all about the elements

greetings once again from the little southern outpost known as puerto natales! i scripted a fabulous entry packed with amazing literary sensibility and titillating description and then the computer ate it. por lo eso, i had to retreat for a day, fatigued and slightly heartbroken, unable to re-concoct my thoughts for ya´ll. but i´m back, refreshed and ready to give a little picture of what it was to backpack through the torres del paine.

firstly, it would be impossible to capture the impact of this land simply with words. so, check out the photos and you can see what cannot be written.

the torres is a land of severe incongruities...the weather, the land, the people...we approached through the grassland desert with sun shining and brown grasses blowing gently. in the distance, you see the paine massif explode from the land and it is so immense and attractive that you are too caught up in awe to be befuddled about how and why these mountains landed in the middle of arid flatland.

they create their own weather, as all respectable mountains do, and the few peaks we could see coming in were encircled by grey clouds. the valleys were filled with shadows and snow.

the first views of every peak we came upon never ceased to be the best-moment-ever for me. i´m a sucker for craggy peaks, and these guys always took my breath away. just a simple change in the light or our proximity made them new and worthy of long gazes (and multiple shutter snaps - as is evident from what could be called exhaustive representation on my flicker page). but know that the photos don´t do these peaks justice. i could never quite put my finger on what was lacking in the photos, but every time i was depressed that the full majesty of the moment was never quite present in the pics.

so, you have the obvious awe. then you have the confusion.

confusion due to the fact that directly to your left could be a 5,000-ft. vertical wall of granite and slate with clinging glaciers and torrential glacial rivers wrapping around the base. and directly to your right is an endless vista of desert oranges, yellows and browns intermixed with the brightest turquoise lakes you ever did see.

sun and blue skies to your right. to your left, the angriest winds. the only ones that could carve a mountain majesty like this. they blow with a great white´s mouthful of teeth and with scary speed. typically from their source are the blackest clouds and the next storm waiting. there is always "a next storm".

i sat and watched the sky for an unknown amount of hours and i equate the weather to the tidal sets of the ocean. when you devote enough attention, the inherent rhythm reveals itself to you...and then you know exactly when the waves are going to come, how far apart they will be from each other and which will be the strongest. after watching one valley (and every valley had its own set of rules) i could see the storms lined up like airplanes. the wind would introduce them every time...with insane force and then there would be the snow and the rain.

then a little break...the best time to ascend a pass...a momentary view of peaks...and then the next one rolls on through.

even when it is sunny in patagonia, it´s raining. totally bizarre, but i guess it´s always raining somewhere here, so even if you´re in full sun, it´s so windy that you get rained on from the side or the back or some secret place that pitches rain.

and then...then there are the people. so many people. backpackers coming in high season, beware. they are not kidding. and nobody told me...not adequately enough...what the act of backpacking really resembles here. i thought my biggest enemy would be the weather, and while it provided some interesting challenges, i revise my earlier statement to say that the frickin´overpopulation of the park was my biggest enemy. such a tease to be in the most awe-inspiring lands i´ve walked in a long time...only to be surrounded by not what you would call your true outdoorsmen. no.

take yellowstone national park in the dead of summer, if you will. take every single one of those folks, but remove them from their RVs and road-trip vans and give them backpacks. but keep the jeans. and the cigarettes. lots of cigarettes. then drop them on the trail with me. trail etiquette is non-existent. i can count on one hand for 8 days of backpacking how many times i was thanked for letting teams and teams of people pass. i can also count on one hand how many times someone stopped for us. i cannot, however count on anything the amount of goddamn toilet paper i saw everywhere. when i find myself with that pile of disposable income i´m bound to have one of these days, i am getting educational signs made and i am donating them to this park. because, there actually is no magical forest fairy that picks up your toilet paper for you. and, despite popular belief, biodegradation is not a magic fairy either. i have this rage in the states as well, but here...here there is absolutely no attempt - no matter how feeble - to try and bury or hide the toilet paper. no, just dropped right there. on the trail? no problem. just drop it right there. scurried up to the most brilliant vista you´ve ever seen? yeah, drop it right there. lovely white squares everywhere. drop it there for the people. drop it for posterity.

the last of my people rant focuses on the sleeping part. yes. when they say "campground" a vision of a large plot of land with "camp sites" in it comes to mind. but here, they mean a swatch of land (differing in size depending where you´re at) where an unlimited number of people pitch their tents. it didn´t take us long to realize that we would not, for the entirety of our trip, be sleeping more than 5 inches from somebody else. make that 10 somebodies on every side. it was funny really. we caught on early to our curse, as well. somehow, we angered the torres gods because we were cursed with having the largest and loudest groups of hikers always pitch their tents on top of ours. and when i say loud...please understand that i cannot accurately describe the pitch and volume with which large groups of israelis and chileans feel the need to communicate with each other. it apparently doesn´t have anything to do with proximity...or, say, an obvious hearing impediment.

wrap them all up and this is the picture...

after an 8 mile climb to the top of a breath-taking granite outcropping you are being snowed on and blown over while the sun is shining about a mile away on the desert. you sit, careful to center yourself in between the two squares of toilet paper, to put on extra layers and enjoy some raisins while taking in the surrounding majesty. just then, the group of highly jocular chilean boys that encircled your tent the night before and stayed up until 3am take their last steps to the summit and light their cigarettes.

(don´t mean to sound too snarky, but people can be a real pain in the ass...most especially at the almost literal end of the world)