Amazing trek and even cooler photos. Buckle up for this post!
Day 1
At 5:40am the morning of the 10th, someone else’s alarm actually woke us up. Guess it was a popular time as most of the people in Puerto Natales were there for the treks or other excursions in the park. As to be expected, by 6am, the hostel was alive with people prepping, gearing up, and getting in a quick breakfast. We said bye to the people we had met and headed to the bus stop for our 7am transport. The station was packed with backpackers doing the W or O treks as well as day hikers. On the bus, we talked to some people also from Boulder. The CU hat was kinda a giveaway. From all my past travels and in this trip too, it’s safe to say that Boulder peeps can be found anywhere in the world that has nature activities.
We took a bus from Puerto Natales to the park check-in building next to Amarga Lake. From there, we continued on the bus to a small port where we boarded a ferry that took us to camp 1, called Paine Grande. This camp is situated on the east end of the trail – our direction of travel was westward based on how we booked our camps. Normally, the W-trek is 4-5 nights in length. We were only able to book 3 camps, thus, we trekked longer per day. Also, we did not book a guided trek with food and everything, so we packed all our food and navigated the trails ourselves. In doing so, we saved over $1000 each.
Normally, people arrive in Paine Grande camp and hike 11km to camp grey, the top left corner of the “W” shape of the trekking path when looking at a map (The name of the trek comes from the shape of the path made through the park). We could not book a spot a camp grey, so we hiked 11km out and back to Paine Grande on the 10th. It was a long day of hiking and travel time, but we got to see the grey glacier which was a little further than the camp grey. It literally looked like “the wall” from GOT. We started actually hiking around 11:30am and got back just after 6pm. At camp grey, we ate a quick lunch, which consisted of wheat tortillas and peanut butter and jelly for me.
Some of many nature pics in this post…
The camps or “refugios” were super well-developed and equipped. There were tent pads for people to set up their equipment, but they also had rooms to rent, minimarkets, a kitchen, restaurant, and even hot showers. We opted with just renting a pre-pitched tent and sleeping bags at each site to minimize our pack weight, which was super convenient. All we had to rent was a stove and kitchen set from the town before starting.
We went to the kitchen area to cook ourselves dinner, took a shower, and settled in the tent by 8pm. It didn’t get dark till at least 10pm. We ate more snacks in the tent and watched some episodes of “The Office” that I had downloaded on my phone. To top it off, we brought with us little bottles of booze to enjoy after the days of hiking. Now that was a good, soul-warming idea for sure.
Day 2
We woke up in the 11th to some sunlight which was welcoming after all the rain the day before. A quick swig of ensure calorie powder, packed up, and we were on our way by 9am. We tackled the middle section of the “W” shape on this day. We hiked from Paine Grande to camp Italiano at the base of the French Valley, then made the climb up the Valley to the Britannica lookout point. The climb was difficult, technical, and steep, but well worth the views. It was about 7.5km to Italiano, 12km up and down the lookout, and 2km to camp Frances were we stayed for the night. During the hike, we saw and heard a massive serac (large chunk of ice) crash down from one of the peaks, which rumbled like thunder but lasted much longer.
This camp was more remote, but still had hot showers and several pitched tents on platforms built along the hillside. Tonight, we caved and bought a large bag of salty Doritos from the minimarket. Another soul-warming decision.
Day 3
The morning of the 12th, we woke up around 8am again, make our ensure shakes, and headed out of camp. The was a lot less sun and more wind, so we layered up. The movie soundtracks playing through my headphones hit hard today. Needed those to get through some of the climbs on sore legs. Today’s miles took us from camp Franceses to camp Chileno, which is seated halfway up the canyon where the main towers are located (the picturesque and most known towers of this national park which are the featured image of this blog post). This was super convenient because on the 4th day when we woke up, it was easier to access the towers from Chileno (already halfway up the valley) before the large crowds of day hikers arrived from the central camp below.
Camp Chileno itself was in a super cool spot right by the river. We got assigned a tent spot pretty far up the hillside, so we had a higher view and could hear the river at the same time.
Day 4
Woke up on the 13th at 4am and it was freezing cold. But, we wanted to beat the crowds and see the torres at sunrise. About 20 other people had a similar idea as camp Chileno was flashing with headlamps at this early hour. It was raining almost the entire way up and the exposed parts of the trail above tree line were especially difficult to traverse. Wind was blowing rain and sleet everywhere and overall, it was a pretty rough 4km up the rest of the valley, on even more sore legs.
Once we finally reached the top, we couldn’t even tell where to go because it was still very dark and the cloud coverage made it impossible to see. The sunrise even seemed delayed because of how thick the clouds were. We found a rock to sit behind to avoid some of the wind chill, and we waited, and waited. After about a solid hour, we decided to head down after only glimpsing the towers. Others had given up well before that. Just as we were about to leave, the clouds lifted and we finally saw them. An incredible sight to say the least, and we got our fill of pictures. We finally got to see the rest of our surroundings too with the snow-capped peaks and huge valley around us.
Overall, very glad we saw the towers when we did. On the way down past camp Chileno to the main base camp, we saw at least 300 day hikers coming up. Would have been a crowded viewing area. Also, it was super worth leaving most of our pack weight in the tent while making the towers ascent because we just came back to camp, packed up, and headed the rest of the way down. Also learned that they stock most of these camps using horses, which is cool. We saw some of these horses coming up.
We got to the Centro camp visitors center around 11am and had to wait till 2pm or our first bus. We got some victory Calafate berry-flavored pisco sours to celebrate. Little bit of local flavor and little bit of throwback to Peru. We got on our first bus back to Amarga, then the second bus back to the Puerto Natales town by around 5:30pm. We returned the stove and equipment, got our other bags from the hostal storage, and headed to the 1-night airbnb. On the way, we got a well-deserved huge dinner. A fried chicken sandwich never tasted so good. We had forgotten that the super bowl happened while we were gone too. Need to catch up on that at some point.
Fernando and Paola’s place was super cozy. They created a little guestroom in their backyard from a shipping container. There was a small kitchen, bathroom, and bunkbeds with really comfy mattresses and thick blankets. Getting into a warm bed after all the camps, rain, and cold, felt real nice to say the least.
Overall, the trek was hard, but so worth it. The views and camp experiences were unique and it was hands down the best way to see multiple spots of the national park. Would do it again for sure, exactly the same way. No need to spend $1500. Thank you to Hunter for heading the planning for this trek and all the refugios!
Today, the 14th, we checked out of the Puerto Natales airbnb, got some breakfast, and got on our bus to Punta Arenas. This city in Chile is a little further south, and we wanted to stop here on our way even further south to Ushuaia. The ride was only about 3 hours. We walked to the hostel and found that it was largely empty. The private room we got was very warm and looked more like a hotel room. There is a large common space and kitchen as well. We got some fruit and other snacks, our fill of empanadas once more, and dinner out at a Peruvian place. Hunter tried Peruvian food for the first time and I think it was a success. I mean, how can you mess up chicken fried rice in any culture?
Tomorrow, the 15th, we get on an 8am bus to Ushuaia, which will take 11 hours. This southern city is literally on a different island of the archipelago down here, so the bus will have to get on a ferry at some point. We will only be a few hundred miles from Antarctica and we will try to and see the end of the Pan-American highway. Pretty neat indeed. As always, thanks for reading.
Sko buffs 🦬
I’m speechless- that is saying a lot for me. Amazing views- impressive stamina and how wonderful to share this with a good friend! I’m jelly to be your age again!! Thanks for taking us along with you.
Siddieeeee — it was such a welcome text when you had cell signal again! Dare i say we missed your updates! And this post has so much in it — first, loved that you guys trekked the alcohol bottles with you — must have been a necessity! And then — i hear you — sometimes the simplest of pleasures like Doritos makes such a huge impact – nice! Loved all the pictures of the scenery and the towers. Those platform tents looked super cool indeed. And how you described the cold at the top made me want to put more layers on. So glad you enjoyed this experience — you can be our guide when we attempt to do this. And i gotta ask — what is up w/ Hunty’s hair?? 🙂 Love you!
This is absolutely incredible, your story telling and photos made it feel like I was there! I cannot wait to hear more stories! So proud of you!!
Props to navigating through the Chilean Patagonia and through different cities, I’m still lost trying to get to East Campus;)
Truly so amazing
Absolutely stunning views! Kudos on those killer hikes and doing it all without a guide or a pack animal