Los Angeles is not a place you would expect to find me unless there was an extremely good reason, and witnessing our first and only grandson graduating from college was an irresistible cause. Although the family event was worthwhile, it was no fun enduring the crazy chaos of the city, and so it was a good time to take a mental trip to Patagonia, back to the Parque Nacional del Torres del Paine.
As we drove down the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, I was inspired by the sudden sharp steep rise of the Sierra escarpment over the dry high desert of the Owens Valley. The valley averages about 4,000 feet elevation and Mount Whitney is just over 14,000. That’s a pretty dramatic rise. The Sierra massif is penetrated by deep winding canyons every few miles- the passes by which hikers can gain access to the interior of the range and the high peaks which are the jewels of the Sierras. It’s not unlike the mountains of Patagonia.
I love the Sierras and find their rugged peaks and trails to give me more than sufficient challenge for my wild nature loving self. But the peaks of Patagonia, which are actually lower in elevation, seemed wilder, loftier, and more magical and forbidding than the Southern Sierra. Patagonia is a lot more remote and takes a lot more effort to get to. You need passports and trained professional guides. Perhaps the most significant feature in the Patagonian Andes is the glaciers. The glaciers are still actively shaping the landscape in Patagonia, still working their sublime magic.
On March 17 our happy group of veterinarians and assorted co-travelers got up at dawn and met our guides at the trailhead into a canyon leading deep into the Torres del Paine massif. The canyon’s channel, carved by glaciers, was still under remodel by a lively iridescent blue grey brook draining one of the massive glaciers lurking deep in the mountains.
We climbed steadily uphill, up a wet trail that was both muddy and rocky. Rounding the shoulder at the crest we could see far ahead up the canyon, with the brook far below our trail. We were heading straight into the heart of the mountains to get as close as we could to the world famous Torres del Paine, also known as Cleopatra’s Needles, which I believed was the crown jewel of our whole adventure. (Later I found out there was a whole string of jewels, but I was still pretty excited about seeing the Torres.)
Lady Florence was pretty excited about the mountains too. She wrote “The air was marvelously clear; looking long westward, I could gradually distinguish, in the haze of the distance, over the mountains which first met my gaze, white snowy ranges, of such height that they seemed to float in mid-air, and only after my vision had acquired sharpness from long concentration could I trace their outlines basewards.
But it was the sight at the near end of the waily (sic) which most claimed my attention. From behind the green hills that bound it rose a tall chain of heights whose jagged peaks were cleft in the most fantastic fashion, and fretted and worn by the action of the air and moisture into forms, some bearing the semblance of delicate Gothic spires, others imitating with surprising closeness the bolder outlines of battlemented butresses and lofty towers….”
When I read Lady Florence’s description of her trek up to see those lofty towers I thought that surely we must have been retracing her very footsteps! She continues “…we said goodbye to the plains, and fording the stream which flowed down the valley, we entered on the winding ravine, full of curiosity as to what kind of country we were now to break in upon. The ravine was in itself a fit preparation for something strange and grand. It’s steep slopes towered up on either side of us to an immense height; and the sunlight being thus partially excluded, a mysterious gloom reigned below, which, combined with the intense, almost painful silence of the spot, made the scenery inexpressively strange and impressive.” Lady Florence and her companions rode westward towards the towers, until “Before us stretched a picturesque plain, covered with soft green turf, and dotted here and there with clumps of beeches, and crossed in all directions by rippling streams. The background was formed by thickly-wooded hills, behind which again towered the Cordilleras,- three tall peaks of a reddish hue, and in shape exact facsimiles of Cleopatra’s Needle, being a conspicuous feature in the landscape.”
Cleopatra’s Needles. Lady Florence’s name for the Torres del Paine was Cleopatra’s Needles. (I don’t know about you, but I think it sounds way more mystical and romantic. Towers of Paine sort of sound like a medieval torture chamber according to the kids I work with!) Many of her readers over the years probably wondered, as I did, what the heck she was referring to. These days it’s easy to find out with a quick web search! “Cleopatra’s Needle is the popular name for each of three Ancient Egyptian obelisks re-erected in London, Paris, and New York City during the nineteenth century” (Thank you Wikipedia!) Lady Florence was a well-traveled Scottish Lady- she may have seen the obelisks in Paris or in London; in her childhood she spent time in France as well as in London.
In 1880 the glaciers were significantly more advanced than they are now. I would guess that the ravine we trekked up into on March 17 2018 was still full of ice and snow in Lady Florence’s time, but I don’t know for sure. Anyhow Lady Florence and her companions decided to take an excursion to the Needles with their native guide.
After a few days of following game trails and fairly strenuous bushwhacking up ravines and through thick, tangled brushy beech forest, they “found themselves on the shore of a splendid sheet of water.” They had arrived at Laguna Azul*, to the east of the Torres Massif. “The Lake, which was two or three miles broad, lay encircled by tall hills, covered with thick vegetation, which grew close down to the water’s edge. Beyond the hills rose the three peaks and the Cordilleras. Their white glaciers, with the white clouds resting on them, were all mirrored to marvelous perfection in the motionless lake, whose crystal waters were of the most extraordinarily brilliant blue I have ever beheld. Round the lake ran a narrow strip of white sand, and exactly in its centre stood a little green island with a clump of beeches growing on it. Each colour- the white, the green, the blue- was so brilliant; the scene- the wooded hills, the glaciers rising into the blue above, and sinking mirrored into the blue below- was so unique, the spirit of silence and solitude which lay over all so impressive, that for a long time we stood as if spellbound, none of us uttering a word.”
*We did not actually visit Laguna Azul, but we saw lots of other brilliant blue lakes.
Forgive me for borrowing so much from Lady Florence, but my words alone are not sufficient. Lady Florence had to paint pictures with words. I use a camera for a crutch. For you armchair travelers reading this essay from your cozy living rooms, do not think that Lady Florence is engaging in hyperbole. As florid as her language may sound to our modern ears, she really is not exaggerating. I wouldn’t have believed it without having seen it with my own eyes.
The colors in Patagonia are stunning and vivid, and some of the glacier fed lakes are impossibly, brilliantly blue. Others are stunning shades of aquamarine or icy opalescent grey. When we crested the top of the long climb up the talus field to the base of the Torres an awed silence fell over our group, 
(possibly enhanced by exhaustion after the rugged 1000’+ ascent up the talus field.) I felt immense gratitude- first, that there could be such a planet that could have such a place as beautiful as this, and secondly, that I could stand there and see it with my own senses. It was quite overwhelming. Lady Florence says it better, but at least I have photos. Here they are:
Our planet is ceaselessly amazing. There are with splendid wondrous places all over the globe, places that have moved and inspired us puny transient & fragile humans for millennia. From the Sierra Nevadas to Patagonia- go see as much of it as you can!
That night snuggled in our cozy eco-domes, we were awoken from deep exhausted sleep by howling winds- Patagonian banshees were hurling down the canyons. Tomorrow would be an interesting day to be outside in the mountains of Cleopatra’s Needles. Until then-
Happy Trails,
Shirley
love it!