Torres del Paine
- Five days recommended. Four days possible, but not recommended.
- Strongly consider any available strategies to lighten the pack weight and increase enjoyment
- Get on the earliest bus into the park; reserving a ticket strongly recommended
- Be prepared for long lines, delays and general monkeyshines at the Amargo Sur entrance station
- Arrive at the park the day BEFORE you hike if possible
- Build an extra open day into your itinerary; you can use this for a do-over on the Towers if they are socked in
- There’s plenty to see in this park; an extra day will NOT be wasted
- If possible spend some time in the Pudeto area; best views of the massif are from there.
- If you cannot do the whole French Valley, at least go as far as the Mirador Frances
- It is standard operating procedure to leave packs at ranger station in Campo Italiano to do the valley; take your valuables with you
- Expect to hike without a pack cover; have your gear waterproofed inside the pack
- It may be more advisable to hike west to east (starting at Paine Grande) as this gives you more flexibility on the Towers
- Don’t underestimate the hike to Lago Grey; an out and back in one day will be very long and tiring
- Pace yourself; almost every part of this hike has hard sections, don’t run your tank dry sprinting about
- Highlights: The Towers, The French Valley, the sections east of Rifugio Cuernos above Lago Nordenskjöld and Glacier Grey.
- Lowlights: Boggy sections around French/Italian Camps, and north of Refugio Chileno on the Towers Hike; tent-city camping areas at Central and Paine Grande.
- Consider hiking in a shoulder season (November, December, March, April) to reduce crowds
- We hiked in late November and do not regret doing so; we had one bad day, but winds overall were light
- A positive attitude, sense of humor and patience for your fellow human beings is very helpful on this Trek.
Fitz Roy
- Day hiking Los Glaciares out of El Chaltèn is the best way to see this great place
- Camping does give you many advantages but they are outweighed — ahem — by the joy of a light pack
- The key to almost every hike — especially Laguna del los Tres — is clear weather
- Book as many days as you can in El Chaltèn…three is minimal, four or five is better and allows for weather
- Go to ground in town when the weather moves in; save the best hikes for the clearest days
- Our advice is to do at least one of the remoter hikes to the North to see what the place looks like without crowds
- When the big peaks are socked in, do some of the short hikes near town that are less weather dependent
- We hiked around US Thanksgiving, which is as dry as any month in this park. Strangely, we encountered almost no serious winds at all when we hiked
- The correct way to do Laguna Del Los Tres is to hike out of El Pilar to the North; requires a shuttle, easily arranged
- Hiking from the north takes a couple miles and a big uphill out of the picture, and keeps the wind mostly at your back.
- It also gives you the Piedras Blances viewpoint, which is not by itself worth hiking to but is a nice bonus
- When hiking Laguna de los Tres/Laguna Torre, bring along some serious patience for your fellow human beings
General
Of the three small cities we stayed in, the best was El Chaltèn. El Calafate was the most developed and convenient but also the most touristy; Puerto Natales was somewhere in between.
Punta Arenas is a big industrial seaport something like an Anchorage Alaska. There is little to see here, and we felt time spent here to be mostly wasted.
We found the bus service between the towns and parks to be quite good and surprisingly reliable. Apart from the early bus to Torres del Paine, there was no need to reserve seats where we were there, but in peak season this might be a good idea.
We found the Air Service via the Chilean Airline Lan Tan to be — not for the first time — a complete goat rodeo. This airline, which at one point had a very good reputation, seems to specialize in screwing up your bookings, and then offering to make things right…for a small fee.
If you are crossing the border from Chile to Argentina, there will be delays, possibly quite significant (read: hours.)
The chance of baggage being lost/delayed/misplaced is high enough so that you should factor it into your plans (or find a away to carry everything on the plane with you if possible.)
If you have a connecting bus, we would advise purchasing the second ticket on the next available bus out rather than reserving both tickets in advance. This eliminates the chance of a missed connection.
Overall we thought that Fitz Roy, because of its relative ease and convenience, to be the better experience overall, and the Laguna de los Tres to be the most scenically superb thing we did on the entire Patagonia trip. However, The W was the more primitive, wild, challenging and immersive experience. We also agreed that nothing we saw quite surpassed the Tour du Mont Blanc, and especially the days on the Italian side of the TMB.
