Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Did the W!!!

Well we made it! 4 days, 65.1 kilomneters, 2 sore backs and 20 painful toes later, we are sitting in a cafe ready to have lunch and head to our next destination, El Calafate. We are exhausted and ache all over. We had no idea how hard the trip was going to be- it was really intense hiking, and we had huge packs with us which made it really tough.

However, the scenery was beautiful and we had a great time. We met a lot of people who were also "doing the W" from all over the world, so we were always in good company. The first day we took a catamaran and set up camp. The next day we did a day hike that took us to Grey Glacier. It was 22 km and took us 7 hours. Hello! We went straight to the hostel for a beer after that, but we were staying in a tent so were out in the field with many others til the morning.

The next day we headed fo the center of the W with our packs on. It was SO hard, the were incredibly heavy, and it was really really hot. I have some VERY bronze shoulders now. That night we camped near a lodge on the lake which was really beautiful and met some nice people at dinner. (We treated ourselves to a real dinner instead of another night of eating out of our aluminum pot...) We totaled 13.1 km and it took us all day, another 7 hours or so. It was realy hilly and there were a lot of difficult up and down parts.

Day 3 we headed for the Torres camp site where you can hike up to the Torres del Paine which we were going to do on the last day. This day I had the tent and I literally couldn't put in on by myself, and if I stood up straight I fell over backward. It was SO heavy and we started the trip off with a giant hill that kept going and going and going...it was terrible! But we passed a group of guys who we wound up meeting up with off and on all day so made some friends and took our time which was nice. It was actually a nice day of walking. We made it into camp at about 5, got some stuff for dinner and rested so that we would be ready for the last day.

Last day, the grand finale, Torres del Paine, what we were working toward the whole time. The hike is a continuous steep up or downhill climb. Thank God we only had day packs, it was so so hard. The first part is straight up for about an hour and a half. Then you go down for half an hour. Then you have an hour of really nice hiking through a shady forest. Then you have the last hour. Straight up a giant rock pile. Literally scrambling up boulders for the last 30 minutes til you get to the top. In total in the 9.5 km from camp to the torres you go up in altitude 1 whole kilometer. That's 3000 feet! So we had a 19 km day which we did in about 6 and a half hours, then we packed up camp, got the bus into town, checked into the hostel, had dinner, a bottle of wine, and passed out.

We woke up today so sore and glad for hot water and a shower. Tomorrow we vowed to do nothing, so we will be dropping off laundry and putting up pictures onto the blog. In all, we are really proud of ourselves for doing it, because we had no idea what we were in for, and there we were in sneakers and jeans facing these huge hikes, but we did it and had quite an adventure. Woohoo!!!

2 Comments:

At 6:40 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

WOW!!!!! You guys are awesome, what a trip can not wait to see the pics tomorrow, we are so proud of you both and send you our love!

 
At 12:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You two are incredible!!! Sounds like the never ending dish!
-liz

 

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