The Climb

Our first full day at the campsite is a free day and everyone scatters to explore the park or just relax. Brendan works on the bikes, methodically changing oil, adjusting or tightening where the bumps have jarred things loose.

Feeling the need to walk, I set out in late afternoon in the direction of the park’s Visitor Centre. By the time I’ve reached a wooden bridge spanning the narrow neck of water at the south end of Rio Paine, I need to take a break.

I sit on the river bank in silence, gazing at the massif in the distance. Not a soul around, only a large bumblebee that buzzes loudly as it goes about its business. Not long after, Phil rides by in the opposite direction. Ten minutes later, he’s back.

“Guess what?” he asks with a tone of disbelief in his voice. “They just closed the road and aren’t letting anyone by until 1 a.m.”

I’d passed a construction crew earlier and it looked like they were getting ready to leave. No such luck. They were going to dig up and move a culvert.

It’s only after 8. Fortunately, Phil had discovered a small hosteria a couple of kilometres down the road. We decide to go there for dinner.

At 11 p.m., power in the hotel is turned off (not an unusual practise in these parts) and we wait in the semi-darkness of fireplace embers. We’d been promised a big campfire that night at our tent site. This would have to do.

Several hotel staff soon join us, stretch out on the floor and worn couches, and chat in animated Spanish. It has the air of a slightly surreal sleepover.

A cold drizzle falls as we ride two-up back to our tents. No sign of the road crew; only a steamroller lights up the gravel near the construction site.

Back at the campsite, Sue’s booklight is fixed to the troopy’s trailer. It welcomes us like a tiny, penetrating beacon in the pitch black. In only three hours it will be light again.

Next day doesn’t start out very enticingly. The air is damp and cool and the far peaks are covered with thick cloud. There’s a report of snow falling in the mountains.

How reliable that is we don’t know. It’s not deterring the group of German hikers who breakfast at the tables near us in the restaurant.

We down our watery scrambled eggs, toast, jam, fruit, dry cereal and instant coffee to fortify us for the climb. In the end, it’s just going to be two of us. Our photographer, Carmine, and I will make the 8-hour roundtrip hike to the Torres mirador.

Carmine is compact and muscular. He has a mischievous grin that reminds me of a garden gnome without the beard. His unbounding energy has earned him the awe of everyone in our group. “He’s a machine!” Jerry says in a near-reverential tone.

Jerry drives us to the drop off, about an hour from our campsite near Hosteria Las Torres. It’s 10.30 by the time we start up the trail.

The Paine massif is a small mountain system that’s independent from the Patagonian Andes Range. The central massif itself rises to an altitude of 3,050 metres.

The first half-hour is difficult as we adjust to the incline. Carmine is carrying at least 60 lbs of photography gear. We’re both sweating before we get far.

I remove my Firstgear Rainier jacket and strap it to my waterproof backpack. I’ll need it at the end of the trail. I’m down to my long-sleeved hemp shirt and a smart t-shirt developed by Tilley Endurables for NASA.

As we climb, I appreciate the flexibility of their loose-fitting zip-off pants, especially the elasticized waistband. Even my hiking boots are comfortable, despite only moderate duty since I bought them.

A wide-brimmed Tilley hat keeps off the sun. The hat was a revelation. I’ve never been a ‘hat person.' But after trying on one of their stylish (and very functional) Airflo models, I was soon converted.

I’d fastened it to my head with only the rear draw string to (successfully) ward off stiff winds as we climbed. To my amazement, the sweat literally pours from the hat band when I bend down to swing off my backpack.

A Chilean on horseback surprises us as he deftly passes on the narrow path. A young woman, accompanied by two male hikers, gingerly steps by us using metal crutches.

She’s Israeli and explains that she fell heavily and fractured her finger. She seems in a lot of pain and wistfully adds that she never got to the mirador.

We continue as the sun gets higher and warmer on this side of the mountain. At one point I look back toward where we started. The plateau spreads out expansively below us and disappears far into the distance.

Ahead, the gravel trail winds along precipitous grades that drop deep into a river canyon below. We soon reach the cover of sun-dappled old growth forest. Wooden foot bridges carry us across clear, fast-moving mountain streams.

An hour in, we stop only long enough to buy some chocolate and bottled water at the first área de acampar. “I’m sorry, mate, but I can’t stop here,” Carmine says. “The best time to shoot up there is before noon.” We’re already behind schedule.

I understand. The man is on a mission. Like a pack horse on steroids, Carmine strides ahead under the burden of his professional tools. It’s the last I see of him until I reach the summit around mid-afternoon.

The final hour is the worst. Emerging from the trees, I look up to see a disheartening slope of scree and talus before me. I’m dumbstruck. Worse, I can’t climb any farther. Muscles below my waist have abandoned me, stretched beyond their limit.

Seasoned hikers are coming and going in their all-weather gear, testing the sedimentary debris with their walking sticks. There are Brits and Aussies and South Africans. Voices waft by me speaking in precise, clipped German and pitched Japanese.

I stop, my head down to somehow summon strength. I’m saved by the voices of angels -- other climbers who, like characters in Wender’s Wings of Desire, are compañeros. They lift me with encouraging words: “You’re almost there! The view is worth it!”

Indeed, the view is worth it.

Clambering over the top boulders, I find a wedge of rock to shield me from the chilling wind, and collapse. For some time, I look long and hard at the three granite towers facing me: Torre Norte, Torre Central and Torre Sur.

They loom above a perfect turquoise lake like incisors, stubbornly resisting the erosional forces of nature, tearing the gauzy white fabric of cloud around them.

And then I’m brought back to earth when Carmine announces, far too soon, it’s time to go.