After picking up our souped-up, hot little red rental truck in the morning, we made the bumpy, 70km drive to Torres del Paine (Blue Massif) National Park located north of Puerto Natales. It didn’t take but 15 minutes outside of town, and we were a little more appreciative that the rental agency had had the foresight to rent us a vehicle with a bit more clearance. A few hours later, dusty and dry, we arrived at the park.
Torres del Paine has a dramatic skyline similar to that of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. At the base of these spectacular granite towers and needles are multiple enormous jade-blue glacier-fed lakes. Part of the Southern Ice Field, these glaciers feed sediment that colors these beautiful lakes, all connected by rivers of the same enchanting hue. A UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve, Torres is perhaps the Mecca for hikers coming to the Southern Hemisphere. El Calafate and the Moreno Glacier, where we were last year, are just on the other side of the Andes. This side, while different, is equally stunning.
In 2005, 10% of the park burned with a spark from a camp stove. In December, a larger fire started when someone set his toilet paper on fire. One single, careless moment of attempting to do the right thing, and thousands of acres were charred. You couldn’t make this up—it is so absurd and so tragic. Parts of the park look like a moonscape. The air has a charcoal, acidic smell that burns your nostrils ever so slightly when the wind blows in a certain direction.
To warm up our hiking legs, we took a short, two-hour hike through the burn area in the afternoon. Our goal was to get a view of Lago Nordenskjold and the three 8,000-foot granite peaks known collectively as Los Cuernos that rise above the lake. These peaks are part of the 120-million-year-old Paine Massif and shaped by Pleistocene glaciers—similar to Yosemite. Because it was so late in the day, we had the trail virtually to ourselves.
I have always appreciated time. Not the kind of time where you show up at the movies on time, kind of time. No, I mean, geologic time, long time. The kind of time that makes you feel insignificant and renders your little life totally meaningless. Usually, though, I am not thinking about the macro side of time—that would be unbearable on a daily basis—but I am really preoccupied with getting to the movies on time. Yet, it is here, in these kinds of places, and in finding the entire horizon filled with a breathtaking panorama that began forming long, long before my time and will outlast me for even longer, that I am acutely aware of my total and complete insignificance. That doesn’t actually bother me. Instead, I find it comforting and peaceful. Maybe, in the end, it doesn’t really matter if I get to the movies on time…
We have two and a half more days here, hiking as much as our middle-aged legs will allow. And, don’t be too impressed, my limited geological knowledge is all from Kevin.
