Torres del Paine National Park was the inspiration for our entire trip to Patagonia. I’m not sure when I first learned about this park, but it’s been on my bucket list for at least 5 years. There are 2 popular treks in the park: The W-trek and the O-trek. The O-trek is a loop trail that encircles the entire park, taking 8-10 days to complete. The W-trek is the southern half of the O-trek, taking 4-5 days to complete and generally done as a thru-hike.

I would have loved to do the O-trek, but we picked the W-trek for many reasons and I think it was the right choice for us. Seth is willing to backpack, but he definitely doesn’t love it the way I do, so the shorter hike was a good compromise. It freed up more time in our itinerary to visit El Chalten and Ushuaia, which we wouldn’t have been able to do if we’d spent 10 days of the trip in Torres del Paine alone. It was a much more well-rounded trip and I felt really satisfied with our choice when we finished the trek.

But let’s start at the beginning! Our bus left Puerto Natales at 7am, so it was an early rise for us to walk to the bus depot. It’s a 2-hour drive to the Torres del Paine park entrance, where the bus stops for everyone to get their National Park Pass. If you’re doing the O-trek or just visiting for the day, you would start your adventure here. But we were starting our trek at the opposite end of the park, so we still had another 45-minute bus ride, followed by an hour long catamaran journey across Lago Pehoe to Paine Grande.

What’s interesting about Torres del Paine, is that you don’t actually have to do any camping if you don’t want to. Unlike the Sendero al Fitz Roy, Chile has sunk a lot of money and resources into developing the park into a tourist destination. The park is much more developed, but it’s also a lot better protected. You have to obtain a park pass to enter the park and get camping reservations to stay there overnight. There are rangers patrolling the park and they have very strict rules about going off trail. There are absolutely no fires or smoking permitted anywhere in the park, and all cooking must be done in the designated shelters.

There is a mixture of campgrounds and refugios spread throughout the park. The refugios are basically hostels, with shared bedrooms, washrooms, and a huge dining room. They are more expensive than your average hostel, but they’re very popular because they eliminate the need for a tent. We decided to avail of the refugios where possible and ended up booking rooms for our first two nights on the trail, followed by campsites for the last nights. However, to eliminate the need to bring our tent, we paid extra for pre-set tents and sleeping pads at our campsites. We still had to bring our sleeping bags, but we were able to lighten our packs by leaving our tent and thermarests at home.

Our trek started from Paine Grande, but our final destination was Refugio Grey at Grey Glacier, which is 11km away. As far as the terrain goes, it was a pretty easy day of hiking and in normal circumstances, I think it would have taken us less than 4 hours. Unfortunately, as I alluded to in my previous post, Seth got hit with a bout of traveler’s sickness from the ceviche he ate the night before, and it hit him on the catamaran to the trailhead. He spent most of the boat ride in the bathroom, followed by a visit to the refugio toilets, so we were some of the last people to start hiking for the day.

Fortunately, he wasn’t totally incapacitated and did start to feel better as it left his system, but it definitely resulted in a slow pace on day 1.  Even so, Torres del Paine National Park is immediately a very striking place. There are several famous features in the park, one of which is known as “the horns”. It’s a set of sharp granite peaks on Cuernos del Paine mountain that can be seen throughout most of the park. We got our first glimpse of them on the catamaran, and there’s an incredible view from Paine Grande. The weather was fairly moody when we arrived, with dark clouds hanging over the horns, but it never rained and I thought it made for pretty scenic photos.

The trail to Grey Glacier starts with a gentle hike up through a small canyon, around the west side of Cerro Paine Grande. It’s a steady uphill, but not overly challenging. I decided to set Laguna los Patos as our first milestone; it’s only 3km away, but it felt like it took forever! In reality, it was only 90 minutes, but poor Seth was really struggling. We stopped for lunch when we finally arrived at the lake, but it wasn’t super restful because we got our first introduction to the infamous Patagonian wind!

Torres del Paine is super well known for its blustery conditions and it didn’t disappoint on our first 3 days. It was moderate wind on the first day, but it was forecasted to get much worse on the following two days (and it did). After our lunch break, we continued on, setting Mirador Lago Grey as our second milestone. It’s located just past the halfway mark and is the highest point on the trail for the first day. It has an incredible view of Lago Grey and the glacier, but it’s a steady uphill the whole way there, so our slow pace continued.

Fortunately, it was downhill after the mirador and our pace improved, but overall, it was a rough first day and I admit that I resented Seth a little. We arrived at the refugio shortly after 5pm, after 5+ hours of hiking, so you might be wondering what was the rush? The rush for me was that after Refugio Grey, there is a day hike to a series of suspensions bridges with a viewpoint, and I really wanted to do them. We were scheduled to go kayaking the following morning, and with rain in the forecast for later, I really wanted to hike to the viewpoint on Day 1.

So I was silently cursed Seth for most of the afternoon because I’d been dreaming of this hike for so many years and I was determined to see every highlight. I’ve had several of my big hikes interrupted over the past few years due to other people or circumstances outside of my control. But all of those hikes were in British Columbia and easy to come back for in the future. I felt like I only had this one shot at Torres del Paine. I think I was pretty supportive earlier in the day, but the more the clock counted down the remaining daylight hours, the more impatient I got. I’m sure it was very annoying.

Fortunately, my resentment dissipated with our arrival at the refugio and it didn’t return for the rest of the trip. The refugio is very cool! Each one is different and Refugio Grey is basically a big log cabin, with toasty woodstoves to dry your clothes. The rooms vary in size, but ours had 2 bunkbeds, sleeping 4 people. It says online that you have to bring your own sleeping bag (which is the case at other refugios), but this one actually provided bedding, so it felt like a proper hotel. I really liked it and Seth was stoked to have access to flush toilets and a place to lie down.

I quickly re-arranged my pack and decided to make a go at hiking to the suspension bridges and viewpoint alone. I did hiking math on the trail and determined that, as long as I started the day hike by 6pm, I could make it back to the refugio before the 9pm sunset. Just in case, I took all my essentials, including my headlamp and inreach. Seth knew where I was going and we agreed on a set time to raise the alarm if I didn’t return. Check back next week to learn if I was successful or not in Part II!