. We went 3.5 hours to a lookout where we had an amazing view of the glacier on Lago Grey. We ate a nutella sandwich in route before hiking back through the cold to the lodge. We repacked our stuff and played cards before boarding a Catamaran to take us across the lake to the bus. We had officially completed the W Trail in three nights and four days. Needless to say, we were exhausted. We took the bus to Puerto Natales and walked to the same hostel we had stayed at earlier in the week. It was a tiring few days of hiking, eating nutella or tuna sandwiches, and camping, but it was well worth it!
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