Greetings from the bus to Punta Arenas, Chile. Lucy and I are freshly back, fit and fine, though largely achy, from our 4 night trek of the “W” trek of the famed Torres del Paine national park.

Approaching the hike, I think we both had some reservations and anxieties about it – not so much about the rigors of hiking, but about expectations and the fears of disappointment over a portion of our trip that is time consuming and wildly expensive. After all, it turns our that Patagonia is not that wild, really. Of course, I say this as a tourist – you do the research on the whats and wheres, and when you arrive you realize that the people around you read the same things, had the same advice from the same blogs. Despite the immensity of this remarkable region of the world, from the land of fire to the fields of ice, the tourist trail here is indeed rather narrow… And no place more literally expresses this sentiment than on the W, where the tourist trail is literally 1.5 feet wide.

However, and this is a pretty huge “however”… Despite the thousands and thousands of hikers that leave their desks for a week to find adventure in the Torres del Paine, regardless of a few poorly managed campsites, and though a few hotels and refugios further extract the possibilities of wildness, The Torres del Paine is remarkably immaculate, and utterly, astoundingly, breathtaking.

The “W” is kind of awkward as a trail. It’s a “greatest hits” parade of the most iconic views of the park. It’s called the “W” because each of these three viewpoints is up a different valley – and so the structure of the hike is really 3 out-and-back day trips that create the 3 points of a W. Going east to west, as we did, those 3 points were: The Torres del Paine, Valle Frances, and Glacier Grey.

There are a few ways to walk this hike: 1) carrying a typical pack with tent, sleeping bag, stove and food. By a drastic margin, this was the most popular option. 2) book bunks and meals at the refugios, the plush and expensive option. 3) With food adding up to $60 per day PER PERSON, we opted for protection from Patagonias famous winds, and thus the chance for some sleep, by booking beds, but with the economy of carrying our own food. This meant food costs at around $5 per day per person, and tiny 20 liter backpacks with no more than 10-15 pounds to drag around. We were dead right about this strategy.

And now the big show!

Our first Refugio was Torre Central.. And really, it wasn’t too bad. It was kind of like a hostel, with bunk beds in every room, but this summer camp was mostly swarming with rich, middle aged folks, drinking 10 dollar beers. This was really a zero day – after being dropped off at the park entrance (where we were legally obligated to watch a 3 minute video about fire safety and waste handling), we opted to walk the 3 miles to the refugio, but those miles were not trail miles. They did, however, give us a nice view of a grazing herd of guanacos.

The first real leg of the hike had us leaving the refugio for a long drizzly hike up a valley, passin the refugio we would later be sleeping in, and climbing a final vertical scramble to the Mirador Base of the Torres del Paine.

Pictures aren’t really adequate. Not that they don’t look like that, but the magic is in the scale… In the convex base rock, smooth with an eternity of glacial water pouring down and polishing this massive belly of stone before arriving at the milky blue lake below. I was perfectly awestruck… I had stars in my eyes. This place, though crawling with hikers today, lived millennial lives of silence and privacy – and still, really, it does, utterly unimpressed with the world that’s found the magic path to its doorstep. It’s some snapshot of a geological process so long, so old, and so specific to itself and only itself… It was heartbreaking trying to leave it, and looked back every 4 or 5 steps towards the long walk down, just hoping to take a little more than just my tiny fluid memories.

Refugio Chileno would represent much if what we would see in later refugios: something of a cross between slopeside bar and hostel, with loud music, expensive beer and bunk beds. Tonight, however, the beds towered 3 bunks high, 10 feet in the air.

The second hiking day was simple, relatively easy, mostly downhill. Leaving Chileno we make our way to the foot of the “cuernos”, marked by their distinctive dark caps, and on a day long walk between these giants, and big blue Lake Nordernskjold, and it’s backdrop of curiously folded green hills. Refugio Cuernos would set us up for the second excursion push, this time the long hike up Valle Frances and back…

But the thing we should really be talking about here is the rad cabin we caved on – with its wood stove, patio view of Lago Nordernskjold and the Cuernos, its large comfortable bed, its wood fired hot tub with panoramic views, and its lack of snoring roommates and their crinkling of plastic bags in the morning. Sometimes you gotsta take care of yourself.