Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Towering in the Imagination: Chilean Patagonia

This, essentially, is the reason I insisted my family travel 12,400km to the Southernmost reaches of Chile. To see the Torres del Paine. 



Our guide Jorge is encyclopedic on the geological formations, the flora and fauna. He's also at one degeee of separation, having recently returned from London visiting a hedge fund client of mine. Infinite expanse, small world. Ours is an eclectic group - medics on honeymoon from Australia, a sextagenarian landscaper to Silicon Valley tycoons, German travel journalists, Swiss professionals from Geneva. But we're reasonably fleet of foot, and make good time to the base of the Torres. 





The clambering takes us through primordial forest, fields of massive glacial rubble, and what look distinctly like deliberately landscaped Japanese gardens, reminiscent of the forest approach to Perito Moreno glacier.

Like Argentina, more awe of the glacial variety. Charlie, you will recall our friend Bob from Boulder first guiding climbs with us in the Dolomites in 2001, and I returned with Flo a year later. Although these peaks resemble the Cinque Torri, the scale is astounding. 2500m, 2460m and 2100m, practically vertical from the plains below. Imposing. 



Although two of the three were first ascended by Italian alpinists, nothing in the Italian climbing magazine glimpsed at age 14 prepared me for the remnants of glacier, the zebrastripes of meltwater or the turquoise lake at the foot of the Torres. We are unbelievably lucky with the weather. The roundtrip takes us a whole day while the Girls practice their Spanish with Tierra Patagonia's mindful staff. 


On our return, our newly independent daughters' first question is: "So where are you going tomorrow, and can we do our own thing again?" 





On our return, I feel like I've completed a journey, and yet there is still so much more to see, in Chile let alone the rest of South America. 

For a sense of scale:
rambling over glacial moraines at the base of the Torres





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