How hard can trekking the Torres de Paine be, we asked ourselves, if there's no organised tours. I mean honestly if something's more strenuous or complex than opening an envelope, there's someone making a buck by organising a tour in South America. So we hired our camping equipment, stocked up on food and happily set off on our adventure. We'd canvassed those in the know about suitable footwear and everyone had agreed our trainers were fine for the task. Again we thought, how hard can it be. The phrase "a walk in the park" sprang to mind. There are 2 main trekking routes, the circuit (8-10 days) and the W (3-5) days. Well we were doing the W and pretty sure that doing it in 3 wouldn't be a problem, despite the fact that for the last 3 months we'd been eating out 3 times a day and sitting a substantial amount of the time on buses.

We were dropped off at the Rangers office and given the option of a transfer bus or a 90 minute hike to the start of the trek. Everyone else opted for the bus but it was no cutting corners for us and we started as we meant to go on, with a spring in our step, enjoying the beautiful sunny day. As a result we didn't start the 8 hr round trip to the Mirador of the Torres de Paine until 2.30pm, but that was o.k, it was light until 10.30, and of course the only limitation that would hinder us was light. On that first day we were right, we scampered up the mountain, meeting everyone already on their way down (in a lot of cases relishing telling us we still had a fair bit to go). The last part was clambering up a massive slope covered in boulders and loose rocks until we arrived at the most spectacular vantage point of the pinnacles reaching into the heavens from a hidden lagoon. We smugly made the round trip in 6 hours and started mentally deducting from all the other estimated times for the other sections of the walk. It was on that day though that JA commented on Anne walking strangely, one of her trainers was on it's last legs and the heel was now resembling a high heel wedge. I had a couple of blisters forming, nothing to worry about as day 1 and the trek to the Mirador was reportedly the hardest day, so how hard could the rest be? We arrived at camp with a sense of achievement and at least in my case, filthy from the trail. From our experience of the Inca trial we had associated trekking with lack of showers, and therefore didn't have anything wildly resembling soap between us. Yet this was Chile and not only were there showers, but hot ones (just not in the moment I decided to rinse off, but JA was rapturous about hers). I however was more concerned about the posters around warning of the prevalence of black widow spiders, hah I thought, that would be typical, all those years of people reacting to my phobia with "But it can't hurt you" and then I end up mortally bitten by a Black Widow!

So laid back were we, that it didn't phase us in the slightest not to be on the move before 10.30 the next morning. The map quoted 11.5 hours for our planned leg and so we subtracted at least 3 being the superwomen we were. All started well. The sun came out to play again, and highlighted the ridiculously beautiful lakes and mountains and summer flowers around us. Snow melted from the caps formed strong fast flowing icy brooks for us to pick our way over. Our trainers were serving us well and even Ann had adjusted her gait to combat the effect of the wedge. Then the brooks got wider, and faster. Some teamwork got us over them, however with the one sacrifice to the mountains - JA's Ipod which fell as she bent to leap across the torrents of water. The next wasn't up for compromise or gifts as a random thong we found by it atoned. We wandered up and down looking for a passable section but there was nothing for it but to shed our shoes and wade through. A couple of girls by us decided to stand back and see how we went. The force of the water was intense. JA and Anne were safely across when I started. My first attempt only got me a couple of steps, the weight of my pack was driving the soles of my feet down painfully on the sharp stone bottom. I backed back out but I really had no option and as I edged out into the freezing water up to my calves the pressure from the flow of water together with the back pack had me swaying precariously. My fear mounted. As someone whose idea of a good adrenalin rush is normally within the confines of an artificially controlled environment, I realised that nature was a different ball game and by the time I safely stumbled to the other bank I was close to tears and felling like regressing back to a five year old, throwing a strop and refusing to go on. But oh dear, I am an adult now and perfectly aware that I had no choice but to go on. We pushed on, the 4 hours the map had stated to the lunch spot had taken us closer to 5, our optimistic time bubble burst. Fairly soon after lunch I started to feel very weary. I walked on but noticed my stride shortening and an exhaustion settling into my muscles. My mind started to wander and the more I tried to focus on achieving safe footing the more my mind started dancing with random thoughts. I was checking my watch every 2 minutes because I couldn't remember what it had said the last time. The heat increased and with it a sense of delirium and I ended up shuffling into camp around 5.30pm feeling physically and mentally that I couldn't have made another step. There was however still a 5 hour round trip hike to a mirador on the itinerary for the day. I happily volunteered to stay at camp and cook dinner while JA and Anne tried to achieve it in the remaining daylight hours, setting off at gone 6pm equipped with their head torches. Amazingly, the energizer bunnies that they are were were back in about 3.5 hours (they'd almost caught me on the hop with dinner only just ready) just in time to eat on the river bank of the camp in the last remnants of the light of the day.

Final day dawned, my blisters had increased to 4 and worsened to a hideous state. I felt refreshed from my rest, but fearful of how long it would last. I had a extremely warm and comfortable nights sleep. After shivering through the first night, I was glad to be toasty warm. JA though had been freezing. It took a while for the penny to drop that of course we'd inadvertently exchanged sleeping bags. With a lot less bravado we set off early, on another radiantly sunny day. Only 2 hours with packs today, luxury. We made camp by midday and cooked up the rest of our food for a carb filled lunch as we planned to dine in the refuge that evening as a finishing treat. We then had a seven hour round trip up to Glacier Gray, a highlight on the trek. Unnerved my day 2's performance I set off in front of JA and Anne expecting them to catch me up. As it turned out I was feeling good and fell in stride with an Israeli who'd just finished 4 years army service so the pace was fast. I made it to the lookout in 2 and a half hours, a whole hour under par. Feeling extremely satisfied with myself I sat, just me and a hundred or so icebergs soaking up the vista of the glacier.

An hour later, JA and Anne arrived with some well received choccie and said that they'd met someone who'd told them another hour along the trial was an ultra spectacular view, instead of just the spectacular view from where we were. We popped into a refuge to restock on water and did some mental arithmetic on how long the extended trek would take us (a little difficult after not facing anything cerebrally challenging in 3 months).We decided we could make it. On to the next landmark on the map we went and found a wild camp and no mirador. Having already added 2 hours onto our round trip we were reluctant to give in and asked around the trekkers at the camp about this mysterious mirador. There seemed to be a vague consensus that there might be a bit more of a view about 15 mins up. We glanced at each other, what's another 30 minutes on top of a seven hour trek, it'd be a shame if we'd turned around 15 mins before the most mindblowing sight. We pushed on. So there we have it, the reason we ended up with what had taken us 4 and ¾ hours of fast trekking on the way up to do in 3 ¼ hours of daylight (and by the way the view was average)

We started off with a purposeful stride. As time wore on and panic set in though, we got faster. Our power walks resembled something out of a silent movie.With each of us suffering from different pains (Anne - Achilles, JA - Knees, Moi - Blisters) each developed different walking styles to cope from tin man on speed, to an alternate power shuffle/jog. The sun was setting behind us providing the magical light so beautiful for photos but there was neither the time, or to be honest the energy to detract from the task in hand. After 2 hours we had a 2 minute break before Anne had us up and back on the track. Anne led, closely followed by JA and trailing about 20 metres behind was me. I was shattered. Every footlift felt like it could be my last but I focussed on not losing the girls as we raced down the hill. I had a certain song, actually an old Navy one that we used to sing on D of E treks repeating in my mind (I won't tell you the words because it's absolutely filthy, but for those in of you in the know, it starts " An Engineer told me before he died…") and as it circled around and around in my brain, instead of becoming annoying it became comforting, well comforting in a monotonous kind of autopilot way. There were no distance markers and we were completely unsure of how much progress we were making, the only option was to go on as fast as we possibly could, and we were certainly moving (fear can do that to you). As dusk progressed I started to think about survival movies I'd seen like the miraculous survival in "Touching the Void" which swiftly reminded me of "Into the Wild" which had the opposite outcome. I then gave up thinking.

We survived, of course we did, I'm writing this now. The relief of rounding a corner at full pelt and seeing the lights of the camp in the desperately failing light stopped me in my tracks.My body, relying on it not being a mirage, relaxed it's pace to a slow trudge into the windy campsite, and I held vertical just long enough to enjoy one of the most welcome and longest hot showers I've ever had. We'd missed dinner at the refuge, even the camp kitchen had closed, not caring, we nibbled on crackers in our tent as our muscles started to seize up and the wind battered against the canvas. Despite the painful bodies and howling wind we slept very, very well that night.

It was only afterwards we calculated our mileage (very rookie mistake). It turned out we'd accomplished 80km/50 miles (me) and 90km/60 miles (Anne and JA) in 3 days with packs and completely inappropriate footwear. I'd beaten my Duke of Edinburgh Gold expedition by 30 kms, in one day less and 14 years older (not with any style or of course any sanity though)

After paying US$10 for the most awful breakfast we limped down to the jetty to catch the catamaran to the bus out of the park. It was easy to distinguish those just arriving from those departing, they walked without limps, and smelt like they'd had contact with soap recently. The catamaran and bus "connected" up, we were told, they did after a 3 hour wait, but Puerto Natales, a clean comfy bed, massages and food not out of a packet was in sight.