Dave Ford Does Earth

Posted by Dave Ford

Yesterday I escaped Torres Del Paine. It was one of the most worthwhile yet extremely painful adventures of my life. We walked the equivalent of 35 miles up mountains, down mountains, through valleys, by lakes, up more mountains, over the river, and through the woods. We saw glaciers, wildlife, and natural wonders that I had only seen in books and movies.

When I say that this is one of one of the toughest endeavors of my life, I mean it.

I feel like there are four factors that attributed to just how hard it really was:

1. Torres Del Paine is a physically challenging place to hike. In the four days we were there we ran into backpacking and outdoor enthusiasts of all shapes and sizes. We met mountain climbers, mountain guides,  park rangers, and trail runners.

2. Any day in the park you can encounter up to 4 seasons. It goes from 70 and sunny to 40 and windy in a blink of an eye. Then 15 minutes later it is 80 degrees. You are constantly putting on and taking off layers. The winds can be unpredictable and very strong as well.

3. We hiked the 35 miles in 4 days, where we should have broken it up into 5 days.
This was stupid and I paid for it.

4. At this point in my life I am in the worse shape of my life.

The trekking and backpacking options for Torres Del Paine are to take a day trip, to hike the 4-5 day “W” path, or to do the 10-12 day circuit. We choose the middle of the pack and decided to hike the “W”.

Pictured below is a map of the trail. The Red W shape is the path we took. The first day we went up the far right hand side of the W. The second day we walked from the top of the right spoke to the base of the middle spoke. The third day we walked up and back on the middle spoke, then to the base of the far left spoke. The fourth day we walked up and back on the left spoke. FYI: I would have died if I would have attempted the 10-12 day circuit.

The Torres Del Paine Cast of Characters

Profile: Tom Myers. 25 year old English guy from the Northern City of York. I can understand 85% of what he says. FYI: Knackered = Extremely Tired

Tom and I met in Bariloche where he first visited after breaking up with his girlfriend while traveling. She lives in Canada, he lives in England. It is a bit of a sad story. But, we all know how tough long distance relationships can be. Nonetheless, Tom traveled to El Calafate with myself and the Aussies. We had both read about Torres Del Paine and it was a place that we had both wanted to visit when planning our trips to South America. So, we decided to travel together to Puerto Natales and Torres Del Paine. Tom and I are both novice backpackers at best. We rented a tent, sleeping bags, mats, and cooking equipment. We also went shopping for food. Our 4 day diet consisted of bread, tuna fish, crappy oatmeal, crappy jam to put in the crappy oatmeal, crappy cereal bars, chocolate, coffee, and for a special treat, more crappy oatmeal.

Profile: The Israeli Soldiers- Boaz (Near) and Elad (far). Age 25. From Tel Aviv, Israel.

On the trail Tom and I met Boaz and Elad, two Officers in the Israeli Air Force and Army respectively. They are on leave for a few months to travel South American. They are both 25 and are serving the 2nd three years of their mandatory service.

Sidenote: All Israeli citizens have a mandatory military obligation. After high school, all men must serve 3 years and all of the women must serve two years. For Israelis that want to go to college such as Boaz and Elad, they must serve an additional 3 years of mandatory service. In a way, they are penalized for going to college before the military.

Boaz and Elad seemed to be at about the same backpacking level as Tom and I. We ran into each other on the first day of the hike time and time again. Boaz stopped often to smoke while we stopped often to huff, puff, and attempt to catch our breath. Actually, by we, I mean me. Tom runs half marathons. Nevertheless, we really hit it off with these guys. In recent weeks I had taken an interest in the sheer number of Israelis down here. They are everywhere. They are like Aussies in Buenos Aires. Anyway, on with the story. More about Israeli´s later….

Day one: The Great Beginning

Tom and I took the bus to Torres del Paine, threw our 50 pound backpacks on our backs, and took off up the mountain.

The first day was about a 5-6 hour hike. The path winded mostly uphill into the heart of the mountains. Along the way, we obtained the first glimpse of beauty that we were about to witness. We met Boaz and Elad right off the bat. The first night, Tom and I camped at the base of the Torres–the Actual Mountain pictured below–with a Canadian couple and Swedish guy. They were very cool and gave us incite on what to expect in the upcoming days. They also shared some very good hot chocolate that they had brought along.

Sidenote: The park recommends that you drink all of your water out of the many streams that begin asa result of snow melt on the mountain tops. It is not necessary to filter or boil it first.

Day 2- To hell in a hand basket

Day two started at 5:15am. We all arose to see “Torres Del Paine”–the mountain the entire park is named after–at sunrise. To get to the look out point it took 1 hour of trekking up the steepest terrain of the whole trip (see pix below). We had to scramble straight up a mountain of rocks. Looking behind in the dark you could see a trail of headlamps winding all the way to the bottom. Which was pretty cool except that I do not have a headlamp. This was my first glimpse of how I suck at backpacking.

The payoff was great. The view at sunrise was the visual high of the 4 day experience. I cannot actually think of the last time I woke up early to see a sunrise. I have seen plenty right before bed in the last 10 years. In fact, I am going on record right now: This is the first sunrise that I have ever woken up early for in my 28 years.

Before Sunrise

The sun comes up at 6:28am

Torres Del Paine lights up.

We hiked one and a half hours up this rock scramble.

After the beauty of the sunrise the day took a downward spiral.  We walked a total of 27 kilometers in one day.  I think this works out to about 18 miles. The first 24 kilometers were great as we passed through open pastures, lakes, rivers, and waterfalls.

Sidenote: Tom and I tried to get Chilean money out three different ATMS to no avail the morning of the first day of the trip in Puerto Natales. All of the machines were empty. So, we got to the park with just enough money to get us out there. They have really nice paid campsites and little cabins you can stay in for about 30 US bucks a night. I was thinking it would be nice to do this once or twice. Now, the luxury was not possible.

We past the paid camping site feeling pretty good that afternoon. We were tired, but thought the next two hours would be easy. That was until we got lost. Somehow, we missed a trail marker and headed up “pseudo trail”.   Please put emphasis on the word “UP”. We ended up at a lookout point that did not really overlook anything. Sadly, this added about another hour onto the hike. We had to backtrack. Mentally, this was a blinding blow to the jaw. It had started to get cold and we were all hungry and tired.

Tom and Boaz were pretty far ahead of Elad and I when my legs locked. I stopped for a break on an uphill slope and both legs completely seized. My hamstrings would lock, I would go to stretch them, and my quads would lock. Repeat pattern for a half an hour. It was hell. Eventually, with the help of an incredible pep talk from Elad I fought through it. His motivational speech included, “Israelis never leave a man behind, this is why we went to war with Hezbollah last summer”.  Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers to start the war.  Eventually,  I just started walking again and the cramps worked themselves out. We got to the camp at 8:30 at night–remember that we started at 5:30am that morning. I have never felt such physical exhaustion.

Upon arrival at camp, I went to the river to fill up my water bottle. Sitting on the rocks ahead of me was a condor. I think it was a condor. Maybe it was a hallucination. Either way, he was looking right at me and seemed fairly friendly. I felt like he told me to keep my head up, and keep working hard. He is an endangered species and everything, so, I decided to listen to him.

I then stumbled back to camp and promptly threw up. No one saw me though as I was very smooth about it. Boaz made some soup and I had a cup just before bed. My collapse into the tent was monumental. That night, I had to sleep perfectly still. If I moved, my legs, arms, or ab muscles would lock into a tight painful spasm. Thank God we were done trekking for the day.

Elad, Boaz, and Tom were an amazing support group. They helped me through the toughest of times. Respectively, they had their own set of aches, pains, and challenges.

Day 3- The middle of the W

I woke up feeling surprisingly good on day 3. I was sore all over, but the cramps had gone away over night. Luckily, most of day three would be done sans backpack. When trekking the W you end up walking three of the parts twice. You have to double back to get to the next part of the trail. Thankfully, Day 3 was one of these parts. We woke up around 9:30 or 10:00. Most of the hardcore contingent had already moved along and were up and out hours before we even began to stir. The trek was 2 1/2 hours up to a lookout point, then 2 1/2 hours back down to Camp Italiano where we had stayed the previous night. It took me about an hour to get to the point where I was feeling somewhat good. The pain from  day 2 never left me throughout the duration of the trip. The path led us between snow capped mountains.

While walking, I thought what I was hearing was thunder, but as I turned my head I saw a full on Avalanche slowly pushing its way down the top of the mountain. The snow fell off of a high cliff and downward into the valley. Mind blowing! The terrain was much easier to navigate than the previous day. Going back to camp it was mostly downhill. We met up with Zena, Mariana, and Sabrina who were all medical school students in Switzerland. We ended up seeing them throughout the rest of the trip. We spent much of our time arguing over who would get which girl. I spent much of my time asking them for medical advice for my various ailments. Unfortunately, none of us made anything happen with any of them. Backpacking trips are the worst possible place to pick up girls for a plethora of reasons mostly involve foul smells and sweat.

Sidenote: The Swiss have mandatory military service as well. All Swiss men must serve one year in the armed forces right out of high school. They have the second largest army per population size next to Israel. Correct me if I am wrong but haven’t the Swiss have been neutral in every major conflict of the last 200 years?

After packing up the camp, we had a two hour hike through mostly open plains to the next nights camp. We were tired again but it was nothing like the previous night. This was a paid campsite. It cost about $3500 pesos. We had the use of a general kitchen and got to take hot showers! For the duration, we had been carrying around boxed Cabernet to celebrate our success. Tom, Boaz, Elad, and I toasted away the pain of the day, and slowly drifted away into merry contentment. We were far from drunk, but feeling a happy glow that only Red Wine can provide (I highly recommend Chilean boxed wine). That night, we went to sleep easily, knowing we had only one day left to complete our task.

Day 4 - Overcoming the Mind

Day 4 was another beautiful day. Somehow we managed to get relatively mild weather throughout our days on the trail. I cannot conceive what the trip would have been like if it had rained or snowed the whole time. We set out early because we needed to catch a ferry out of our camp at 6:30 PM.

The final spoke of the W was 11 kilometers up to Glacier Grey, then 11 Kilometers back to camp. We had to do roughly 15 miles in 7 1/2 hours. We were without packs again as we were backtracking to our campsite. This last day started out easy enough. The first part of the journey was cake. The hills rolled. They would go a little bit uphill, then a little bit downhill. There were expansive flat stretches that were relatively easy. There were many tour groups on the trail, more so than in previous parts. Glacier Grey is a huge tourist attraction.  As we walked on the top of a ridge, we shortly joined a tour group led by a Chilean girl about my age. She explained that we were on the southern edge of the Patagonian ice fields. We were elevated high up in the air and could see nothing but snow covered mountains and glaciers for miles. The lake below glowed a radioactive blue from the glacial melt and icebergs.

From this point, the trail began to slope down hard and fast. A twinge in my knee turned to a throb. Under the gun to get back to the camp by 5:30 we all pressed forward hard. I ended up getting stuck behind a tour group and losing the guys. The trail continued downward harder and faster. All I could think of was what it was going to be like coming back up these god damn hills.

For the rest of the day, it was just me and my thoughts. It is amazing what you can work out within your mind while physically challenging yourself like this. I was attempting a Marathon, without any training, and almost at the finish line. You end up having lots of time to think, and to curse, and to think some more.

I reached the glacier and the boys. We had a brief chat.  I ate a can of tuna, a piece of chocolate, snapped a photo of the glacier, and started the trek back. It was 5 after two. The signs stated that it would take us another 3 1/2 hours back.

The first half of the way back was “ALL” uphill. It was like being stuck on an uphill stair climber routine with no way to get off . Thank god Richard Simmons was nowhere to be found as I would have ended him. I had to keep pushing or I would miss the ferry. All four of us headed back at our own pace. We figured whoever got there first could start breaking down camp. Along the trail, I passed by many other backpackers but was truly on my own. Just me, my mind, and my body. My mind and body were ready to come to blows.

This trip back was physically exhausting, torturous, and painful. I think it was worse than day 2. However, I probably would have felt better if day 2 was not so tough. I had to stop halfway up every steep hill. Halfway up the tallest advance I surrendered my tuna and chocolate to the birds and bugs of Patagonia.  I guess that is a cute way of saying I yacked lunch up all over the trail.

At one point I wondered if my travel insurance would cover a helicopter evacuation.   Then I began to wonder if  helicopter evacuations were even a possibility so far down here.  After further contemplation, I decided probably not. My long conversations with God, Jesus, Buddah, Muhammed, Vishnu, Jiminy Cricket, and anyone else that would listen helped me keep going and I eventually made it. After using every last ounce of energy in my body I made it in time for the ferry. I received a standing ovation from my compadres upon my return to camp. Well, I guess that they were already standing when I arrived. But they did clap.

Some after thoughts

We hiked the W in one day faster than is recommended which by all accords was a pretty stupid thing for novice backpackers to attempt. We also did not have enough money to stay at the pay campsites–except for the last night when our generous Israeli friends let us borrow some Pesos– which added onto the misery of day 2.

But, after all the pain, I would not have wanted this to go down any other way than it did. At my lowest of spirits the wilderness always gave me some sign of hope. I learned more about myself through these four days than the rest of the trip combined. I feel like I really worked out some important personal issues in my head. I turned the corner on some thoughts that had been chewing away at me for some time. After a few days to reflect, I feel like this is one of the most important physical and mental accomplishments I have endured.

Israelis

I asked both Boaz and Elad a lot of questions about their country and its people throughout our many hours together. What I found was really interesting. After the two/three years of military service nearly all Israelis travel abroad. Most of them work for a year, save up, and then go. From what they said, 50% go to South America, 40% go to South East Asia, and 10% go to Australia–the ones with money. The Israeli Sheckel is relatively weak versus the US dollar. I think it is just a little stronger than the Argentine Peso. So naturally, the Israelis seek out parts of the world where their money goes farther.

To date I have had mixed experiences with the Israeli travelers. I have met some very cool people, and some very standoffish types. This is par for the course with all travelers from all nationalities, but I think it rings truer with the Israelis because many travel in large groups of “only Israelis”. They tend to stay in Israeli Hostels, which can isolate them from other travelers.

One of the things Boaz and Elad helped me realize is the constant state of war that all of these people are faced with everyday. I read the news and take an active interest in middle eastern affairs. However, until you meet people that are going through these types of things first hand it is  hard to get a clear picture.

Some of the travelers we met at Torres were hardened war vets at 21. They fought in the war last summer with Hezbollah. Many had spent much of the last few years getting rocks thrown at them by Palestinian children while guarding checkpoints. Their people live with a constant threat of suicide bombings. It is crazy just to think about it, let alone live through such a thing. Altogether, it gave me a better sense of why the Israeli people stick together so tightly, even while abroad.

Most of the Israelis we met on the trail were physical specimens. Most of the trekkers that took the circuit (10-12 day) hike were Israelis right out of the service. They are in perfect shape. We met paratroopers, combat soldiers, guards, etc….

After this experience I am looking forward to visiting Israel even more. I think I should be there next October. Boaz and Elad are going to take me out on the town. I also am looking forward to traveling to Jordan and Egypt. I want to try to make sense of the entire middle east, from all angles and perspectives.

Notes:

> A British Guy woke up in my hostile last night screaming “Get me out of here” at the top of his lungs. I had to physically walk him outside of the room before he calmed down.  I guess he had a crazy dream.

> Jews from around the world can immigrate to Israel and become citizens immediately. There is no waiting period. Boaz and his family immigrated from Romania when he was 7 years old and became immediate citizens.

> I had a  bit of a wake up call at Torres. I simply have to get in shape. I am doing the Inca Trail before I leave South America, and have plans to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa next fall. I will not let myself get banged up like this again.

> The last few days I have been in Puerto Natales, relaxing, recovering, and reflecting. I catch a flight tomorrow to Ushuaia at the southernmost tip of Argentina. From there I am going to attempt to catch a last minute deal on a boat to Antarctica. Wish me luck.

> I am growing a full beard for the first time in my life. 6 years of wearing a suit and tie and being clean shaven are in the rear view mirror, for now anyway.  I think I will shave it just before I get back to BA in March. Right now it is a little shaggy. I look like a cross between a mountain man and a Amish farmer. The ladies are going to love it.

> I am going to look up Tom when I get to London in May. He lives close to Scotland, so hopefully I will get to spend a night out on the town in York with him. So far my worldwide connection are growing rapidly. I am good to go in Australia, Canada, Ireland, England, and Israel.

> I corresponded with Aussies Ben and Billy today via email. They just arrived to Rio de Janerio. Its apparently 90 degrees and they are partying it up. I have a whole new respect for Billy after my 4 days in the mountains. He did the same thing for 3 weeks when trying to climb Mt. Aconcagua. I can not even imagine.

> I have been getting a lot of questions about what I miss most from home. Well, of course I miss my friends and family. Although, I feel like I have been doing a pretty good job keeping in touch. I really, really, really miss American breakfast. Eggs. Bacon. Sausage. Hash browns. Toast and Jelly. Coffee. Breakfast here BLOWS. I would pay $100 US dollars for Huevos Rancheros from the Golden West in Baltimore right now, no questions asked. I really miss breakfast.

> Sitting next to me in the hostel right now is a guy who rode here on his motorcycle from Idaho. His wife has been riding shotgun. It has taken them 3 months. He is originally from a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland as well. Ironically, he is watching movies of really bad motorcycle crashes as I write.

> With regards the Middle East conflict, I realize that Americans are threatened at home and abroad as well. Much of which, involves our countries support for Israel. Nonetheless, it is very compelling to meet people that are directly in the middle of conflict. Furthermore, I hope to meet more Americans that have spent time on the ground in Iraq through my journey. Personally, I would rather hear first hand accounts than blindly trust the American media.

> I will end on a quote that I received via email this week from my good friend and mentor from college Dr. Dru Bagwell. After traveling this past month and a week, I think it might be the most valid point I have heard about American culture in its current state.

“The biggest item of the last few days has been the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Amazing, with all the poverty in the world; with all the killing in the
world; with all the different cultures we should be learning about, that
every news show first talks about a girl who has nothing going for her
but big boobs!!!!”

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