Valle del Silencio, Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

Two years ago this spring, my daughter Erin and I were in Chile exploring Torres del Paine, the Towers of Paine National Park. The towers are huge granite spires rising several thousand feet straight up, and I’d hoped for many years to visit and photograph them. To catch the sunrise view, the only way is to backpack 8 or so miles and a few thousand feet up to a small campsite beneath the towers to spend the night, then hike in the dark the next morning another mile and another  1500 vertical feet up the face of a moraine to the glacial lake at the base of the towers.

We hiked up all day in brilliant sun and hard winds, and it was a challenge with camera, lenses, and tripod plus our camping gear. I was very slow and Erin was very patient. In the night it started raining, strong, steady, incessant and continued in the morning ruling out any chance of a towers photograph. Fortunately we’d reserved two nights. We then discovered this was not technically permissible, but the camp guard allowed us to stay the extra night. Erin and I spent the whole day sleeping, reading and talking in our small mountain tent until the rain stopped in the early evening. After crawling out, the towers to our front were completely obscured, but we were treated to this understated but magnificent panorama of the Andes behind us, otherwise overshadowed by the famous towers opposite. The storm blew out in the night and  I got my sunrise  photograph, but I like this one just as much.

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