Usted está aquí. You are here. These three words embossed on the corner of the trail map proclaim both our physical arrival at the start of Chile’s famed W Circuit as well as our spiritual. Months of planning, hours of reading and hundreds of kilometers of conditioning hikes have culminated in this moment, ready to commence hiking in Patagonia’s W trek.
Hiking In Patagonia: The W Trek
The W trek is a famous multi-day hike through the Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia. We’re on a different edge of the Patagonian Ice Sheet from our hiking in El Chaltén, Argentina, and even further south. In fact, we’re only about 1,000km from the edge of Antarctica.
Named for the shape it makes on a map as you make your way up and around three different valleys, the W trek is just under 80km in total and most people complete it over 5 days. The alternative O-trek continues around the mountain range for a total of 120km over 8 days. Booking and planning for the ‘W’ can be somewhat complicated, so we’ve written a separate blog post for people who’d like to hear about what we learned and some tips we picked up. For everyone else just interested in living vicariously and some nice photos, read on.
Day 1: Paine Grande to Grey, 11km
11km to Camp Grey (full packs)
As we make our way up from the valley floor to the small ridge, the rain turns to sleet and then driving snow and we find ourselves leaning into the wind, heads down just to move forward on the path. We’re wearing pretty much all the clothing we brought with us and still there’s a chill. This is the height of summer in Southern Patagonia?
The mountain range in this part of the world is not exceptionally high, but it’s remote and the weather can be harsh. We’d been warned. A very nice Chilean park ranger had boarded our bus earlier this morning, and speaking uncharacteristically clear Spanish had explained to us it was very cold, there would be snow, and we needed to be well prepared. Nervous glances. It was a bit late to back out given the journey to get here. Not only is it an epic travel destination to get to, it also requires booking at least 6 months in advance. We weren’t letting a little snow ruin what we’d been thinking about for years, planning for months and boring our friends with details about for weeks.
This part of the world is not easy to get to, which is part of the allure. A couple of plane rides, a 6 hour bus ride on dirt roads and a remote international border crossing, a 5am wake up call this morning, more buses and dirt roads with some mildly scary corners taken just a little too fast, and finally a small ferry had dropped us at our destination: Paine Grande Refugio, the start of the W trek – the West to East version.
Here’s the can…
Here are the sardines…
The hiking portion of this first day is 11km of reasonably easy hiking along the side of Lago Grey, a large glacial lake fringed with snow-capped mountains that ends in the huge Grey Glacier. Given the weather, we aren’t stopping to admire the scenery quite as often as normal. And anyway, we’ll be retracing our steps tomorrow when it will be sunny and warm (hopefully).
This is before the weather changes!
As we push forward into the sleet, hoping all the camping gear and food on our backs isn’t getting soaked, we’re clinging to the words of wisdom from our gear rental dude, who reviewed the forecast for the week and assured us the first day would be windy and bad, but looked great from then on.
The W trek is the most well-established multi-day hike we’ve ever experienced. At each campground in addition to the tent sites there are ‘refugios’ which have hostel-like rooms, a basic restaurant and a kitchen area to cook your own food. They even have showers and flushing toilets.
We chose not to opt for the ‘full board’ version of the trip. Something of a mix between a ‘we’re still young enough to do this’ bravado and an unwillingness to pay the eye-wateringly high prices for the full board. There will no doubt be times when we’re lugging heavy rental camping gear up steep slopes, that we may regret this decision, but we’re counting on the satisfaction of achieving the hike ‘old-school’ style to outweigh any regrets. In particular Michelle, who is carrying all the food, can look forward to having a lighter pack as the week goes on. Al’s only option for making his pack lighter is eating his trail mix. Would you care for some more nuts, Michelle?
Two-person tent…?
It turns our our first night is at perhaps the best-equipped campground of the whole trek: Refugio Grey. It even has a little store that sells fresh eggs, as well as a restaurant and a bar (with a big screen TV!??). After commiserating with some O-trekkers on the soggy state of their tent after 2 days of blizzard conditions coming from the opposite direction, we put up our nice dry tent feeling like the new kids at school. The refugio’s bar is a perfect place to retire for a few hours drinking extraordinarily overpriced beers while your clothing dries (on you); we avail ourselves of this opportunity.
Day 2: Grey to Paine Grande, 18km
3.5km each way to Glacier Grey (day packs) and then 11km to Paine Grande (full packs)
Today we’re very happy to poke our heads out of the tent and discover the weather has cleared. Donning just our day packs, which suddenly seem very light and small, we practically skip a further 3.5km up the edge of the lake, through forests and across two very high swing bridges to a lookout high above the edge of Glacier Grey. While it doesn’t have the impact of our visit to the face of Perito Moreno Glacier, it’s a nice clear day and the stunning view for kilometres up the glacier to the snowy mountains all around is spectacular.
Grey Glacier in the background from the first suspension bridge
Grey Glacier from the Mirador
We retrace our steps back to Paine Grande in a pleasant mix of sun and cloud. The campsite at Paine Grande is basically just a very lumpy open field, and with so many people you’re treated to a cacophony of snoring from tents around you. Luckily we’re so tired we could sleep through almost anything. The gear rental guy had told us he usually gives Australians the heavy duty sleeping bag, but as Michelle had lived in Canada he figured she’d be OK with the -7C rated bag. He was mostly right.
Los Cuernos (‘the horns’) on the right, and Paine Grande on the left looming large over our campsite on this night. We’ll be heading around the base of Paine Grande to the other side tomorrow. Paine means “blue” in Tehuelche language, which was the primary color the indigenous people noticed when they saw the spires of this mountain range in the distance.
Day 3: The Road Less Travelled. Paine Grande, Británico and Los Cuernos, 27km
8km to Italiano (full packs), 6km each way to Mirador Británico (day packs) then 7km to Los Cuernos (full packs)
This will be a our hardest day. 8km to the first stop, Refugio Italiano, where we’ll drop our packs and forge 2km up to Frances Glacier and (hopefully, if the weather’s cooperating) another 3km into the Valle Frances and all the way to Mirador Británico. We’ll then retrace our steps back to Italiano, strap the heavy packs back on for the 7km trek to tonight’s campsite at Los Cuernos. 27km!
Less than a kilometre from Camp Paine Grande a few people have stopped at a junction. There are two trails going in different directions, both marked as heading to Camp Italiano. As several people head off down what looks like the main trail, we decide to take the smaller one, mysteriously marked as ‘one way’ in Spanish, in the hope of having less traffic. It turns out to be a great decision. For over an hour we walk over rolling hills and feel like the only people hiking in the area. Over the 8km we meet only three other people. Even better, the trail leads around the outer side of the lakes, so as we walk we have a view of the mountains reflected in the lakes in front.
Plus, this route takes us through the ‘charred forest’, an area of dead trees that are the ghosts of a huge fire that spread through the area in 2012. The fire, started by a backpacker burning their toilet paper (??!!), burned for two months and destroyed 40,000 hectares, or 7% of the park. The forest is not expected to recover for hundreds of years.
Bring a ziplock for your TP people!
We arrive at Refugio Italiano to a large group of people busy preparing to head up through Valley Frances. This is peak season for the W, so not unexpected; this is also reachable as a day hike. That being said, if you get on the trail early each day most of the time you feel like you’re on your own.
Valle del Frances
Frances Valley is another one of those times we were glad we hadn’t looked at too many photos before coming on the trip. The first 2km is through quite dense, low forest with occasional glimpses of the mountain we’ve been skirting around all morning and the rushing Frances River below us. It’s quite warm as it’s a fairly quick altitude gain in this short space.
Then suddenly we emerge into the open space that is Mirador Frances, and we’re right in front of a huge bowl formed by the peaks of Cerro Paine Grande. The massive hanging glacier, Frances Glacier, flows down the mountain, creaking and groaning. Every 15 minutes or so, there’s a rumbling and crashing sound of mini-avalanches and ice breaking off. It’s mesmerising.
Many people only walk as far as Mirador Frances, particularly those on a day hike. If the weather is bad (remember the sleet and snow two days ago?) then you can’t go further. It’s a little cloudy when we arrive but seems to be clearing so we decide to keep going the extra few kilometres.
This section of the hike is quite a pleasant walk through the woods, with the river rushing past. At the 5km mark the forest opens up again to a large rocky flat, where you’re literally surrounded on all sides by huge mountains. We plonk ourselves down and admire the view while congratulating ourselves on another great effort.
Then we see some people further up and realize we haven’t quite reached the end of the trail. Since we’ve come this far, we push on. The path veers off back into the woods for another 40 minutes or so before getting to a steep outcropping that is the actual Mirador Británico.
From here we have a(nother) 360 degree view of mountains all around us. From the four peaks of the 3,000m Paine Grande, around to the ‘sharks fin’, then Cerro Fortaleza, and finally the iconic huge ‘horns’ of Los Cuernos. These bicoloured mountains are the result of a volcanic eruption below the surface that occurred before the Andes were even formed.
We differ in our opinion here as Al prefers the first, more open area while Michelle would absolutely recommend going the extra distance to Mirador Británico. Either way, we feel so lucky to have had a beautiful day to experience both.
Back down at Italiano there’s some confusion about how far we have to hike from here reach our campsite. The signs say 4.5km but we’re expecting 7km. We’ve already hiked 20km today and we can’t allow our bodies to be tricked into believing it’s only 4.5km. It’s a mental game. Luckily it’s warm, sunny and mostly flat or downhill. Michelle’s Garmin battery gives up at this point, so we can’t tell you the actual distance but it sure feels like 7km. The path winds through low, dense trees and then emerges on the shores of Nordenskjöld Lake to a rock beach that looks almost tropical. Some hikers are resting by the lakeshore. The water wasn’t freezing but definitely kjöld.
Finally, after a 9.5 hour day of hiking we stagger into Refugio Los Cuernos. We’re exhausted but we’re on a high. it’s a stunning evening after an incredible day.
The nicest campsite we had on the trip. On on a platform at the high end of the campsite, looking out over the lake and the mountains as the sun sets.
Day 4: Los Cuernos to Chileno, 12.6km
12.6km to Chileno (full packs)
As we leave Cuernos this morning it’s warm and the blue sky is punctuated by the same neat-o clouds we saw in El Chalten, the UFO-like lenticularis clouds.
We indulged in a bit of a sleep-in today, so when we get out on the track at about 10:30am we start to meet day trippers headed the other way from the Torres del Paine hotel. This isn’t great, as the path is quite narrow and densely wooded so we’re often stopping for people. So we’re very happy to find another secondary path on this day too. The ‘short cut’ to Refugio Chileno is for multi-day trekkers like us and it heads out through a meadow and then gradually up the side of the mountain slope. We don’t see anyone along this trail but we do see a lot of evidence of the horses that carry supplies up and back to the Refugio.
Al was very excited to find a sign labelled ‘short cut’.
Lunchtime on the trail
At km 11 we emerge back out onto the main day-tripper trail. As we round the corner to ‘Windy Pass’ and the valley opens up in front of us, we suddenly realise how lucky we’ve been with the weather. The wind on the W trek is legendary. We’ve heard stories of people clinging to the mountainside and rain covers whipped off backpacks. After our week in El Chaltén we had braced ourselves for epic winds and people we met confirmed it. But for the few days we’ve been in the park, the only wind we’ve experienced has been a gentle breeze. (OK, other than the howling wind with the sleet on the first day, but that’s a distant memory now).
View from Passy Wind, I mean Windy Pass
A little further on from Windy Pass we see a sign for the Refugio less than a km ahead. We had expected 5 more kilometres! Neither of us said anything. We were both steeling ourselves for the additional distance while secretly hoping the shorter distance was true. In fact, we had arrived, after just 12.6km, not the 17km the maps had indicated. Again, the signage is a little erratic around here. We’ll take it!
Tip: Here at Chileno, the regular campsites are an additional 1.2km from the refugio/restaurant/bar. If you get a tent site on a platform, these are in the woods right behind the Refugio. More tips in our ‘Insider Tips’ post!
We get ourselves checked in and set up. Tomorrow is our last day (sad face), and the plan is to get up pre-dawn and hike up to Torres del Paine for the sunrise. Checking with the Refugio staff we discover the sunrise is actually an hour earlier than we’d expected. Which means a 3:30am wake-up for a 4am departure, to be at the Torres for 6am. Gulp.
(We initially thought we might get to Refugio Chileno early enough today to take the hike up to Torres del Paine this afternoon. That way if the weather is bad tomorrow morning we won’t miss out. We arrive in camp just before the trail closes but decide an afternoon of cribbage and a beer is a better idea. Sunrise it will be!)
Day 5: Chileno to Mirador Torres del Paine and then to Welcome Centre 14.5km
4.5km each way to Torres del Paine (day packs) and then 5.5km (full packs)
3:30am and we find ourselves packing up our gear, donning headlamps and heading out on the trail. There are a few other hardy souls but we really don’t see too many people. It’s a wide, flat trail for the first 2km which we’re thankful for in the dark. But we’re expecting it will get harder. It’s a 4.5km hike and they tell you to allow 2 hours.
After 3km we see a a sign to our destination, the Mirador. It gets much steeper from this point and ends in rocky boulder hopping. Once the trail changes to rocks it becomes more tricky to stay on the path. There are markers with reflectors but they can be hard to find in the dark.
At one point we find ourselves scrambling up a very steep slope with just sand and tree roots underfoot. About the point where we’re thinking this couldn’t possibly be the trail taken by so many day trippers every day, we realise we can’t see any more trail markers ahead. We’ve lost the path. A couple of guys who were following us call out to say they can see on their app that we’ve come off the trail. They are heading back down. We see some other headlamps up further so we decide to keep going rather than risk falling down the loose path the way we’ve come.
When we emerge back onto ‘stable rock’ the headlamps up ahead have disappeared and still there is no path in sight. It’s pitch black and… starting to snow. There are a few moments of reassuring comments from each of us, tinged with just a touch of fear. The wilderness course we took 15 years ago gave us a healthy respect for the potential to get very lost in the mountains very quickly.
We have a pretty good idea of the general direction and before long we find the markers again. We look back to make sure we can see the headlamps of our fellow off-pisters and keep going. This time we make sure we see the next marker before leaving the previous one. We wind our way around the mountain until suddenly we come around a turn and can just make out the dark blue of a glacier lake ahead of us in the pre-dawn light.
It’s still snowing and there’s a cold wind whipping off the frigid lake. Just as well we’re wearing everything we own. No-one is in sight but when we look around to find a rock to shelter behind, our headlamps reveal small groups of people, huddled and waiting for the show. We eventually find an uninhabited boulder and tuck in, shivering with cold, I mean with anticipation.
When the snow started this morning, we’d started to think the sun would rise to a thick fog and we’d see nothing but white. But as night slowly begins to lift, the clouds begin to clear away. We sit, shiver, jump on the spot and pace around in the freezing cold waiting for what seems like the slowest sunrise ever.
Slowly and then quickly, the light hitting the mountain peaks begins to lighten, brighten and change from blacks and dark greys to vivid reds and oranges. Over the next two hours it changes several times until finally settling on the greyish hues of full daylight. As we take our 120th photo, a fellow hiker who had come up yesterday afternoon assures us that it was way better this morning than yesterday,
As we head back down the trail seems much more straightforward in the daylight, and a lot easier than the scramble we’d done in the dark a few hours earlier. We pick out where we went off trail and vow never to make that mistake again. We peel off layers as we descend, and by 9:30am we’re back in camp sipping tea on the deck of the Refugio feeling very smug as all the hordes of day trippers arrive.
Probably best we couldn’t see this on the way up…
And so our W trek comes to an end
From here it’s an easy 5km walk down hill to the base of the Torres mountain range to the Welcome Centre and, sadly, the end of our W trek.
We take the bus back to Puerto Natales, and it feels like we’re back in a metropolis even though it’s a small ‘frontier town’. There’s old guys walking around wearing baqueano hats that resemble berets, wide one way streets with only the occasional car ambling past in no real hurry, and everyone is wearing jackets and warm hats even though it’s the height of summer. This is not a gentle climate. You feel like you’re getting closer to the Fin de Le Monde.
Luckily, they are very well set up for tourists and there’s some excellent restaurants, including one for our celebration dinner which is fusion cuisine of Patagonia and Zambia at the appropriately named Afrigonia.
Guanaco – it also makes a nice sweater!
Adios Patagonia
The next day we’re heading out of town once again on another 5 hour bus ride and plane back into Argentina. As the bus passes through the Patagonian steppe with guanaco grazing, the occasional rhea and the Torres slowly getting smaller on the horizon, the reality hits that we’ve finished our Patagonian adventure. So long in the planning, and such an incredible experience, it’s hard to believe its over. Luckily we’re only half way through our South American trip and we have three more months of fun to look forward to. First up, Buenos Aires.
Hiking In Patagonia: The W Trek In A Nutshell
For the inside scoop on everything we learned during the planning and executing of our W Circuit adventure, head on over to our ‘Insider’s Tips‘ blog post. Who knows – you could be next!
