W Trail Day 1: Wild Dance at Windy Pass.
The wind in Torres del Paine – wow, it was something fierce! They don't call it Windy Pass for nothing. Imagine this – the wind can whip from a crazy 20 kilometers an hour, that's 12 miles per hour for you folks back home, all the way up to a staggering 110 kilometers an hour! Can you believe that? That's 68 miles per hour! No way of knowing exactly how strong it was when I snapped that picture, but let's just say it was definitely having a good old blow, being right there in Windy Pass. Windy Pass, also known as Paso del Viento in Spanish, is a mountain pass located at an elevation of 1,428 meters (4,685 ft) above sea level. Speaking of that picture, the view? Absolutely jaw-dropping. Rugged mountains stretched out as far as the eye could see, making you feel tiny next to their incredible scale. Maybe it was even the wind that made the whole scene feel so wild and dramatic – like nature was putting on a whole show, just for me! See back there on the left, those are Las Torres, and that's the Ascencio Valley and River winding through the middle of the mountains.