Torres Del Paine National Park is located in Southern Patagonia, a couple hours north of Puerto Natales, Chile. The W-trek is a route through the park’s contrast of colors: jutting grey stone pillars, dark black jagged peaks, turquoise glacier lakes, deep blue spine-riddled glaciers, luscious green foliage and vibrant red fire bushes.
Patagonia as a whole is an ancient landscape formed by glaciers with little human structures or inhabitants. A land with no dangerous predators besides the mountain lion, ruled by the domineering weather and its famous wind.
You are all excited to come down to Patagonia and do the Torres Del Paine W Trek. All you have to do is plan it… Not to worry! This guide should help answer some common questions people have about the W and how to make it a reality.
To the average person National Forests, Parks, Wildernesses, Monuments, Demonstration Areas, etc. are all the same. These are areas of land protected from human development. However, it wasn’t until I started backpacking heavily that I started to understand their differences and how I could leverage these differences to create different experiences. Lets explore…
For the high mountains and the North, Summer is over and hiking season has come to a close. However, we are just entering my favorite time of hiking in the Bay Area where I can explore the beauty of ridge lines in greens instead of golds. Below I’ve listed my favorite multi-day trips within a couple hours of the bay. Enjoy!
“Everyone wants to climb a tallest peak, it is often much more difficult and pristine to climb a second tallest peak.”
At 14,380 ft, Mt. Williamson is the second highest peak in California (5th highest in lower 48). To reach it you must suffer through an unrelenting 10,000 feet of gross elevation gain over 12+ miles. As a result you’ll find yourself mostly alone compared to other 14ers, like Whitney or Shasta where I could see a line of people coming up Avalanche Gultch. When the four of us were on the mountain over August 28-30, 2015 we encountered just two other people trying to summit the mountain the day of, a few trail runners single-day peak bagging and a half dozen other backpackers the entire trip.
I fell in love with mountains and became a hiker in Utah’s Western bite of the Rocky Mountains. That summer, in a dry desert area North of Salt Lake City. Fueled with inexperience and a taste for adventure I wound up in several off-trail scrambles there which taught me a foundation about how to descend loose rock and dirt. This Spring I had to use these skills again in an ‘Oh Shit!’ moment near Castle Peak where the trail forward simply ran off a cliff and turning around meant descending icy snow in hiking boots. As a result, my group chose to descend 1000 ft of loose dirt/rock, many doing so for the first time.
When I envision camping I picture undisturbed wilderness and sounds of trees blowing in the breeze among singing birds. Backpacking provides this ability to see nature off the beaten path, experience nature’s pristineness and escape the summer crowds and noise of car camping sites. However, not every backpacking trip needs to be a multi-day ordeal. No matter where you are in the SF Bay Area there is an accessible and beautiful location near you. Read on for my regional favorites and a complete catalogue of all backpacking sites within two hours of the SF Bay Area.
On Saturday, May 9th, 2015 at 11am all six members of my group summited Mt. Shasta at 14,179ft via the West Face. The altitude sickness most of us experienced over the last few hundred feet made it an incredible mental hurtle. All of us had a base of hiking, backpacking and rock climbing experience, but this was our first mountaineering trip. Below you can find our planning materials and trip report to assist you on your climb.
Sometimes we go to nature, sometimes nature comes to us. This week I bring you a guest post by Mariel Reed about her recent adventure in Northern California.
“The Lost Coast”– a wild, and sometimes dangerous, 50+ mile stretch of California coastline– lives up to its name. The landscape feels like a land before time. In just 24 hours, two friends and I (Mariel) faced a stubborn mountain lion, intense winds and rain, and rowdy Roosevelt Elk. The beauty and wilderness of the Lost Coast took our breath away (and, um, our tent). But we escaped with our lives, and our thirst for adventure intact. Here’s the full story– and why you should go.
I had my first ‘Oh Shit!’ moment in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Northern Minnesota. Despite a prior night’s storm our morning started out relatively calm paddling in my two person canoe. However, as the day went on and the lakes became larger the wind would overpower our human-powering steering. Repeatedly it diverted us away from our prospective camp sites, separated our group and forcing us towards rocks. Several times we had to communicate across islands to regroup, strategize our next campsite attempt and push our physically abilities and technical skills.
I call these emotionally driven situations ‘Oh Shit!’ moments where your group is forced to make quick decisions deviating from the original plan. They happen due to unexpected hazards (weather), human error (becoming lost) or just bad luck (injury). They are experience altering and often scary at the time, but make great stories and valuable experience later. I’ve had a number of these moments so I wanted to share my strategies for making the best decision when you realize, ‘Oh Shit!’
