In February 2019 we headed to Torres del Paine park in Patagonia with our friends Amy and Paul. Here’s a quick guide to what we did and how you can have an amazing time in the park without necessarily doing the infamous “W” trek.

The “W” hike in Torres del Paine has achieved legendary status as far a multi-day hikes go. Taking 4 or 5 days through the wilds of beautiful Patagonia, it’s not surprising that this is on many people’s bucket lists. But, well, it’s a bit of an arse to organise – you need to book your campsites well in advance, the websites that you use to do that are awful and clunky, and if you do get everything sorted you have no control over the weather for those days you’ve chosen.

I’ve pulled together this guide for people who still want to do most of the “W” hike, but want a bit more flexible approach to Patagonia. And, I guarantee you will get amazing photos…. possibly better than if you just spent all your time slogging round the “W” with all your stuff on your back!

The Basics

You need a car. This is the only bit that needs a bit of organisation, preferably well in advance (there are limited numbers of cars available). You can hire from Punta Arenas or Puerto Natales. We heard of people who tried to turn up and hire and there were no cars available in the whole of Puerto Natales. They are relatively expensive, but trust me, they are worth it. It’s worth looking on Google maps to find one of the local dealers that don’t come up on the price comparison sites (although we went with Hertz so have no specific recommendations!).

You need a tent (or lots of money). If you have a tent and a car, you can stay at the absolutely fabulous Lake Pehoe campsite. You don’t need to book, and these are the views you get:

For 11,000 ($15) per person, I think it’s worth it. If you have a little bit more money, then you can stay at one of the hotels in the valley. Hostería Pehoe has rooms for about $220 a night per couple, or Hotel Explora will set you back about $2400 per couple per night. Yup, you read that right. Like I said, I think the camping is pretty good value!! And, again, the best thing is the flexibility. You DON’T need to book!!! If weather looks shit, you just stay in Puerto Natales one more night!

You need a reasonably good level of fitness IF you want to still do most of the W hike. It is possible to do most of the sections in separate day hikes. More below.

The hikes

“W” day hikes

This section outlines the three hikes that you can do to do a significant portion of the W within just three days – the Torres del Paine; Frances Valley to Britannico; and Lago Grey hikes:

Torres del Paine Lookout
Official Suggested Time: One way – 4.5 hours
Round Trip Distance: 19.42km
Elevation: 1200m
Our time: Round trip 5.5 hours + 1 hour of lunch and rest stops.

Firstly (and possibly most importantly!!), the Torres del Paine hike is easily doable in a day. It’s a long day, but you don’t need to faff with campsite bookings and you still see everything.

We started very early, driving from Lake Pehoe Campsite at 5.30am to the EcoCamp Patagonia, where we sat and had breakfast and watched the sunrise hitting the towers from a distance (some people do the hike to them to see the sunrise, but this would mean a 1am start, and that felt like too big a risk for the possibility of no sun!). We started the hike around 7.45am, and had glorious weather all the way up, and we missed the day tour groups from Puerto Natales (they arrive around 8.30/9am). The views were incredible:

If you’re into trail running, this would be quite a good one – the path runs through woods for most of the trail, only finally breaking out at the Torres ranger station and becoming more rocky. It’s pretty, but not essential to have your camera glued to your face. The paths are good quality and the gradient is easily runnable. If you’re early enough you won’t meet too many people, although you might struggle on the way back down.

Frances Valley
Official Suggested Time: One-way 5.5 hours
Round Trip Distance to Britanico Lookout: 25.8km (We did 18.1km return to Frances Lookout).
Elevation: 866m (to Frances Lookout)
Our time: 4hr 47 return not including 2 hours for lunch!

This is another beautiful section of the W hike, less easily doable in a day, but definitely possible.

To start this hike you’ll need to drive to Pudeto Cafeteria and take the boat across Pehoe lake. It costs 30,000 sols round trip. The boat leaves at 9am and takes 30 minutes. You arrive at Paine Grande ranger station and hike from there. It’s an out and back, so you can just walk as far as you want/can and then turn around to catch the 4.15pm, 5pm or 6.30pm boat back to the Pudeto Cafe (check times as these are seasonal). We only got as far as the Frances Lookout and that was stunning:

Take some time to just sit and watch the avalanches falling down the cliff face. Incredible.

If you’re a trail runner, this would also be a good one to run sections of, although there were some very busy sections with narrow paths.

Grey Glacier Day hikes

We didn’t actually do this one, as we spent the time doing some other hikes outlined below. But, it is definitely possible to see most of what you’d see on the W within a day. You have two options:

1. Take a boat across Lago Grey from the Hotel Grey (link here) for 80,000 ($120!!!). I think you then get to go up close to the glacier and have an hour or so to walk around near the Grey Glacier rangers station. You can also do this as a one way trip and then do an an epic hikeout to the Administrative Headquarters at Toro Lake. We couldn’t work out the logistics of where to park our car to make this one work.

2. Take the boat across Pehoe Lake and do an out and back hike up to the Grey Glacier Ranger station (22km, undulating). We were planning to do this, but a random guy told us the Frances Valley hike was better so we did that instead. Having now not done this section we can’t really comment on what was better BUT read our report on the Lago Grey circular hike below…

Other shorter hikes (not on the W trek route).

Cuernos Lookout
Official Suggested Time: One-way 1 hour.
Round Trip Distance: c. 5km
Our time: 1hr 30m return

This was a beautiful walk, starting with a close up view of the Salta Grande waterfall, winding through gorgeous undulating terrain with packs of curious llamas lining the sides, and ending with an incredible view of the Cuernos del Paine mountains:

Condor Lookout
Official Suggested Time: One-way 45 mins
Round Trip Distance: 2.83km
Elevation: 298m
Our time: 1hr return

This was another stunning hike, up to a great view point to see all of Pehoe Lake and the classic Patagonian mountain range. The water was an incredible blue in all the weathers we saw it, and the winds at the top of the Condor Lookout made for some hilarious pictures!

Lago Grey Loop Hike
Official Suggested Time: One-way 1 hour

This started with a blustery, but dramatic walk along an awesome black pebble beach, admiring the crazy iceberg formations in the Lake. There were hundreds of people, but by the time we got to the really great bit, they’d all dropped off (no idea why!!). We scrambled up a small pensinsula and got even closer to the amazing icebergs and incredible view of the Grey Glacier.

This was partly why we decided we were less bothered about doing the Grey Glacier hike – the views from this end of the lake were already cool, and we wanted to see what we could see on the Frances Valley hike.

Ferrier Lookout
Official Suggested Time: One-way 2 hours
Round Trip Distance: 6km
Elevation: 700m
Our time: 1 hour 32 return (running)

I didn’t actually do this one, opting to rest my calves with a coffee in the nice cafe at Lago Grey! But Konstantin, Amy and Paul ran up and down and got pretty awesome views from the top (despite the weather!). It’s definitely a calf killer though – 700m ascent in 3km!!!

Places you can drive to and have an amazing view.

The amazing thing is, you don’t even need to walk to get a brilliant view in Torres del Paine! These are all photos we took from within 50m of our car:

There are loads of lookout points so you don’t even need to park in the middle of the road!!

The Map

I always find it so much easier to plan with a map. You get a great paper one when you get into the park, but before that I found trying to get my head round google maps quite difficult, so here’s everywhere we went – useful places, starts of hikes, where we stayed etc:

Few more things:

Parking – Parking is easy and free across the park. People were leaving their cars overnight seemingly without problems.

Fuel – There is no easy place to get fuel in the park (which we found out….). BUT the Las Torres hotel has an emergency supply! It’s 18,000 for 10 litres, and they will only supply 10 litres, unless you smile sweetly and they maybe will give you 15…! It’s open 8.30am-12, and then 3pm-8.30pm.

Eating – There are lots of places to eat around the park, so you won’t starve if you don’t bring enough food. BUT, it’s expensive and you are a little at the mercy of what options you can get. If you have a car, we recommend buying food at Don Bosco in Puerto Natales before you go (no queues and a good enough selection). Just opposite is a very well-stocked greengrocers, and we picked up fresh bread at The Bakery the morning we left.

As far as eating in the park is concerned, we had a nice/cheapish meal at Hostería Pehoe (down the road from the campsite) – opting for this over the restaurant at Pehoe Campsite, which was about double the price with rather small looking portions.

Camping – If you are able to get a spot in just the Paine Grande “W” trek campsite, this would be a good option – even if just for one night. You could do the Frances Valley hike the day you arrive, taking as much time as you need for the round trip, and the next day you could hike the round trip to the Grey Glacier ranger station and be back in time to take the boat back. That would be two arms of the W without much effort!

Equipment – You can rent equipment at many places in town – they have sturdy tents, stoves, mats, sleeping bags etc. We got a tent with Rental Natales for 5000 sols a day and it was great. Most places have so much stock you don’t need to book.

Border crossing – If you are planning to cross the border with your car you need to make sure you have all the permits sorted within enough time. These are around $120, so not cheap!

Our itinerary summary

Day 1:

Morning

• Drive from Puerto Natales. Take lots of photos at lookout points
• Set up at campsite straightaway to get best spot! Have early lunch and take epic photos of the lake.

Afternoon

• Hike the Lago Grey hike (2 hours)
• Hike the Cuernos Lookout hike (2 hours).

Evening

• Food at campsite and watch the epic sunset

Day 2 – Torres Hike

Morning

• Up at 5am to drive the hour straight to Ecocamp Torres to try and see sunrise on the towers.
• Have breakfast there and start hiking 8am. Back by 2pm

Afternoon

• Drink and cake at the Hotel Torres and relax

Evening

• Dinner at campsite and more amazing shots of sunsets!

Day 3 – French Valley Hike

Whole day –

• up at 6am to see sunrise at our campsite.
• Drive to the port to take the 9am boat across Lake Pehoe.
• Start hiking from Paine Grande to French Valley.
• Lunch at Italiano campsite.
• Back on 5pm boat.
• Evening- dinner at La Hostería Pehoe.

Day 4 –
Morning –

• Hike to Condor Lookout.
• Drive to Lago Grey.
• Hike to Ferrier Lookout.

Afternoon –

• Drive back to Puerto Natales. Beer!