Saturday April 12th, to Tuesday April 15th, 2025 - Torres del Paine Cordillera, Chile

Monte Balmaceda, 

 I don't normally choose window seats. My legs are long, I often get up to stretch and I like to have easy access to the bathroom. On this flight, it was not my choice to be assigned an aisle seat. As we left drizzly Puerto Montt, and headed south to Punta Arenas, the cloud cover blocked the view......so I dozed. After a while I opened my eyes, to see this magnificent shape seemingly within reach of my arms! I gasped when I saw it. This is what I had come this far south to see!

I found out later it is Monte Balmaceda, and is considered to be the gateway to the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap. The glacier coming in from the top right is the Balmaceda, also know as the Felicia Glacier. I was saddened to learn as I was Googling, that the glacier is rapidly retreating and thinning.

Of course, I was disappointed to know we had already flown across the entire ice field - I will hang onto the possibility that it was all covered in cloud until I woke!

Al Espiritu Selk'nam Monument, Punta Arenas

As we left the Punta Arenas airport we passed this monument to recognize one of the groups of indigenous people who were living here before European settlement - the Selk'nam. When Magellan first arrived in South America in the 1500's, his crew reported seeing extremely tall people on the shore. Without knowing their tribal name, the Portuguese called them Patagons, which is believed to have come from a character in a popular romantic novel from that time. The character in the novel - Patagon - was a monstrous dog-headed giant. There is speculation about which tribe they might have actually been, but it is possible that the headdresses of the Selk'nam were a factor in this designation.

 When Magellan came through here, they saw fires in the large island to the south, which is why it was named Tierra de Fuego (Land of Fires). They were fires lit by the indigenous dwellers here.

Along with the Selk'nam, there were a number of other tribes. Efforts by hunters, ranchers, miners and soldiers in the late 1800's to remove these people, were largely successful, but remnant groups remain and strive to preserve cultural identity and gain recognition.

https://www.patagonjournal.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4278:el-pueblo-selkanam-sigue-vivo&catid=197:cultura&Itemid=340&lang=en

Plaza de Armas Muñoz Gamero, Punta Arenas

By the time we arrived and checked into the hotel, it was night time, and we left the following morning before dawn, so we only enjoyed this delightful town in the dark. Punta Arenas means 'sandy point', and it is the southernmost city in the world, with a population of about 130,000. The waters of the Magellan Strait moderate their temperature, which stays relatively mild in the winter, but the region experiences very strong winds, especially in the summers.

Jose Nogueira Hotel, Punta Arenas, Chile

You would think a city at 'the end of the world' would struggle economically, but with the strait offering a throughway from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans, it was a busy place. In the beginning it was a penal colony and a 'gulag' for out of favor political figures, but that was not a successful venture - there was chaos and riots. As European immigrants arrived in the late 1800's, sheep farming and gold mining created prosperity for some of them. With their acquired wealth some built fabulous mansions or palaces here. Our hotel had been the 'palace' of Sara Braun, who was one such immigrant. All the materials were shipped from Europe for construction! Ernest Shackleton stayed here in 1916 as a guest of Sara Braun after his disastrous Antarctic expedition.

To add to local prosperity, oil was discovered here in 1945 and continues to be extracted, along with natural gas.

Bathroom Art, La Luna Restaurant, Punta Arenas

We visited La Luna Restaurant with the promise of having the best Chilean King Crab, and indeed, my meal was both excellent and inexpensive. However, my visit to the bathroom was even more memorable, with art work covering doors and walls. This fellow was on the back of the bathroom door, so I got to stare at his butt! The logo on his shirt says 'Crazy Cat Art'. I don't know who the artist is, but the restaurant throughout was colorful and quirky. It was quite unexpected so far from the rest of the world.

Swedish Space Corporation, Punta Arenas Ground Station

These white domes that we saw from the bus next morning were antennas - part of a system that supports polar-orbiting satellites. In conjunction with similar sites in Australian, it produces 'unmatched' communications coverage.

Chile is also striving to innovate in solar, wind and hydro power. When life hand you lemons, you might as well make lemonade and in this area, the strong winds are being used to extract hydrogen from the air with wind turbines. The hydrogen is then converted into bio-fuels. It requires a great deal of water from the Magellan Strait, which needs to be desalinated to create these highly innovative fuels. 

In other parts of Chile, especially further north, solar power is becoming highly developed, with explorations to create UV-Sensitive solar panels that will function when it is cloudy. 

Southern Patagonian Ice Cap

But enough of civilization, we are headed back north again to the edge of the mountains we just flew over yesterday! This ice field and the mountains beyond are 518,000 square miles of ice, with 49 glaciers. It is the largest fresh water resource after the Antarctic and Greenland.

Guanaco

But what's this - our first quanaco sighting! These camel-like herbivores are ever-present, and well camouflaged with their coloring. As you might imagine, the ranchers did not like the competition they presented for the grasslands and their number became depleted. On the mainland, they are now  protected, but are raised for meat on Tierra de Fuego. I enjoyed a meal of guanaco (from Tierra de Fuego, they told me), but I did not find it a remarkable meat, so I don't have to try it again!

Lesser Rheas

As if guanacos are not cute enough, we also saw rheas. These are flightless birds, related to emus from Australia, kiwis from New Zealand and Ostrich from Africa - providing quite tangible evidence that all four continents were connected at one time. They are also in the same family as the dodo. Each species has evolved differently in each environment. Darwin thought they were emus when he first saw them, but upon returning to England saw that the bones were different. 

They stand three to five feet tall, can run up to 35 miles per hour and are polygamous. It is the male who creates the nest next to a shrub. After she lays eggs, the females leave. The male stays with up to 30 eggs and raises the chicks for six to seven months! He is even willing to adopt lost chicks. Of course, the young ones are vulnerable to foxes and condors, so many do not survive to adulthood.

The birds hold a special place for the Mapuche, who use them for food, as well as feathers and bones. Our Mapuche speaker in Bariloche  told us the rheas are very important for them - their movements are imitated in dance and the shared role of both male and female is valued.

Torres del Paine, View From the East

Finally, we arrive at the magnificent cordillera we had come to see, generally known as Torres del Paine. (It took me a while to figure out that the last word is pronounced 'pine-eh'.) The national park is  a collection of 29 peaks, and this photo shows the core massif which is most accessible without backpacking. We stopped on our way to do a short trek to see it from the east. On the left, you can see the main peak - Cerro Paine Grande, at 9,462 feet - and on the right you can see the three towers, which give the park its name. It became known to the larger world after the first 'tourist', Lady Florence Dixie published a book about her travels in the late 1800's. She referred to the towers as Cleopatra's Needles.

Sunset, Torres del Paine Massif, From the South, Across Lago Grey 

When we arrived at the hotel - Lago Grey Hotel - the view was spectacular, with not a cloud in the sky. From this angle, we were able to see the 'horns' better than the towers that we had seen earlier. 

Googling the weather told me that cloud cover is more common than not, and that in the area of the hotel, precipitation - both rain and snow - is 38 to 40 inches per year, with April and May being the wettest months. There are people who will come here and see little of the mountain - much like my experience in Puerto Varas with the Osorno Volcano. I felt very blessed to see this view so clearly.

Sunrise, Looking Across Lago Grey, Grey Glacier Far Left

There was frost the next morning, but the sky was still clear with just a few wispy clouds. The name of the collection of peaks means 'towers of blue', with the word 'paine' coming from he mapuche language for blue. It is not clear why is was referred to as blue - many of the internet resources suggest that there is a bluish hue to the granite, but I couldn't see that. Our guide suggested it could have been covered in more glaciers in the past and the bluish tinge could have been due to that. This photo shows bluish-ness, but this a common feature of many mountains when seen from a distance.

From Lake Pehoe Trail

Perhaps I should just stop telling you stuff about this mountain and call this blog 'how many different ways can you take a photo of the same, very beautiful place'. This is one of my favorites from this very still morning when such a reflection was possible!

Avalanche!

Shortly after I took the reflection photo, we heard a rumble and roar, which our guide identified as an avalanche. I was able to zoom in enough to catch a photo of it - in the middle of the image above. You can see the vertical drop, with the plume of snow and ice fanning out at the base of the fall.

Fall Colors

I still relished in the red hue one could see on the hills around to the south of us with the nothofagus turning colors.

Fire Damage - Looking South

The National Park here was established in 1959, and has expanded over time to cover 561,000 acres. It became a UNESCO biosphere in 1979, and last year drew 364,000 visitors. One hazard of having visitors is the fire risk. Significant acreage (20% of the total acreage) has been burned following the improper use of camp stoves, open fires and smoking. Due to the very strong winds in the summers - up to 100 miles per hour - any stray spark can take off and spread rapidly. The winds also make fighting the fires very dangerous - air support becomes impossible. There is no lightning in this area to cause fires, so all damage is caused by humans. The trees are not fire dependent, so do not propagate naturally after being burned.  

Nothofagus Forest

While the burnt areas allow one to see distances that might not have been visible before, this view with the forest still intact represents the way it has been for millennia. There are efforts in place to re-nourish the burnt areas, and penalties for violating fire prevention rules have increased steeply. Camping areas have wind-protected areas for the use of camp stoves, and smoking on trails is prohibited. 

Grey Glacier Path

If you look carefully at this photo, you will see six, very small people, walking across the beach below. They are close to those yellow patches about a third of the way from the bottom left corner. This is our path to view the Grey Glacier. Like the people you can see here, we will walk across the gravel beach to the peninsula on the other side and then travel to the far left to see the glacier.

Grey Glacier

When we got there, we were still quite distant from the glacier. Ice floes were barely discernable, but I had no complaints about the view!

Zooming in to see Grey Glacier

The Grey Glacier is one of the biggest in this national park. The wall you see is about 90 feet high, and the ice behind it is about four miles wide and 17 miles long. It is retreating. 

Change in the Weather?

That night, we went out to find the Southern Cross constellation, in spite of the almost full moon. Indeed it was there, but it looked much smaller than I remember from the many times I saw it as a child in Australia. We noticed the streaks of cloud coming in, so I wondered what the morning might bring.

Grey Glacier at Dawn

Of course, I had to get out early to check! I even set up my tripod and used my 12-24mm wide angle lens in the dawn light. All was good with the sky.

The Horns

I spent a long time looking at this collection of peaks, and I can't say I ever figured out their complexity. Before we leave this area, I want you to see these wonderful horns closer than we have yet. They are formed from granite forcing its way between layers of sedimentary rocks. I'm sorry, you can't see the gradually sloping shale at the base of the granite, but I wanted you to clearly see the dark metamorphic layer on top, which this photo shows. This was a layer of sedimentary rock - probably shale - that got 'cooked' when the granite intruded, creating a hard, hornfels rock. Their resistance to erosion has helped shape this wonderful and unique landscape.

Just in case you want to see a map of the peaks and more photos, here is a link.

https://www.ecocamp.travel/en/geography-and-geology

A Last Glimpse From the Bus

It was tough for me to stop looking and photographing the landscape as the bus drove away. I'm also  having a hard time not showing you yet another image, but all good things must come to an end, so this is it! We are off - back to Argentina now.

Next blog will share some aspects of that journey, before we finish up with El Calafate and the Perito Merino Glacier.