The John Deere Pass - Torres del Paine Part 4.
Nestled high in the mountains, looking out across the Patagonian landscape, a field of bright green tractors, the John Deere Pass...
I can't remember who in our group first misnamed the John Garner Pass, but it stuck. The pass, lying between Cerro Amistad and Cerro Blanco Sur, was named after the British mountaineer who, along with park rangers, pioneered the ‘O’ route. At 1200 metres this was the highest point of our trek.
For clarification: There were no tractors.
We had been warned about the potential difficulties of crossing the pass. The wind, already fierce, when funnelled through this gap in the mountain can reach terrifying speeds. This, coupled with the near permanent snow-pack, can make the hike a potentially tricky day out (the rangers at Guardia Perros check the conditions continually and will sometimes close the trail, it's worth adding an extra day to your itinerary, just in case).
Once again though, the weather gods smiled on us. The sun was out, the wind light, the day beautiful. Cresting the pass, we were gifted one of the most spectacular views of my life. The Glacier Grey stretched into the distance before us.
We stood and stared.
A woefully inadequate photo to show the scale and beauty of this view.
One mighty finger of the South Patagonian Ice field, the second largest extrapolar ice field in the world (after that found in Kluane National Park, in the Yukon), the glacier stretches back further than the eye can see.
The Glacier Grey seen from a lookout further down the trail.
Sadly, like so many other glaciers around the world, Glacier Grey is retreating, beaten back by the effects of climate change. Whilst it is hard to imagine such a colossal structure disappearing, large parts already have.
Photos, on the lookout point’s information board, showed the glacier in the 1950’s stretching nearly as far as the current day Refugio Grey, some three kilometres from where it now ends. This blog post on the Columbia University website gives a sad account of the effect of climate change on glaciers around the world.
It may seem a little hypocritical to preach about all this when I took three flights to get there. This is something I struggle with a fair amount. I love my job, and want to keep doing it, but I have to recognise that the travelling I do has a negative impact. I do my best to have a minimal carbon footprint in the rest of my life, and I pay to offset the carbon from my trips, but it's still an uneasy moral grey area.
The descent from the John Garner pass is steep and winding, a bit of a knee workout. At the bottom, we turned southwards. We passed Paso campsite (free, but a tad muddy and mosquito infested. Not a place I would recommend staying the night, unless you're truly fried from climbing the pass), and came upon a series of rocky ravines. Each spanned by a narrow suspension bridge. Whilst well built, these were (like all small suspension bridges) rather springy underfoot. Whilst some of the group belted their way across there were definitely a couple doing the old 5p, 50p.
You could get a good bounce going if you tried (and sometimes even when you really didn't...).
The bridges were good fun, though what they marked was a little sad. The end of the ‘O’ route. Once we reached Refugio Grey, our next campsite, we would be officially joining the “tourists” on the ‘W’. This would mean saying goodbye to the friends we had made (the ‘W’ has fewer restrictions, and more campsites, so you don’t all end up at the same place every night). However, we did make plans for a drink in Puerto Natales the day after we got off the trail (shoutout to the cocktails at the Last Hope Distillery).
We walked into Refugio Grey that evening knowing we had the hardest climb and steepest descent behind us. We had been treated to some incredible views, and had a rest day to look forward to.
Climbing History and Family Reunions
Refreshed from a day off, we continued south to the Refugio Paine Grande.
Walking between the expanse of Lago Grey to our right and the craggy peaks to our left, the trail was breathtaking. Sadly though, swathes of burnt hillside bore testament to human stupidity. Despite the incredible reforestation work done in the park over the last decade and a half, the remnants of a series of devastating wildfires, one in 2005 and two in 2011, are still visible. All three of these were caused by irresponsible tourists. If you are going to visit this beautiful place, please, don’t be an arsehole.
Still incredible views, but I can't help but think they would have been better without the charred effect.
These days passed peacefully. The walking relaxed, the buffet at Paine Grande was indeed grand, and the lady who squeezed her tent into the metre or so gap between the tent Chris and I were sharing and that of Trevor and Andy, was odd (crawling out of their tent, the boys got a face full of orange nylon, half the campsite was empty).
Our seventh day in the park was to be our longest. From Paine Grande, we planned to head round to Camp Italiano, where we would dump most of our kit and head up the Valle de Frances to the Britanico lookout. Then, back to Italiano to pick up our gear and continue on to our overnight at Cuernos, some 28km in total.
Despite the low, grey clouds and rain obscuring the views in the Valle de Frances (our first bad weather of the trip to speak of, the wind was kind of fun), I was excited to walk the footsteps of mountaineering history.
It was from here that, in 1963, Chris Bonnington and Don Whillans raced an Italian team, led by Armando Aste, to make the first ascent of the Central Tower.
Bonnington's autobiography, Ascent, briefly documents this expedition, and is well worth a read. There's a passage in which he remembers using a sleeping bag "made from a new kind of fabric I'd never heard of before called Gore-Tex". That guy has really lived through some changes.
It was on this expedition that the idea for the legendary Whillans box tent was first conceived (in a cheeky move to create a semi-permanent camp closer to the base of the tower and steal a march on the Italians). These heavy but indestructible shelters would later go on to be used on Annapurna and Everest.
A photo of the Whillens box tent on the South Face of Annapurna, 1970. Sorry, this is deep nerdy mountaineering history stuff.
However, that was not the highlight of the day. Returning to Italiano I spotted a familiar face. My little sister.
I had known she was in South America, in Patagonia even, but the logistics of us actually meeting, I on a fairly tight hiking itinerary, a day and a half walk from the nearest road, her travelling with family, and neither of us with phone signal, just made it seem all too unlikely. Indeed, if I had passed through Italiano even five minutes earlier, we would have completely missed each other. It was great, and slightly odd, to see her in such an unlikely place, so far from home.
We got a photo to send home to our dad, she complained my cap smelt bad (I had been on the trail for a week! It did kind of pong...), they gave me some chocolate, and then we had to be on our way.
If you want some actually good photos of South America check out EsterAhlburg on Instagram.
So we were off, headed to the last campsite before we returned to Central. The windy, and awe inspiring, Ceurnos.
Links, books etc.
EsterAhlburg - my sister's travel photography.
Chris Bonnington, Ascent, the quote used is from the Chapter entitled 'The Ogre' pg. 216 in my copy.
Columbia University website: 'The Glaciers are Going'
Fundacion Reforestemos (reforesting Patagonia charity): https://www.reforestemos.cl/en/el-proyecto/
Horizon Guides website: 'Forest Fires in Torres del Paine: A Cautionary Tale of Irresponsible Tourism'
The Travel World website: 'Irresponsible Tourism and the Forest Fire in Torres del Paine, Chile'
The Last Hope Distillery: We missed the free distillery tour, but the cocktails were on point.
Photo of the Whillens Box Tent from the Scottish Mountain Heritage Collection website
