Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

The revolution will be supervised.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

No Justins, No Peace

Hot air and ill-informed banter

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

Consistently wrong since 2002

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Everybody saw this coming.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / On The Road – way2blue – Torres del Paine, Chile March 2023 [1 of 2]

On The Road – way2blue – Torres del Paine, Chile March 2023 [1 of 2]

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way2blue

After we disembarked from our cruise, we spent a couple nights in Punta Arenas, Chile, exploring a bit of the town.  Then rented a car and headed to Torres del Paine Nat’l Park.  On a rainy, windy day with the two-lane road crowded with big trucks which tended to knock us sideways as well as flood the windshield with water.

On The Road - way2blue - Torres del Paine, Chile March 2023 [1 of 2] 9
PARQUE NACIONAL TORRES DEL PAINE

Lodging is challenging if you want to stay in the park and don’t want to spend a fortune.  The best option we found was a hosteria on a little island on Lago Pehoé which you approached via a wooden foot bridge.  The hosteria had spectacular views of the famous massif.  Albeit this photo is taken from above Lago Pehoé, on a hike to a condor nesting site.

On The Road - way2blue - Torres del Paine, Chile March 2023 [1 of 2] 8
PARQUE NACIONAL TORRES DEL PAINE

We didn’t hike the W, which is a destination for lots of people passing through.  We didn’t even hike to the start of the W as it required a ferry ride that only ran each way once a day.  But we did find several other trails.

On The Road - way2blue - Torres del Paine, Chile March 2023 [1 of 2] 7
PARQUE NACIONAL TORRES DEL PAINE

This view of Lago Pehoé is from the far end of the lake, where a much larger lake (Lago Nordenskjöld) drops into it via a torrent of a waterfall (Mirador Salto Grande).

On The Road - way2blue - Torres del Paine, Chile March 2023 [1 of 2] 6
PARQUE NACIONAL TORRES DEL PAINE

Horses grazing en route to Lago Gray.

On The Road - way2blue - Torres del Paine, Chile March 2023 [1 of 2] 5
PARQUE NACIONAL TORRES DEL PAINE

We took one long drive (headed to a lodge for lunch that we never quite got to).  And passed lots of long narrow lakes.  Our driving in the park was fairly limited as the closest gas station is 60 kms away in Puerto Natales and we didn’t want to arrive there on fumes as we headed back to Punta Arenas.

On The Road - way2blue - Torres del Paine, Chile March 2023 [1 of 2] 4
EXPLORA, TORRES DEL PAINE

We stopped by the Explora, an extremely high-end resort at the south end of Lago Pehoé—thinking to have a drink, enjoy the view, and ask about dinner reservations.  Nope.  No drinks for outsiders let alone dinner.  But this bird was hopping around the parking area and I thought of Albatrossity…  Blurred though as it took off just as I ‘snapped’ my iPhone camera.

On The Road - way2blue - Torres del Paine, Chile March 2023 [1 of 2] 3
EXPLORA, TORRES DEL PAINE

But he (she?) didn’t go far…  A gorgeous predator I presume.

On The Road - way2blue - Torres del Paine, Chile March 2023 [1 of 2] 2
LAGO PEHOÉ, TORRES DEL PAINE

The sunsets from our lodging were spectacular.  And given the high latitude—lasted a long time.

On The Road - way2blue - Torres del Paine, Chile March 2023 [1 of 2] 1
LAGO PEHOÉ, TORRES DEL PAINE

I was fascinated by the flat vertical ‘facet’ on the face of the mountain (glowing orange).  There’s another facing vertical facet a couple peaks over to the right.  Had to have a structural (geologic) origin, but I couldn’t pin it down…

On The Road - way2blue - Torres del Paine, Chile March 2023 [1 of 2]
LAGO PEHOÉ, TORRES DEL PAINE

The wooden foot bridge, leading to the parking lot, is just barely illuminated by lights.

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  • Albatrossity
  • AM in NC
  • Another Scott
  • Dan B
  • eclare
  • Gin & Tonic
  • Kristine
  • OzarkHillbilly
  • stinger
  • StringOnAStick
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    18Comments

    1. 1.

      OzarkHillbilly

      Nice pics, way2blue. Thanx much. Maybe some day I can get there.

      I’m going to take this opportunity to pimp one of my favorite books: Enduring Patagonia by Gregory Crouch. From washing balls in a McDonald’s playground to the first winter ascent of Cerro Torre’s West Face, he tells quite the tale of his trials and tribulations in Patagonia and what it took to get him there 7 times.

      Reply
    5. 5.

      Albatrossity

      Nice collection!

      Your bird is a Crested Caracara, which you can see in Texas and central Florida (although our US birds are a different subspecies). And that would mean you would have to visit Texas or Florida, which are off my travel destination lists right now for sure!

      Reply
    6. 6.

      StringOnAStick

      We did the W hike 6 years ago, it was great.  By going in early spring it wasn’t crowded in the hostels and cool with no mosquitos (they are sometimes an issues in the summer). We met a Cara cara at the glacier hike in the Argentinean side; it was very used to tourists as an easy way to cage a meal.  One of my top 5 travel experiences is our trip to both sides of Patagonia.  Thanks for the reminder!

      Reply
    7. 7.

      Another Scott

      Great pictures and stories.

      It reminds me that J and I have been wanting to go to Alaska for many years (me, since I heard stories from my grandpa about driving from Delaware to Fairbanks in his Valiant station wagon in the 1960s).

      We’re not cruise people, and Alaska is so very, very big, that figuring out what is reasonable for a couple of weeks of light day-hiking is daunting.  We might just pick a tour group and just let them handle everything for the first time, and then go on our own by ourselves a few years later when we know more.  (J likes to plan every minute of vacation trips, so give up that control would be a challenge for her!).

      [/first-world-problems]

      Thanks again.

      Cheers,
      Scott.

      Reply
    8. 8.

      eclare

      @Another Scott:

      I went to AK many years ago without a cruise, we just rented a mini-van.  Flew into Anchorage, went to the Kenai, then to some other place I think on the way to Homer.  We then turned in the minivan to take the train to Denali, which is supposed to be spectacular.  It’s not.  And the hotel that said “we’ll take you to Denali whenever you want” was somehow not as friendly as advertised.

      After that we went to Fairbanks, I guess we got another van, and then back.  We took a boat trip out of the Kenai that was spectacular.

      Warning:  since it stays light so late you’ll be tempted to drive lots.  Look out, my uncle fell asleep at the wheel, and we narrowly averted ending up in a ditch.

      Reply
    10. 10.

      Gin & Tonic

      Thanks for the photos. We explored that general area from the Argentinian side, but didn’t get to Chile (that’s actually not an easy crossing.)

      Reply
    12. 12.

      way2blue

      @Another Scott:

      I’ve only been to Kodiak, Adak, and Homer.  All ship-based (I was working on research vessels).  I remember Homer being spectacular.  Kodiak had a sobering exhibit of the tsunami damage in 1964.  Really slammed the harbor.  (Since Patagonia, I’m starting to lean toward cruise-based travel for more remote areas.  Currently looking at the Mekong River and Palau…  )  Cheers.

      Reply
    13. 13.

      way2blue

      @OzarkHillbilly:

      The book loaned to me ahead of this trip was, A Wild Idea (Jonathan Franklin), which documents Doug Tompkins’ drive to protect as much of wild Chile & Argentina as he could.  Albeit the nat’l parks he & his wife were instrumental in establishing are south of where we visited.

      Reply
    14. 14.

      way2blue

      @Gin & Tonic:

      We were told by friends to only travel between Argentina & Chile with a tour group given the difficulty of the border crossing.  I’d like to visit the Argentinian side next time.  Fitz Roy is on my list…

      Reply
    17. 17.

      Dan B

      Amazing photos of an amazing place.  The vertical faces are often the result of glaciation / glacial carving but its difficult to imagine a glacier this high up these peaks unless there was a massive ice sheet.  There are nearly vertical faces in the North Cascades from the ice sheets from Canada that were 6,000 feet thick but they didn’t reach the summits of the 8,000 – 9,000 foot peaks.

      Reply

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