Chile Con Karen: Torres del Paine and the W Trek: Getting Started

Torres del Paine National Park may be the most famous Chilean landmark. The hiking route that connects some of its most distinctive features is shaped like a W, giving the trek its name. Karen's sister Maya and her friend Briton joined us on a trip to Torres del Paine, but they both declined to guest-write this post.

The Day Before

Matt and Maya meticulously catalogued the calories of various packaged foods in a supermarket to craft their backpacking meals. The sight was pretty funny and lasted a full hour- imagine Maya reading out calories and serving sizes aloud as Matt kept a running tally on his cell phone. Karen followed suit even though she was staying in a lodge, since meals in Torres del Paine average 6x those in Santiago.

Briton arrived 8pm the night before the trek. Just in time to catch a local beer and food festival in Puerto Natales!

Getting There

We hiked the W in 5 days, and decided to begin on the west end. This meant getting up early to take a bus from Puerto Natales into the park, watching a video about the rules and regulations, paying a fee, taking a second bus across the width of the park, and finally crossing by boat to the hiking trail. Unfortunately this did not all go smoothly. In an effort to reduce the weight we were carrying, we left all but 100.000 pesos with Karen. We had no US dollars. So imagine our surprise when we arrived at the park entrance and found that all of the prices posted online only apply to stays of 3 days or less. For longer stays, there are higher prices. Matt got a break for being a Chilean resident (although he had to write out his Chilean ID number without looking to prove it) but the entrance fees still came out to 80.000 pesos. Nobody that we asked knew for sure how much the upcoming boat ride would cost, but everyone agreed they did not accept credit cards. The park actual official advice of the park employee was to get on the boat and then try to cry and look distraught when we had to pay. Luckily, a kind stranger was able to lend us an additional 50.000 pesos, giving us exactly the amount we needed to ride the boat (23.000 per person), plus 1.000 pesos extra!

The boat takes you across this lake. (Lake Pehoe)

Getting Started

We finally started hiking by 1PM, at Paine Grande Lodge, located in the bottom left corner of the W. We hiked up the leftmost leg of the W towards the Grey Glacier.

After reaching the campsite, we went to a lookout with an incredible view of the glacier and several ice bergs that had broken off.

We tried to go to a series of hanging bridges even closer to the glacier, but it was getting dark and they were farther than we realized, so Maya and Briton decided to get up early the next morning to see them before the main hike. Check it out!