This is a blog I wrote earlier this year after spending six weeks traveling in Chile and Argentina...

Trekking in Torres del Paine: Now I Know Why There are Wind Emergency Evacuation Procedures in Patagonia

You know the saying that eskimos have about 20 different words for snow? Well, Patagonia should have at least 10 names for wind. There is the wind that keeps the condors soaring high above the park, in a corridor of sky that is entirely their own. There is the wind that provided all the electricity and power at the wonderful, eco friendly Cascada base camp. There is also the wind that defies the capacity of all earplugs. I think Bruce Chatwin (author of In Patagonia) describes the wind best when he says that it sounds like a fully loaded bus crossing a very old bridge. All the guidebooks warn you about preparing for it. But nothing can possibly prepare you for it. And for all of its astonishing power, it does lead to some very sleepless nights. My worries about being cold and having enough bug repellant were very misplaced.

On day two of my trekking trip in Torres del Paine, we arrived at one of the many refugios in the park that people hike between (picture a ski lodge but much smaller, with meals provided, bunk beds, and plenty of pisco sour.) I crawled into my upper bunk at an early hour, all set for a blissful night of sleep like the first night of sleep I had in the park. No such luck. The wind started to howl like you could not possibly imagine. Visions of Dorothy's house in the Wizard of Oz replayed all night long in my head, only our Wicked Witch of the East was a wind coming somewhere from Antartica (plus an Argentinian tour guide named Gustavo whose snore was as mighty as anything Mother Nature could possibly produce.) And all of this the night before our biggest hike, through the French Valley. And to make it worse, I am pretty sure I boasted to our group that I could sleep through a hurricane. One night of Patagonia wind put me in my place.

The next morning, I think I finally woke up at around mile 4 of our journey (it helped that mile 1-3 were entirely uphill.) We ascended what is known as the French Valley and it wouldn't be Patagonia if we didn't encounter every element in the book--rain, sun, clouds, and of course, the fiercest wind imaginable. At one point, the wind was so overpowering, our entire group (including our Chilean guide) ducked for cover as if it were a bomb raid. Martin's glasses flew off his face and would have made it to Argentina if a calafate bush hand't been so kind as to intercept them first.

But what a day. 15 miles of hard core hiking and breathtaking landscapes. We're all struck by how varied Patagonia is. We spent our first day hiking through desert like terrain. Condors were constantly flying overhead, there were songbirds chirping, views of lakes in shades of blue I had no idea existed....and then today, we were running on no sleep, scrambling uphill on rocks half the time, constantly taking layers off and on, secretly wondering when we would ever be finished. But it really was worth it when we saw craggy spires of granite, passed through lush forests of lenga trees, crossed rushing creeks, admired landscapes with waterfalls and the majestic silhouettes of old, wind-eroded trees. The day also reminded me how much we are all capable of. As some of you know, I usually can't run in the morning without coffee first. In Patagonia, we walked 15 miles fueled only on tea (Chile's biggest downfall, I will say, is its instant-only coffee) and managed to cover spectacular (and spectacularly challenging) ground. In only a day, I went from all the what if's and nervous question marks of starting a trip to the exclamation points that come from awe and exhiliration.