Torres Del Paine NP, Chile
Torres del Paine National Park is in the Chilean Patagonia region and has some of the best trekking in South America. We did the W Trek, a 44 mile multi-day hike usually completed over the course of 4-5 days. This was a bucket list item for so many reasons!
We have done tons of day hikes, up to 15 miles. We have been car camping. We have done overnight guided treks. But we have never gone overnight backpacking carrying our own gear (well except for the one time Matt & his friends went in North Georgia and a bear ate their food on night 1...). We have talked about going backpacking before but it's really daunting to get the gear, carry it on your back, and be ready to adapt to whatever may occur while you're in the middle of nowhere!
So we showed up to Puerto Natales to pick up our rental gear (tent, sleeping bag, cooking equipment, 65L backpacks) with absolutely no previous experience but lots of excitement for what lay ahead! On the W trek, there are a lot of different options from basic camping sites all the way up to cabins with hot meals. We chose to bring all our own food so we spent the day before our trek preparing all our meals and packing them into ziplock bags. Our gourmet meals include: oatmeal breakfast, salami & cheese roll ups for lunch, lots of nuts & dried fruit for snacks. We planned to cook two dinners and we bought dehydrated meals for two dinners. And of course 1-2 candy bars per day:)
For day 1, we decided to take the scenic route and booked a one way glacier cruise on Lago Grey. The boat leaves from Hotel Grey, cruises up close to the glacier, and then drops off any hikers at the beach near Refugio Grey campsite while taking the rest of the visitors back to the hotel. The boat we booked wasn’t until 4pm so we spent most of the afternoon hanging out at the Lago Grey hotel and enjoying the beautiful views.
In order to get to the boat however, you have to walk/climb along the side of the lake and then cross the lake via a sand bar! And the shuttle from the hotel to the boat parking lot was full so the check-in people asked us if we didn’t mind walking the extra distance lol. Our bags were fully packed at just over 30lbs so fortunately we only did about 2 miles of walking total. We met two Americans, Brian and Drew, on the boat and they became our camp friends! They were on the same route as us and it was nice to find a friendly face at each campsite when we arrived every night.
Once on board, we were greeted with pisco sours on glacial ice. The crew actually fishes out pieces of the glacier and then breaks them up to use as ice cubes! Grey Glacier is a very beautiful receding glacier on the west side of the W Trek. It is split into two sides with an island sitting in the middle. There were multiple viewpoints and we were able to get so close! The ice really does look so blue!! This blueness is from the air getting compressed out of the frozen ice and the light rays cannot penetrate it anymore.
We arrived at Refugio Grey just after 6pm, found a flatish campsite, and set up our tent without any issues. For dinner, we had tomato soup to start. And then we made zucchini, onion, and garlic rice with sausage. It actually was really good considering it was made on a camp burner! Time for an early night to be ready for our first real day on the trail tomorrow. Unfortunately, the sun doesn’t set until 11p so we will be needing our sleep masks for this trip!
On day 2, we awoke around 7am with the sun fully up already (it rises at 5am lol). We ate breakfast and grabbed our small day packs for the first part of the day. We hiked 3mi roundtrip north of the campsite to a few great viewpoints of Grey Glacier. We crossed two swinging bridges, the second one did have “dope glacier views” as listed on the AllTrails map lol. We could see far into the ice fields from this angle which was really cool!
We returned to camp, ate lunch, packed up and began our 7mi hike south along Grey Lake to Paine Grande campsite. The hike followed Lago Grey and had some really great views of the glacial lake to our right and the backside of the mountains of the French valley to our left. The trail was a big hill that we climbed up and then came back down. This was one of the few places we actually experienced some wind, but nothing too strong.
We came into camp with huge smiles and so much excitement! We didn’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but we absolutely loved today! We already started daydreaming about the next place we wanted to backpack. Yes it’s heavy, and tiring, and by the last day I’m sure we will be exhausted, but the reward is worth the effort! We set up our tent and enjoyed some clear blue skies to the east! For dinner, we made pasta with zucchini, onion, garlic and sausage in tomato sauce. Again, surprisingly really good!
The morning of day 3 started off with a little rain that cleared up by the time we were done with breakfast. Patagonia is known for having all 4 seasons in one day, and we were prepared for rain, snow, sun, and the famous 100kph (60mph) wind! Fortunately, this little drizzle was the only weather we saw besides clouds & blue skies all week!
We packed up our camp and headed 6 miles east towards the Frances Valley. We followed a few smaller lakes and walked through the remnants of terrible 3 month forest fire in 2011 caused by a tourist lighting toilet paper on fire. It’s so sad to see the destruction a careless act can cause but the white petrified trees were actually quite beautiful in their own way.
We made it to Italiano camp at the base of the Frances Valley. Here you can decide to add 7 miles (essentially double) to your distance by hiking up into the valley and back before heading to camp which is another mile down the trail. We were told that if the weather is good, to definitely go since it’s one of the best viewpoints on the whole W trek. We were a little wary of doubling our distance for the day so we decided to go to the first lookout and reassess if we wanted to get to the second one. We ate a quick lunch, dropped our big bags under the shelter and headed up.
We began the rocky ascent to the Frances Glacier lookout. We kept hearing a sound similar to a summer thunderclap and realized it was the sound made as the glacier melted, cracked, and fall. We saw several glacier pieces crack and fall into the valley below! This lookout was so interesting since you were eye level with the glacier located just across a small valley.
We met a hiker on her way down who basically convinced us we had to keep going to Británica lookout and that the second half of the hike was easier than the first part to Frances Glacier lookout. We had beautiful partly cloudy skies so we decided to keep going. It actually was easier (less steep) and crossed several glacier streams along the way. We were mostly in forest, until the last rock scramble, and then the valley opened up into a bowl of beautiful mountains. The lookout was as amazing as promised!!
We made it back to Italiano camp where we left our big bags and tried to convince ourselves to put them back on and continue the 1 mile to Frances campsite. We made new trail friends, Nick & Maya, from Brisbane, AUS who were also trying to convince themselves to get going lol. It must’ve been a real bonding event since we actually met up with them in El Calafate for an awesome dinner a few days later! We made it to Refugio Frances after a long 14 miles, set up our tent, and had our first dehydrated dinner. We had carbonara pasta and tomato soup:)
On day 4, we followed the brilliant turquoise Lake Nordensjöld for the majority of the day. We had clear blue skies just like day 2 and loved seeing the landscape glow in sunlight! Part of the trail took us down onto a stone beach before heading back up over a crest to enter the final valley. This section of trail is only used by multi day hikers and we felt like we mostly had it to ourselves! We actually did have the trail completely to ourselves when we took the shortcut to Chileno. There were multiple moments where we weren’t sure if we had made a wrong turn as we passed through narrow trails and super muddy sections.
We eventually turned off the shortcut trail and onto a well trafficked trail and entered into the most beautiful valley. We continued a little further, crossed a bridge and found our home for the night! The Chileno campsite is half way up the Las Torres valley and located right on the river! The refugio felt like a ski lodge in summertime. We definitely earner our beer tonight after a long 10 miles mostly uphill! Our dehydrated dinner tonight was chicken carbonara pasta (really good!) and bolognese pasta with tomato soup as per usual!
The reason we wanted to stay at Chileno campsite (besides it being gorgeous) is that it’s the half way point to the Torres del Paine towers from the base and a feasible way to see sunrise in good weather! Chileno is ~2.5hrs below the viewpoint of Torres towers. We checked in with the rangers and learned that the weather for our last day was ideal for sunrise! What’s ideal? No clouds, no wind, and below freezing lol. So we set our alarms, woke up at 2:45am in 30F weather, grabbed our headlamps & warm clothes, and starting hiking up!
Matt learned that Susan actually knows how to hike fast (speed of waking is a constant conversation topic…) when there is nothing to see & the promise of an epic sunrise. She basically ran up the mountain and we made it to the base in 1hr 50min.
It was very cold waiting for the sun to rise, but so worth it to catch the tops of the Torres turn pinkish red right before our eyes! The cold finally overtook the desire to stay at this beautiful location, and we began heading back to camp. The rock scramble at the top was no joke and honestly harder in daylight!
We returned to Chileno, made breakfast, and packed up camp for a final time. We headed down the gorgeous valley to Central base camp and our finish line. We celebrated with nice cold draft beers and everyone fell asleep on the bus back to Puerto Natales!
44 miles was long and hard and honestly the best 5 days of our trip(lives?) so far! I’ve never been more proud of our physical & mental strength to accomplish this huge goal! Patagonia is a magical place and we were so lucky with great weather! We are already dreaming of when we can come back and explore more!!