As I prepare for another Adventure Life trip I resolve to try the trip journal contest again, having inexplicably failed to win last time. I humbly consider where I went wrong that time. Too long? too short? too irreverent? too (I whisper) poorly written? That last trip, to Costa Rica, was so wonderful the journal practically wrote itself. …

It's always good to have a travel day with no exciting anecdotes. From Portland, OR to a transfer at Los Angeles. A long overnight flight to Santiago with a brief stop in Lima. Luggage arrives with me in Santiago. It's always a welcome sight when that duffel bag comes down the conveyer belt. By this time it is early morning on Dec. 9.

There was a long layover in Santiago, which was fine since long lines were encountered to pay the reciprocal entry tax and to go through customs.

During the flight to Punta Arenas I had my first encounter with Chilean hospitality. The couple sitting next to me were locals who very much welcomed me to their beloved Patagonia. They traveled …

Travel helps make us be open for new experiences. An example today was just to have a conversation with my new friend Carolyn. We met in the hotel lobby. She had just completed the W route that I was about to start and had useful tips. We ended up spending the afternoon together, walking around the city and quickly becoming friends before I …

We had an early morning departure for a day trip to Magdalena Island, home to about 100,000 Magellanic penguins. This was a chance to be up very close with these always cute birds without upsetting their routine. The humans keep to the paths so the penguins are used to ignoring them, not feeling threatened. One even tried to peck at Margie's …

Puerto Natales is the jumping off point for trips into Torres del Paine. It has a town mascot; the Milodon. This extinct giant mammal is commemorated with a statue at the entrance to town. The nearby Milodon cave, where fossils of this big boy were found, is a significant feature of the classic Chatwin book, In Patagonia.

We started with a …

EcoCamp sits below the Torres and the snowy Mt. Almirante. The weather continued to be un-Patagonian, warm and calm. So the views even from our dome's skylight were spectacular. Our group of 13, plus 2 guides had met over the nightly Pisco Sours the previous evening. It was an enthusiastic mix of Australians, Americans and South …

Our schedule alternated easy and hard days. Yesterday was an 11 km easy day. Today was 25 km, so no question that it was one of the hard days. From the Cuernos refugio we continued under clear skies to the middle of the W in the W route, the French Valley.

After continuing to skirt below the Cuernos and looking ahead at the massive Paine …

Last night we stayed at the Refugio Paine Grande. This nestled below the back aspect of Paine Grande and across from Lago Pehoe. When I took off my boots last night I saw why I had been in so much pain. Inflammation and infection of my toenails was so bad I was unable to participate in today's hike, ironically probably the easiest one of the …