Transport to and around the park
Maps
Equipment
Low-impact trekking
What to do in an emergency
TORRES DEL PAINE NATIONAL PARK, CHILE
Walk 1: Torres del Paine circuit (the ‘O’)
Stage 1 CONAF Administración – Refugio Paine Grande
Stage 2 Refugio Paine Grande – Campamento Italiano
Stage 3 Campamento Italiano – Valle Francés (return)
Stage 4 Campamento Italiano – Refugio Las Torres
Stage 5 Refugio Las Torres – El Chileno
Stage 6 El Chileno – Mirador Las Torres (return)
Stage 7 El Chileno – Campamento Japonés (return)
Stage 8 El Chileno – Refugio Las Torres
Stage 9 Refugio Las Torres – Campamento Serón
Stage 10 Campamento Serón – Refugio Dickson
Stage 11 Refugio Dickson – Campamento Los Perros
Stage 12 Campamento Los Perros – Campamento Paso
Stage 13 Campamento Paso – Refugio Grey
Stage 14 Refugio Grey – Refugio Paine Grande
Walk 2 Torres del Paine half-circuit (the ‘W’)
Stage 1 Refugio Las Torres – Mirador Las Torres (return)
Stage 2 Refugio Las Torres – Campamento Italiano
Stage 3 Campamento Italiano – Valle Francés (return)
Stage 4 Campamento Italiano – Refugio Grey
Stage 5 Refugio Grey – Refugio Paine Grande
Walk 3 Salto Grande and Mirador Los Cuernos
Walk 4 Puente Weber
Walk 5 Mirador Lago Toro and Laguna Verde
Walk 6 Mirador Cóndor
Walk 7 Río Pingo and Mirador Zapata
Stage 1 Guardería Lago Grey – Campamento Zapata
Stage 2 Campamento Zapata – Mirador Zapata (return)
Stage 3 Campamento Zapata – Guardería Lago Grey
Other walks within the national park
Laguna Amarga – Portería Sarmiento
Laguna Azul and trail to Lago Dickson
Excursions from Puerto Natales
Excursion 1 Cueva del Milodón
Excursion 2 Balmaceda and Serrano glaciers (Bernard O’Higgins national park)
Excursion 3 Sierra Baguales
LOS GLACIARES NATIONAL PARK, ARGENTINA
Excursion 4 Perito Moreno glacier
Walk 8 Cerro Fitzroy (El Chaltén) and Cerro Torre
Stage 1 El Chaltén – Campamento Agostini
Stage 2 Campamento Agostini – Campamento Poincenot
Stage 3 Campamento Poincenot – Laguna de los Tres (return)
Stage 4 Campamento Poincenot – Laguna Piedas Blancas (return)
Stage 5 Campamento Poincenot – El Chaltén
Appendix A Gateway towns and cities
Appendix B Accommodation within Torres del Paine national park
Appendix C Language notes and glossary
Appendix D Contacts and online resources
Appendix E Further reading
The catamaran at Refugio Paine Grande on Lago Pehoé (Walks 1 and 2)
Fortaleza and Cerro Espada (Walks 1 and 2)
Balmaceda glacier in Last Hope Sound, Bernardo O’Higgins national park (Excursion 2)
INTRODUCTION
‘These vast piles of snow, which never melt, and seem destined to last as long as the world holds together, present a noble and even sublime spectacle… they may be likened to great frozen Niagaras; and perhaps these cataracts of blue ice are to the full as beautiful as the moving ones of water.’
Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle (London, 1839)
Chile’s Torres del Paine national park lies towards the southern tip of South America, surrounded on the west by labyrinthine, lonely fjords and on the east by seemingly endless, dry steppe, and sitting on the edge of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, the largest sheet of ice in the southern hemisphere
