The sky in Pataonia is vast, it's as if your eyes cannot even comprehend its full expansion.
I didn't see much wildlife in the park, but here's some llamas.
Met Karla from New Zealand the first day up.
After I made it to the campsite the first day, I decided to hike up to see the Torres because it was so clear.
I really wanted to hike up for sunrise the following day, but I didn't have a flashlight and no one at the campsite wanted get up at 3:30am. Thankfully I was able to convince one of the staff members, Nelson, at the Refugio to come along and bring an extra head lamp.
I waited and waited and they finally turned pink for about one minute- it was freezing up there.
early morning yoga.
Sunrise.
Renee, Karla and a bad camp stove.
Setting up camp at Los Cuernos.
Rorrey and Koons.
I met Luca on the trail. He's from Northern Italy, lives in the Swiss Alps and is a really good hiker. Probably the best hiking partner/company I came across the whole trip.
cool pose.
We hiked to the lookout for Glacier Gray the last day. It was really windy up there. The extreme weather conditions made it kind of fun.
It was hard to really see the glacier, but there's some floating ice chunks.
I had no plans to go to Torres Del Paine. It happened by chance. One of my favorite things about traveling is either not having a plan or changing my plans. So when I ended up meeting a lovely French girl at the hostel who lives in the Alps and may have well been the epitomy of Heidi, I decided to re-consider my plan to leave for Calafate the following day. She had just returned from doing the "W" trek by herself. I had arrived in Puerto Natales late that night and after meeting her bought a ticket to go into the park for a day hike. I wasn't sure if I wanted to camp out alone for four days, especially with minimal gear. However, the following morning I woke up with a jolt around 6 am and had the strongest intuition that I should just do the whole thing. I was hoping to change my ticket to have a day to rent supplies, but was unable to and ended up having 30 min. to figure out where I was going, run to the ATM and throw anything warm and waterproof I had in my pack to catch the 7am bus. The guy at the hostel was a bit apprehensive about my last minute decision- I didn't have any reservations for the campsites, nor knew if there would be tents/sleeping bags available to rent. He lent me his fleece and as I ran out the door to catch the bus and told me they'd come look for me in four days if I didn't return. It wasn't nearly as intimidating as I thought. I met plenty of nice people on the trail, ended up having enough food, pretty favorable weather and the time of my life! It was the perfect balance of meeting great people to hike with some days as well as having time to enjoy the mountains alone and attempt at soaking up all that beauty.
