We were clinging to the cliffs and trees for shelter along the rugged Torres del Paine W route in southern Chile, a 62-mile trail found in the still-mythical corner of the world called Patagonia. The hurricane-strength winds flattened me to the rocks, and the vertical hail pelted my face like needles. Earlier in the week, high winds had picked me up like tumbleweed and tossed me to the edge of a yawning gorge. Now I was hiking with rocks in my pockets to weigh me down. My hiking companions huddled against the rocks; coated with sleet, they resembled human popsicles. “Can you imagine hiking the whole week in this?” asked Jackie, a scientist from Boulder, Colorado. Most hikers here do just that, trudging through torrential downpours and mires of mud miles for a chance glimpse at craggy towers, snowcapped peaks, and glinting glaciers of piercing beauty.
For three days, we had hiked under sunny, rain-scrubbed skies, in sunlight of an intense clarity. Clouds haloed the distant peaks, and faraway storms left rainbows in their wake. When the skies finally gave us a taste of real Patagonian weather, it caught us by surprise. Now all we wanted was the ferry—the first link in our voyage back to EcoCamp, the luxury base camp we had left three days before to hike the W.
Kenneth, our lead guide, said that if the winds were too strong, the ferry wouldn’t run, meaning we’d have to hike back in the rain four miles to Refugio Pehoe, the backpacker shelter we’d stayed in the night before. “No, not that!” wailed Jackie, voicing the group’s unspoken thoughts. “I can’t take another night in those sleeping bags!”
The Tenderfoots of Patagonia
Most people hike the W on their own steam, carrying thirty-pound packs up vertical boulder fields, pitching tents in gale-force winds and huddling inside makeshift shelters to heat a pot of water to cook dinner. Our group was doing it the easy way with Adventure Life, a Montana-based outfit that specializes in global outdoor adventures. Instead of being burdened with heavy packs, we carried only light day packs holding our lunch, water and raingear while our trusty guides, Kenneth and Roberto, and two additional female porters, carried the rest. Instead of staying in tents, we stayed in backwoods refugios—youth hostels with dormitory-style lodging, hot showers, and hearty hiker meals.
