Hiking half-circuit W trek in Torres del Paine

Morning view of Torres del Paine from Camping Pehoe

Offering dramatic views at the mountain peaks above and turquoise lakes below, as well as unforgettable experience of trekking in the wilderness, Torres del Paine National Park is one of the best places for hiking in the world. It is located in Chilean Patagonia, the southern end of South America. Granted, these beautiful landscapes are hard to reach, but it is well worth it.

Sunrise view at Mirador Base de las Torres

At a glance

Level: Medium
Time: 4-6 days
Weather: Windy
Accommodation: Campsites or dormitories in refugios (huts)
Food: Bring your own food or buy meals at refugios
Water: Plenty of water, considered safe to drink
Prices: Very high
Map: Install maps.me and download the free South Chile offline map
Guidebook: Cicerone (but you can do without it)
Getting there and away: bus connection with Puerto Natales

Need to know

There are two famous hiking routes: O, the 11-day loop around Torres del Paine, and W, the best 5-day part of this loop. Only counter-clockwise direction is permitted for O trek, but you can do W in any direction you want.
Book accommodation early, especially the campsites. They were fully booked a month before our travel, and you don’t want to pay $150 for a refugio while still having to carry your tent for the other days.
Get a strong tent that survives high winds.
Each trail has its closing time, often unreasonably early, like 1–4 pm. The closing time for each trail is printed on the map you get on entrance. After this time you will be stopped and turned back by a ranger. (It doesn’t apply to pre-dawn start from Chileno: the trail is closed, but there are no rangers at 3 am)

In details

Level

If you are fit and have some experience of hiking in mountains, you will find no trouble with this route. The trail is not a hiking superhighway, but it is clear and not challenging.

The ascent to the viewing points at Mirador Britanico and Mirador Torres is physically demanding, especially if you are in a hurry to see the sunrise or to get there before the trail closes; but you can leave your backpacks at the base and go lightweight, which is much faster and more enjoyable.

Time

Torres del Paine is a huge national park and you can easily spend a couple of weeks there without getting bored. Actually, the full hiking circuit — O trek — takes 11 days. W trek is designed for 5 days, but I believe it may be shortened to four if you are in serious hurry. It doesn’t matter which way you are doing the W, and it allows some flexibility with your schedule. If you don’t know where to start, my advise is first to book the most popular sites, such as Italiano or Chileno, and then book the other places accordingly.

This is the schedule that my favourite Cicerone guidebook recommends:
Day 1: Refugio Las Torres – Mirador Las Torres (return)
Day 2: Refugio Las Torres – Campamento Italiano
Day 3: Campamento Italiano – Valle Francés (return)
Day 4: Campamento Italiano – Refugio Grey
Day 5: Refugio Grey – Refugio Paine Grande

This is how we travelled:
Day 0: Evening bus from Puerto Natales to Camping Pehoe (pronounced peoˈe), which allows splendid views on the mountains across the lake;
Day 1: Camping Pehoe – Refugio Paine Grande by hitchhiking and boat (+ a short amusing walk by the lakeside and back);
Day 2: Refugio Paine Grande – Refugio Grey;
Day 3: Refugio Grey – Mirador Grey and back – Refugio Paine Grande;
Day 4: Refugio Paine Grande – Campsite Italiano where we dropped the backpacks and started a late ascent to Mirador Britanico and back (which was shortened by a very polite, but very persistent ranger) – Refugio Francés;
Day 5: Refugio Francés – Refugio El Chileno;
Day 6: Refugio El Chileno – pre-dawn ascent to Mirador Las Torres and back – Refugio las Torres – bus to Puerto Natales.

You can make your own schedule that suits you better, there’s no way to go wrong. Just make sure you allow more time to enjoy this terrific place.

The best months to go there are January and February, but bear in mind that it is also the most popular time among all the fellow hikers. Don’t worry, you will still get your share of wilderness on the trail. It might be crowded at the campground, though.

The huts and campsites are located in such a way that the day hike is not very short, and is not long and exhausting. Still it is better to get up early and allow yourself plenty of time, because the trails close unreasonably early.

Weather

It is hard to describe Patagonian weather, because it changes literally every five minutes, and varies depending on your location. Think of summer in mountains, but not of happy cows and green meadows, but of the sun burning your face while your jacket is still wet from the rain that poured a minute ago. It tends to be very windy in Patagonia, and Torres del Paine national park is not an exception. Be prepared for the gusts of strong wind, especially in more exposed areas. If you are camping, make sure that your tent will withstand the strong wind and an occasional rain. Always pin down all your stuff while putting up the tent: we’ve seen some camping equipment flying around the campsite while the owners were busy with their tent poles.

Accommodation

There are refugios and campgrounds at the end of each stage. The camping sites allow you to pitch your own tent, or to hike lightweight and rent the camping equipment at each place: usually they provide new and spacious North Face or Marmot tents.

Everything needs to be booked well in advance, especially if you are doing the full circuit. We planned our trip about a month before visiting the park, and some campgrounds were fully booked, so we had to stay in huts while still carrying heavy backpacks.

Both campgrounds and huts are reasonably clean, with hot showers, and enough toilets to avoid long queues. The campgrounds become quite crammed during the day, especially with some people sneakily arriving after dark with no booking at all. So if you need an incentive to walk faster, think of having to pitch your tent in the most unwanted dusty and windy place if you arrive late. That said, even the worst place inside a campground will be suitable for a good night rest, so don’t worry too much.

Staying in the dome dorm at Francés was much more comfortable than it looks :)

Our dusty tent pitched at Paine Grande campsite

Food

Scattered along the trek refugios give you full flexibility with your dining options, from carrying all the food and snacks with you, to splashing out and having three meals a day at the refugios. We decided to split it in half. There is no freeze-dried food in the outdoor shops in Chile or Argentina, so bring your own, or you’ll have to survive on macaroni-and-cheese from a supermarket in Punta Arenas.

Most of the refugios have special kitchen areas, where you can safely light your stove, cook and eat, and clean your dishes afterwards. There are also shops where you can buy snacks, and in one of them we spotted freeze-dried food packs, which was surprising, because we haven’t seen them even in the outdoor shops.

If you opt for eating at a refugio, you still have several options: you can buy just one meal, or half-board (dinner and breakfast), or full-board (dinner, breakfast, and a lunch to go, usually a sandwich with some other snacks and juice). This is usually pre-ordered when you are booking the accommodation.

Nothing would trump wet oreos and a cup of tea diluted with rain after a long hiking day.

There are lots of berries to snack on during the summer hike. These are my favourites, they taste like tiny apples.

Price

Everything in Torres del Paine is quite expensive, so try to think of it this way: how much would you pay to get rid of a couple of kilos of food and cooking appliances? to sleep soundly, without hearing your neighbour’s tent flapping on the wind? to be able to simply get up and go, without packing your wet tent in the morning? For us the answer was: not much. If you are thinking the same, start booking campsites early. Some campings are fully booked even two months in advance.

Don’t forget to bring cash from Puerto Natales for the entrance fee and ferry ticket! The entrance to the park costs 35000 pesos ($44), if you are going to stay for more than three days (and you should!). If you have Chilean passport, you’ll enjoy much lower prices throughout the park, but in that case you are unlikely to read my blog, so I’ll show the prices for foreigners here. If you are coming by bus from Puerto Natales, it will cost $12-15 to get to Torres del Paine, and same for return.

There are only three companies running the refugios and campsites on the half circuit W route.
CONAF is some kind of governmental company, which runs campsite Italiano. Their camping is free and the bookings are gone fast, so this is the first one to check.
Vertice runs refugios Grey and Paine Grande.
Fantastico Sur owns refugios Frances, Los Cuernos, Chileno, and Las Torres. However, at the moment I don’t see any possibility to book Frances or Chileno through their website. Maybe they will fix it later, meanwhile you can communicate with them via email.
Previously mentioned Camping Pehoe is accessible by road and is used mostly by trailers and car owners. They have lovely covered shelters for tents, which one starts to appreciate after enduring Patagonian winds for a couple of weeks. It is not on W trek, which doesn’t mean you are not welcomed there.

Approximate prices of two companies running refugios and campings on W and O trek in Torres del Paine national park

Getting there and away

There are two airports where you can start: Punta Arenas and El Calafate, both are 250-350 km away from Torres del Paine. If you are travelling from Chile, most likely you will fly to Punta Arenas. We were coming from Argentinian side of Patagonia, having spent a nice week around El Calafate. Wherever you start, after the flight you have to take a bus to Puerto Natales, the gate town for Torres del Paine national park. Our journey from El Calafate took approximately 5 hours, including border control.

There are a few buses a day that go from Puerto Natales bus station to Torres del Paine. They stop at the national park entrance and wait for all the passengers to pay the entrance fee and fill out all the forms. It is better to book your ticket early, especially for the morning buses.

If you want to do W in an eastward direction, take a ferry from Pudeto to Paine Grande to begin your hike from there. There is a bus stop at Pudeto, so you can get off the bus and go straight to the ferry. At the other end of the trek take a bus from Hotel las Torres to reach Laguna Amarga, where you can catch a bus to Puerto Natales.