Puerto Natales and Torres del Paines
February 26, 2014
Now for an easy 247 km to Puerto Natales.
We ran into the Malaysian team again on the road and Faizal Sukree took some great photos of us.
It’s a small town so we eventually met up with 10 of the 12 riders from the ferry ride for a Parilla dinner.
We did a bit of riding around town.
The big attraction here is the Torres del Paines National Park, where people come from all over the world to hike the 5 -day “W” route. Initially “we” entertained similar loft plans, but luckily I reminded Daniel, “we really don’t like backpacking trips remember”. That said we opted for the 1- day hike to the towers. This is 9 km each way. Somehow we convinced Orvar and Trevor that this was a great plan.
So we all got up early to drive the 150 km to the Park gate, with the last 90 km ripio. Driving along we had the view of the mountain range and the towers that were our target for the day.
The entrance fee is a steep 18 CP or about 40$. We set off with water and a lunch to walk the 4 hours up to the towers in 3 ½.
The middle section is less steep as we walked up the French Valley headed by the spires of Cerro Cota and Cerro Cathedral.
The last 45 minutes is switchbacks and then scrambling over boulders.
The view of the spires for our picnic was amazing.
Laying on a hot flat rock we all had a 45- minute nap to recover for the 3 hours walk down.
The back road thru the park is all ripio for 110 km back to Natales, but the views are stunning along Lakes Nordenskjöd, Pehoe, del Toro, and Sarmiento.
The lakes are all a vivid turquoise color because of rock flour or glacial flour, which consists of fine silt sized grains of rock generated by glacial erosion that are suspended in the water and make it look cloudy.
The last section of the road at this end of the park is closed 10 am to 930 pm for construction. Luckily they opened the road just as we arrived at 745 for a very dusty ride back to Natales on the south side of Lago del Toro.
