Lady Florence Caroline Dixie (24 May 1855 – 7 November 1905), was the first tourist to the park alongside the British party whom accompanied her and in her book of 1880 she described the three towers as 'Cleopatra's Needles' - know known as the Torres del Paine.
It must have been amazing for her coming from Victorian England to see the Southern Patagonian Ice field and the huge glaciers: Grey, Dickson and Tyndall. Also the huge lakes with their vivid colours due to the rock flour from the glaciers suspended in their waters.
Why? Because even today we we're absolutely flabbergasted and the internet and magazines show it in glorious color. It's a very long way from the English hills and countryside, the flowers, lakes, animals and weather are out of control. They say you get four seasons in every day in Patagonia and it's true - sun, snow, rain, wind - all pushed to the limits. Blazing hot, super cold, huge 90mph gusts of wind, horizontal rain. There really is something not right about this place, yet it holds itself together and 000's of people come to see it every year.
Being extremists when it comes to pushing the limits, we set out to do both the Circuit route and the 'W' - both should take around 10 days. We did 135km in all conditions in just 5 nights, a brutal exhibition of endurance and solidarity - we hiked and climbed with all our food and gear on our backs.
Day one took us to the mighty Cleopatra's Needles, and camping in the woods. Sunrise didn't bring National Geographic style photos of the towers lit up in red early morning sunshine, but the snow capped trek to the summit and views of sunshine washed rock were moving!
Day two took us around the right side of the park, in the lowlands and grassy valleys following bright blue and turquoise rivers to a wonderful grassy camping spot called Seron.
Day three pushed us through the valley to largo Dickson and the mighty glacier, then through the steeply sided forest valley past crashing waterfalls and wind ripped trees to campsite Los Perros, in the shadow of a huge ancient glacier perched 1000m up on the mountain side.
Day four was not for kids. We had to push ourselves up through the notorious John Garner pass, a snow and rock swathed landscape with winds of up to 100mph pushing us over razor sharp jagged rocks and rivers of fresh glacial water. At the summit we were rewarded with the most amazing view of our lives - the Grey Glacier, a solid landscape of ice frozen for an eternity and stretching some 10km across the valley, and up it as far as the eye could see. As the ice reached largo Grey, huge icebergs would break off and float about the blue lake like marshmallows atop hot chocolate.
Day five took us all the way along lago Grey to the second valley on the W and camp Italiano, on route we bumped into some of our friends from treks in Bariloche! we're going to try and hook up in Ushuaia (next stop down near the Antartic). The views of the lakes really are special and everytime you look up, seeing the snow capped peaks feels mysterious and special. After walking 22k and setting up camp at Italiano, we decided to do the 12k round trip up the valley to see Glacier Francia and the windswept views of the towers from the other side. The views down the valley of the lakes and the towers at sunset were beautiful.
Day six was the home straight, tired, cold, exhausted and looking forward to home we set off on the 18km walk around lake Nordenskjold at 8am to get the 2pm bus back to Puerto Natales, once on, it was only a matter of seconds before we passed out....
Torres del Paine National Park - what an adventure
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