"Taking into account wind chill, it felt like 20C. Dong, a keen hiker from Sydney, remembers crawling across an ice sheet on all fours, the wind howling around her. She was unable to put on her spikes because of the freezing conditions. The 24-year-old had walking poles, but every step she took the wind battered you from left to right, forcing her on to her knees, she says."
"I remember holding my hands over my head because that's how heavy the storm was, that's how bad the wind was, and it was impossible to move forward. In my head I was just thinking, I need to get to the next hut, I need to get to that hut so I can finally rest.' After speaking with other hikers, it became clear many of us were fearing for our lives."
"There were no rangers in that area of the park due to mandatory voting in Chile's presidential election that day, Mauricio Ruiz, the regional director of Conaf, Chile's national forestry corporation, told local news media later. It was one of a series of communication failures that survivors believe may have contributed to the deaths of a British woman, a German couple and a Mexican couple, who all succumbed to hypothermia during the snowstorm on Monday 17 November."
Winds up to 190 km/h and temperatures down to 5C produced wind chill that felt like around −20C in Torres del Paine. Hikers crawled across ice, could not fit spikes, and were repeatedly forced to their knees by gusts. Five hikers—a British woman, a German couple and a Mexican couple—died from hypothermia on 17 November. Huts that hikers expected to use were locked, and no rangers were present in the area because of mandatory voting. Survivors describe communication failures by campsite staff and operators on the popular O Circuit trail, which attracts about 367,000 travellers.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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