There are two treks to choose from within Torres del Paine National Park; the W Trek, which is about 50 miles and the O Trek, which adds an additional 35 miles. Kim and I decided to do the W Trek. I’m going to skip over the nightmare the included all the logistical planning of this part of our trip and say that the information online is so misguided we probably would have caved and hired a guide service, but the guided tours were only five days (four nights) in the park, hiking according to scheduled eight hour days with an average of 10-12 miles a day. Could we do this? Sure, but going all the way to Patagonia to adhere to a strict schedule, race through gorgeous scenery we will likely only see once in our life, and probably be fairly miserable on the long 15 mile days with steep climbs didn’t seem like the ideal trip. So, we created a spreadsheet breaking apart the itinerary of the guided tours into what we wanted our trip to look like. We would spend ten days (nine nights) in the park, hiking three to eight miles a day which would give us plenty of time to sit and marvel at scenery pretty much as often as we wanted.
We learned that there are six campsites along the trek and those were the only places we were allowed to sleep. It is against the law to just pitch a tent anywhere. We also learned that these six campsites are privately owned by two different companies and reservations must be made well in advance. This meant that even though we built plenty of cushion into our days, we would have to have set overnight places. We couldn’t decide on the fly whether to stay at one place an extra day or move on a day early.
It all worked out and we had confirmation of a tent to sleep in (all the specs of land where we were permitted to set our own tent within the campsites were sold out so we would be renting a large tent to share) and three meals a day (seemed a little safer space and weight-wise to take advantage of this option and only carry our snacks).
Day 1 – Arrive at Refugio Central
As our bus got closer and closer to the park and the mountains started coming into view, Kim and I just kept looking at each other and giggling. We got checked in and set off to find our assigned tent. Oh. My. Gosh. This was boujee; easily the fanciest tent either of us had ever slept in. It was one of those elevated tents that go on top of a truck or SUV and even though there was a two person maximum capacity, this thing was huge. It was about the size of a California king mattress, including a super cushy pad a couple inches thick, with enough height that when I stood up bent over at the waist, my back just barely skimmed the roof of the tent (this proved to be helpful when I needed to shove everything back into my bag to move camp).
Part of the planning nightmare was some uncertainty how we would get to this campsite. Refugio Central was five to seven miles, depending on the source checked, from the Torres del Paine Welcome Center where we departed the local bus we traveled on and provided our required permits to enter the park. Our planning research suggested there was a shuttle available sometimes that went between the welcome center and the refugio, but it wasn’t something we could confirm or reserve seats on so it was possible we would be hiking those five to seven miles in. For that reason, we didn’t plan any hiking along the trek this day, opting to stay the night and hopefully learn how things worked, getting a fresh start the following morning. Turned out, it was all pretty smooth and a shuttle was consistently running back and forth the narrow dusty road that would have been a horrible hike so we had plenty of time to just appreciate being there.
We had brought our own food for dinner that night so once we got settled, we grabbed our bags and found a picnic table in the sun. After eating, we took a short walk to check out the super fancy hotel on site and then returned to the little store the shuttle had dropped us off at where there was swag available to buy, maps of the area, and a weather forecast for the next several days posted. We found where we would go for breakfast in the morning and enjoyed the view of a looming mountain that I now know was one of the peaks of “Los Cuernos” (The Horns) which basically circle the French Valley in the middle of the trek (the middle arm of the “W”). Many people had claimed ground space outside of the dining area with a view of where the sun would be setting near this peak, but Kim and I headed to our tent; anxious to get to sleep so we could get started the next day.
Day 2 – Move Camp to Refugio Chileno
I slept. So good. It felt so good to be outside with cool fresh air coming in from the flap we left open near our heads and the warm cozy snuggled feel of my sleeping bag. And this tent, which was like glamping to us, was incredible! The padding on the bottom was luxurious compared to my normal thin sleeping pad, meant more to insulate the cold from the ground than to provide a cushy barrier. Plus, I think I forgot to mention, I had packed my pillow. Not a standard small light weight blow up backpacking “pillow.” No. My pillow. From my bed. Yeah, definitely glamping. I could get used to this.
We had received a little paper ticket confirming we paid for breakfast and were told it began at 7:00. We showed up a little early and set our stuff down at a table for two near the window. A few minutes later, we noticed a line was forming near a hostess station so we joined the line. It was not open seating. Once they confirmed our tickets, we were seated at the next available seats at tables that seated ten. There was bread and plates of ham and cheese on the table, we were each brought a small bowl of two scrambled eggs, and there was a buffet set up with yogurt, oatmeal, a variety of cereals, juice, coffee, and tea.
After eating, we grabbed our prepaid box lunches (a sandwich, apple, packaged nut snack, protein bar, and chocolate bar), got our bags packed and set off for our next camp; Chileno. It was a good breaking in day; only about three miles with an elevation gain of almost 1200 feet. We knew we couldn’t check into our next campsite until 2:30 so we reminded ourselves that our purpose of creating short days like this was to take it slow and easy with lots of stops along the way to stare.
The first mile or so wound through the flatlands of the hotel property and eventually along a river. We came to what would be our first suspension bridge of many along the trek. There was a sign saying no more than two people at a time on the bridge which helped spread out the line of people that was beginning to form.
There was a tour group gathered at the other side of the bridge that we passed as we took a right and headed up the first arm of the “W” of the trek (technically the third because were going east to west, but the first we would walk). This is where the uphill began. 1200 feet isn’t a huge climb, it’s like 120 flights of stairs. Add a 30-ish pound pack on your back and it changes things. Add a continuous stream of humans and it changes things even more.
We were climbing into a canyon. It was beautiful; we had the river to our right, that we were gradually climbing higher and higher above and eventually we could see a lake in the valley floor behind us. However, it was like there was a pilgrimage to Refugio Chileno. We were part of a never ending line of humans. We would stop on the side of the trail to let people by who were walking faster than us, but then we’d often have to stand there for several minutes until there was a gap in the line where we could get going again. I set my expectations that we would be seeing a lot of people on this hike, it’s a big tourist draw after all. I did not anticipate a pilgrimage!
We noticed very few people had more than a small day pack and many didn’t carry anything at all. Even the people we passed coming down, out of the canyon, didn’t seem to be carrying much. It was such a small ratio, we began calling out when we saw someone with a large pack, “There’s a camper!” We learned this route was a very popular day hike. Most people didn’t (or couldn’t when it was full) stay the night at Chileno. Because this was at an entrance to the park AND there was a hotel, it was common for people who wanted to see the park and maybe get a view of the popular Towers to hike in an out the same day (this would be one of those 13-15 mile days with a tour guide).
We came to a spot where there were a lot of large rocks off the trail that overlooked the canyon we were ascending so we stopped for rock sit and a snack. After our break, we heaved our packs back on to continue the climb to learn we were about ten feet from the top. There were a bunch of people lined up to take a picture of the canyon ahead, named Windy Gap and we squeezed past them and started our descent.
We crossed a much sturdier bridge back to the other side of the river where we were met with crowds of people hanging around the picnic tables outside of the bar/dining area of Chileno. We still had several hours before we could check in, so we made our way down the path a bit, found some good sitting rocks next to the river where we ate our lunch and afternoon jelly belly’s (ok, and some more snacks) and marveled at the scenery.
When the time came, we got checked in and found our tent three rows up the mountain side. The area our tent was in was so steep the ladder into the entrance didn’t have a nice angle to it like the last one; it was straight up and down, not even reaching the ground without a little weight on it. We laughed as I climbed the ladder with my pack on and then rolled myself inside of the tent so I didn’t fall backward out of it from the weight of my pack. Once I shimmied out of the pack, I sat on the edge of the tent and Kim lifted her pack up to me, using the rungs on the ladder for support until I could get a good hold of the top and pull it in. I was surprised neither of us fell or Kim didn’t have her pack dropped on her head we were laughing so hard through this. We made one mention of having to get our packs out of this in two days and decided we didn’t want to think about that yet.
We got our stuff set out for two days in this tent and went down to check out the cafe and dining area. There wasn’t much of interest to us so it wasn’t long before we headed back to the tent. We walked up the path to get to it and I started inching down the loose dirt mountainside to get to the questionable ladder when Kim calmly said, “How about we just go in from here.” She was standing up at the back of the tent that I had just walked around where there is the same big zipper wall/door as the front has, with the base of the tent right there about waist high. Thank goodness for Kim’s good sense!
Dinner wasn’t served until 7:00 and it worked much like breakfast, being seated as we walked in to ensure tables were filled up. Each dinner began with a soup, followed by an entree, and ending with a dessert. There was also a bowl of a few different fresh veggies on the table for sharing. We had a delicious lentil soup, then a chicken breast that was juicy and moist presented on top of mashed potatoes. It was all plated for presentation and set before us just so. So much fancier than I ever dreamed! We ended with a cinnamon swirl…thing. It was good, I just hesitate to refer to it as a roll because it wasn’t fluffy and chewy and didn’t have icing like a cinnamon roll, it was more of a tough-ish dough rolled up with cinnamon.
The full dinner service took about an hour and we headed to bed with full and happy tummies.
Day 3 – Day Hike to Base Las Torres
We were looking forward to hiking with just a pack of water and snacks to the viewpoint of the Base Las Torres (The Towers). We sat with our coffee (Kim) and tea (me) after breakfast and watched the yellows and reds of the alpenglow on the mountains as the sun rose outside of our view and then slowly gathered our things for the day. We tended to leave camp between 8:30 and 9:00 which put us right in the gap that was later than most people left who were on a schedule, yet earlier than the early people from another camp left and would be stopping for a break before pushing through. Thanks to this, we had the trail to ourselves for the first couple of hours.
We criss-crossed the river over multiple bridges, wound our way up and around various types of trees and crossed into the official national park boundaries area. The trail stayed pretty close to the river with a gradual climb so we would curve into the forest and then come back out of the tree line to a views of the canyon, with the sun cresting the mountain and the autumnal changing colors of the trees on the other side.
The trail changed direction to begin taking us inward, away from the canyon and the river and up the mountain. We scrambled over and around rocks climbing steeply higher and higher. The wind started gusting and pretty soon we could see graupel bouncing off the rocks around us. The clouds were moving through and it was easy to see the mountain tops across the canyon were getting snow.
We cleared the treeline and the trail made its way up a fully exposed section of what seemed to be loose sandstone. As we peaked, we could see the bowl below us with a turquoise lake surrounded by some kind of rock walls. It was so clouded in, it was difficult to see what was actually in front of us but the few small groups of people huddling near large boulders to block the wind told us we were at our end point. We found a place to perch and, you guessed it, I pulled out some snacks.
It didn’t take long sitting still to notice how cold it was. Our plan with breaking the hike up into shorter sections was so we could sit in a place like this for hours, but it was clear that wasn’t going to happen with the biting cold. After a half hour or so, the clouds were beginning to break. I could feel the excitement building as people around us exclaimed joyful comments in various languages that the view was being unveiled. I started walking back to the peak of the bowl and saw the now snow covered mountains across the valley and then walked back down toward the towers. A few laps of this started warming me back up.
It was now clear that the lake was surrounded by scree slopes with The Towers at the back end. The Towers were becoming clearer and clearer with just the tops covered by lingering clouds as more and more people started filing in. The first of the day trippers were arriving.
By this point we were cold to the point of finger and toes hurting and while we didn’t get the full unobstructed view of the towers, we decided to head back down. My gloves and beanie were wet from the various precipitation coming up and I couldn’t decide if it was better to wear them to keep the heat I was generating in or keep them and the wet off. For about 20 minutes, we descended in a quiet painful misery of being freezing. Prolonging it was the pilgrimage of people coming up, and they got the right of way, so we were constantly finding a place we could balance to give them enough space to move by us and up the mountain. The trail opened up a bit on the section that seemed like hard sand so we were able to move a little more consistently and soon my body was warm again.
With the returning warmth from moving as well as the weather being milder as we descended in elevation, our spirits were lifted and we frolicked and sang and spread our arms to make airplane wings as we swooshed down the trail and back to camp. It was cold, and even miserable for a moment, but we were in Patagonia and I was oddly kinda happy we got the experience (I was also grateful for the briefness of this experience) of hiking in the wind and snow.
At dinner that night, we sat next to a woman in her early 60s and her two adult sons and a man who was by himself and was nearing the end of his hike of the O Trek. We had a wonderful conversation. The woman was a full time permanent traveler, spending three to six months in various countries and living out of her backpack. This Patagonia excursion was a gift to her sons so it was a luxury trip based on her normal traveling style. I told her she was my spirit animal; she was living the life I was trying to create! The man, coming off the O Trek shared some stories of how less maintained the additional section of the circuit was and some of his struggles. Kim and I shared a look that said, “I’m glad we didn’t do that one!” He shared about one insanely steep and crazy section of the hike that was excruciating to come down that would be right after the final portion of where our trek ended. We had a day hike planned to the glacier lookout in that area as our final hiking day, but he told us if we continued going, at least high enough to get out of the tree line, the view of the glacier was unreal because we would be looking down at it rather than out to the face of it.
Noted, sir.