Day 22 Puerto Montt to Puerto Natalas to Torres del Paine

Today started in Puerto Montt at a Holiday Inn Exprress. It wasn't as bad as it sounds as it was a brand new hotel over a new shopping mall - right on the water in the heart of the city. The whole trip I have been worried about flying down in the South - as the further you go down South, the worse the weather. Todays forecast was certainly good enough to go and go we did.

This is the view out of the front window as I taxied on to the run way. I am not aggressive when it comes to weather and the information we had gave us confidence in a safe flight.
There are some weather situations down here that just are the way they are.

Clouds and rain and wind - that about sums everything up. The clouds give you the nice rain showers (constantly) and as the moist clouds blow in from over the ocean to the West and hit the Andes you get a bunch of moisture rising up into a big bunch of ice and I really wanted to make sure not to fly in any of that.

Yes a TBM 850 is faster then a Cheyenne. This is Patric over flying me 4,000 feet higher - using my zoom.

Some interesting things to point out - well at least interesting to me!

The plane in the display is cocked to one side and looks like it isn't going straight and that is because it isn't. The wind was blowing about 100 to 120 knots mostly from the West as I was going South causing the plane to point into the wind to go straight by up to 40 degrees. Also note the ground speed is only 201 - which means a bunch of the wind was slowing me down.

Also if you look at the display you'll note that you can see both sides of South America as it is getting more and more skinny. Almost there - one more flight to the South to Punta Arenas and then back to the north.

Flying over all of the clouds was one thing but sooner or later I had to descend into them - yikes.

There wasn't much in the way of ice - thankfully.

But there was a really nice rain storm just exactly where I had to go. I hate it when that happens.

Yep I have to go straight into that.

Oh crap where is that stupid airport?

It has to be there someplace - Marco???

Marco?

Marco?

Uhg really bad timing - the wind was gusting to 50 knots so this was a really bumpy trip.

Marco?

Sorry for so many photos but my pilot friends will appreciate them. They better as it is always difficult to take photos when you are trying to land the plane - it is even more difficult when you are bouncing around in a gusty rain storm trying to find a strange airport on a VOR approach.

Wait - Polo - land ho, whoosh I think I got it!

Yup that is it - even if I was a bit high in all of the bouncing around it didn't seem to matter.

This is a really short final photo - yes I know there are 4 white lights showing but I obviously got it down, not without some up and down in the wind.

It was cold and rainy and windy while I unpacked - not very comfortable, but hey I chose to come down here.

After going into town for lunch the bus drove by the airport - I couldn't resist the effort with the zoom - I almost got it too.

The landscape toward the park looked like Wyoming or Idaho or somewhere familiar.

Pretty.

The mountain of the park coming into view.

The scenery changed fast as we headed to the park.

Me.

Thierry and Brigitte.

And this guanaco jumped the fence without effort - Michael Jordan eat your heart out.

More pretty.

A photo op of the beautiful mountains in the park. I will learn their names by the end of tomorrow. Notice the glaciers in the canyons on the top of these.

Fiords and Mountains.

I took a 10 minute walk off the highway up to a look out spot to see this waterfall. It was more difficult then it sounded as the wind was blowing 60 - 70 miles an hour and raining so the rain hit you like a shotgun blast.

It was beautiful though.

It was cold!

Tomorrow I am here in the park and hopefully will see as much as I can. I can hear the wind howling outside right now and occasionally the rain just blasting the roof. Nice!