Adventure / Chile
Patagonia, Torres del Paine Slowly
Torres del Paine · 9 min read
Torres del Paine is the best known national park in Patagonia and still feels enormous. Glacial lakes in unlikely colours, guanacos on the steppe, condors overhead and three granite towers that appear when the cloud allows.
The wind is a genuine factor in every plan you make here.
W or O
The W trek covers the three main valleys in four to five days and is the standard route. The O circuit adds the back of the massif and takes eight to nine days with much less traffic.
Both require booking refugios or campsites months in advance through the park concessionaires. Independent wild camping is not permitted.
Doing it without a multi day trek
Staying in a hotel outside the park and doing day walks is a perfectly good alternative. The base of the towers, the Grey glacier lookout and the Lago Nordenskjold shoreline are all day trip achievable.
Puerto Natales, two hours away, is the logistics town and a pleasant place in its own right.
Weather and kit
Four seasons in a day is not a cliche here. Take a genuine waterproof shell, windproof layers, gloves even in January and trekking poles for the wind.
Cloud often clears at dawn. If you want to see the towers lit red, you walk in the dark and hope, and sometimes you get it.
Adding El Chalten
Across the Argentine border, El Chalten offers free, unbooked day hikes to Fitz Roy and Laguna de los Tres with scenery to match the Chilean side.
Many travellers combine the two over two weeks, with the Perito Moreno glacier at El Calafate in between.
Why it is worth the effort
It is a long way from almost everywhere, and the scale of it is the reward for going.
Book refugios the moment reservations open. They sell out within days.
