W Trek Day 5

Refugio Chileno to Torres del Paine to Park Entrance: 16.94km, 963m elevation gain

Our last day on the W started unfortunately early after the day we had yesterday. We got up just before 3am, packed up our small backpack, layered up, and left the campsite. We headed through a forest with head torches towards the lookout point of the famous Torres del Paine. The first chunk of the hike was ok, pretty flat and easy going. My soaked shoes from the day before were luckily less soaking, but still wet making my sad feet a little sore so I couldn't go as fast as normal. That being said, turns out we had to slow down, because the hike wasn't as difficult as we read and we were going to be at the top too long before sunrise. I was glad for the extra time when we got to the last 1.5km because it was steep, big rocks I had to climb over.

At the top we found a spot behind a big rock that sheltered us from some of the wind. Allan set up a time lapse with his spare phone because my phone camera sadly has fallen victim to the torrential rain from yesterday. We got an extra layer on, our gloves, and cracked open our flask of coffee. We watched in the cold with little snow flurries as the sun rose behind us and lit up the cliff next to the Torres. Must be the wrong time of year to light up the towers themselves. Still, it created a beautiful glow on the cliff, and we waited long enough that the clouds at the top of the towers cleared briefly enough that we could get some quick pictures.

The way back down was more pleasant than I expected. We stopped after the rocky clambering to finish the coffee, and Allan went off a little while later to start getting the tent packed up. The walk back down through the forest was much easier now that the sun was up and didn't take me as long as I (or Allan) expected. Back at the tent, he had just started packing, so I joined him in getting ready to go. Once the tent was packed, we went down to the cafeteria to have some breakfast before we started our journey down the W for our last hike.

The steeper up sections right after the refugio were a bit of a slog, but after that it was all downhill towards the shuttle bus that would take us back to the start where we get the bus to Puerto Natales. The walk down was ok. Very rocky and uneven which wasn't great with my sore feet, but we took our time. The views down were tall, snowy mountains behind us and rolling green hills and a lake in front of us. It's so strange when you look at the mountains, because a lot of them have a clear line where the snow freezes. We got to the welcome center where we got the shuttle with plenty of time to eat lunch and chill out a bit.

The bus back to Puerto Natales was very quiet, full of weary hikers. We were on time and made the 15 minute walk to our hostel for the night which was actually a small apartment to ourselves (a nice change from all the camping). We got a load of laundry on and walked another 15 minutes back to the first hostel we stayed at in Puerto Natales to pick up the bags we left, and then walked back to the new place. It was a lot more walking than expected when in town!

I went out to get some groceries while Allan washed up the dishes from the trek and hung the laundry all over the house. Then we went out to dinner instead of cooking our own. We went to Base Camp and shared a large pizza, loaded fries, and a beer. After eating cup of noodles, watery porridge, and food out of a bag for 5 days, it all tasted amazing!

We organized the laundry switching what was closest to the heat and I called the bank (always some kind of admin job creeping up 😔). After that, it was time for bed, in an actual bed 😴!Read more