Torres Del Paine was the main thing I had been looking forward to on our trip. Though I had been dutifully avoiding pictures since Nate and Natty first told me about it, there were giant posters plastered on the walls of all the hostels in Puerto Natales...so I had a little bit of an idea what to expect.

Though I had heard about the wind - nothing could have prepared me for what was in store. Shortly after entering the park, our bus drove past a lake whose water was being blown into whitecaps, up into the air, and UP THE MOUNTAINS as the spray created tiny rainbows.

While we waited for a boat to take us to our starting point, I took a quick sidetrip over to a nearby waterfall, Salto Grande. The wind worsened, to the point where I could barely advance any further. The force was so strong that I was being pelted with tiny rocks and pebbles lifted from the ground. In the end, the waterfall was decent (maybe only 40 feet high), but it was hard to enjoy while fighting to stay on my feet!

I unintentionally ran most of the way back - driven by the wind. At one point, I hopped a rock and felt my body accelerating in mid air from the force!

I returned to the dock minutes after watching the boat pull away! Thankfully they were coming back for another trip.

An hour later, the boat arrived to take us across the windy, tropically blue water. The wind made things rough, and the 40 passenger boat, rose and fell violently with each wave - plunging into the ice cold water as it began to seep through the seams in the bow and onto our packs and seats. I had to move from the front and lie down in the back to avoid getting seasick.

Though our 11km hike started and ended in sunshine, the entire first half was spent struggling to stay upright in the stiff winds. Without our trekking poles, I would have toppled over on numerous occasions.

The scenery kept getting better throughout the day. Steep granite mountains shot up to the right as we skirted along Grey Lake on the left - and towards grey glacier - the third largest iceflow in the entire world (behind Antarctica and Greenland).

Four hours later, we arrived at the small fan shaped beach campground disappointed to see so many other tents already set up, each only 15 feet away from one another. Thankfully, most of these were set up in advance, for people like us who might arrive without tents. Probably 15 of the 40 were occupied, and we found a spot for our own tents. After taking a close look at Grey Lake and watching several car sized chunks of ice float by, we ate dinner. "Rice with ingredients" for me, and sauceless pasta for Kip (due to his own packaging error).

Of course I convinced him to add peanut butter, the universal condiment that heals all. He only enjoyed the first few bites.

After dinner, we hiked 10 minutes to the viewpoint for Grey Glacier, which was spectacular but disappointingly far away (over a mile from us). Knowing that we would get up and leave early the next day, I wanted to get a closer look - and decided to head off on my own. At 8:45pm.

I followed the path around the bay, and along the last remaining section of lake before it turned to glacier, hustling as fast as I could though most of it was uphill. At the top of the hill was another campground, and just 100 yards further the trees fell away and opened into a rocky outlook across the whole ice field. The view was unlike anything I had ever seen. The sense of scale was simply overwhelming.

I hurried along the rocks, and decided to move in for a closer view. Unfortunately, this meant traversing down a two hundred foot cliff, which thankfully had a few snaking gravel "paths". At the bottom, I my climbing skills came into play as I shimmied over a few watery areas and climbed to the top of another rocky outcropping expecting to be level with the glacier. Sadly, I was still several hundred feet above it.

The next section of rock was nothing more than loose scree, which was more dangerous in the sense that the footing was constantly unstable, but less dangerous because a fall would be a soft landing. I had determined to turn around at 10pm, and I kept quickening my pace as the time approached. At 10pm I was roughly 200 yards away, but what stood between me and the glacier was a pile of rocks that looked like swiss cheese. Rather than risking collapsing into a pile of rocks and ice, I sat for a moment, paid my respects and turned around.

I tried to take a different way back (one that would require less up and down), but instead found myself lost amongst rocks, streams, and steep eroding uphills.

When I finally arrived at the campground in uncomfortable darkness at 11:15pm, I would reflect on my hike as the pinnacle of all my outdoors skills coming together into one moment: fitness (which is surprisingly good uphill for some reason), climbing abilities (being able to safely and confidently climb over and around things when I need to), and sense of direction (I took different paths in each direction).

In the end, after 10km on my own, it was all a little too close for comfort (I think the looming darkness was the main fear factor), and I resolved not to do anything like that again - at least on my own.

En route to a 19km day, we began by backtracking everything we had done the day before. Sticking to the advice given in the free Torres del Paine orientation at The Erratic Rock hostel, I refused to wear rain gear while hiking. I just put on a long underwear top and shorts and am good to go. Yes, I start off cold. But I eventually warm up and it's no big deal. Today though, it was cold and rainy. And windy. The people we passed heading the other direction looked utterly miserable (they were going into the wind).

We stopped at the shelter where we had begun the previous day to try and warm up during lunch. As warned by the Erratic Rock, this turned out to be a bad idea. The coldest part of the entire 5 days ended up being the first hour or two after leaving the shelter. My clothes had dried and my body warmed up to an inside temperature that it wouldn't experience again - and I had a miserable time adjusting to the cold again once we began to hike.

The hiking though was spectacular. The second half of the day was spent hiking along the south edge of the outcropping (Torres del Paine is a circular section of mountains that juts up high above the surrounding countryside) in between the mountains and the tropical looking waters of the lake we had boated across the day before. The wind was merciless through this section - lifting water right up off the lake and threatening to knock us over at any moment.

Around dinner time, we arrived at Campamento Italiano adjacent to the most violent river in the entire park - at the mouth of Valle Frances, supposedly the most majestic views in the park. Sadly, an entire weather system seemed to be hanging low in the valley, surely obscuring any views. Hopefully the weather would clear up tomorrow.

We spent all morning and early afternoon killing time, mostly playing cards in the tent while waiting for the weather to clear up. Around 3pm, Kip noticed that the skies in the valley appeared to be clearing up, so we set off quickly on the 7km hike to the top of the valley - which was covered in a beautiful white blanket of snow.

The beginning of the hike weaved through small rocks and boulders, in and out of streams of clear, cold water. Kip's camera battery died almost immediately, so I pressed on while he went back to retrieve a new one. Within a few minutes it began to drizzle, and as I climbed higher, the rain turned to snow, frosting the top of the 15 foot canopy of trees and occasionally falling through onto the lush green ground cover. The world went green and white.

I reached Campamento Britanico near the top, but decided that despite the lack of view, I would continue all the way to the top. Another 2km later, I found myself following some unknown footprints in the fresh 3 inches of snow, leading up a pile of boulders - hopefully to a lookout. At the top were two other hikers (surprised to see another brave soul) who had come from Italiano.

As if to reward me for the journey, the skies cleared for a full minute, allowing me to catch a glimpse of the granite spires towering upwards in all directions. I had to laugh - it felt like some kind of religious experience.

The skies closed again, and the wind picked up as I hurried down from the lookout, moving fast so as not to get caught in any more crazy weather. I made the 7.5km return trip in 80 minutes (4.6 miles) - 17 minute miles over occasionally rocky terrain that descended over 1000 feet. The guys I met at the top arrived back at the campsite an hour after me!

So...maybe I like to brag once in a while?

Yesterday, we were supposed to have hiked to the next campsite (an extra two hours), but decided to stay in case the weather cleared up in Valle Frances. Sadly, it did not.

We left just after 10am, already 2 hours behind, with a 14+ mile day ahead of us. Thankfully, we were treated to excellent, sunny weather. The first 3/4 of the day was amongst the rolling hills between the mountans and Lago Nordenskjold, which looked particularly tropical in the sun. Gradually the terrain sloped upwards, and after a long uphill, we rounded the corner into a narrow and windy valley - the final stretch to the Torres (the famous granite spires and namesake of the park).

Many people, we learned, come to the park just to hike to the torres, so although it was late in the day (6pm) - the route was crowded with hikers, most of whom carried only daypacks.

I truly though Kip would give up on our push to Campamento Torres. His blisters and weariness was not a good combination. Finally after a rest at Campamento Chileno, we decided to go forward. I went on ahead reaching the campground in time to snag one of the last spots of relatively flat ground (cool campground, but many of the tent sites were uneven).

The plan for the morning? Wake up at 4am, hike to the Torres and then make breakfast in our sleeping bags while waiting for sunrise.

Amazingly, we awoke with the alarm at 4 - unwilling to risk a snooze that might compromise what seemed to be "the" experience of the entire hike. Headlamps ablaze, we did 45 minutes of boulder scrambling in darkness, eager to reach the viewpoint.

We weren't alone. A trail of headlamps bobbed quietly in the distance.

Though shrouded in morning clouds, the granite spires where somewhat visible shortly after we reached the top. I hid between some rocks and settled into my sleeping bag - attempting to cook up an oatmeal breakfast. The wind, no surprise, was violent, blowing my stuff around, knocking over the stove, and blowing out the flame every minute or two. Eventually, I succeeded, but in the end would probably have rather just sat there quietly between the rocks watching the sun come up - as 30 or 40 others hidden around me had done.

Finally, just as the sun came up, the clouds began to dissipate, revealing the torres. Three spikes of granite shot up several thousand feet into the sky, rising from a small lake bored into the rock below. For days we had feared that we wouldn't get a clean look due to the weather, so this moment was as much a of a relief as it was a majestic natural wonder.

It began to drizzle, so I quickly packed up my things and went looking for Kip. Unable to find him (and worried that he wouldn't be able to protect his camera from the rain), I climbed to the top of a several hundred foot high pile of boulders/rubble. Once on top, the wind became fierce, knocking me to the ground where I was forced to curl into the fetal position for several minutes - waiting for it to die down. When it subsided, I realized that a rainbow had formed, diving into the lake at the base of the Torres. Incredible.

Thought: I wonder how many of the day hikers we passed would actually make it to the Torres. Many of them could barely survive the first mile of the hike!