Torres del Paine trekking inspiration
Torres del Paine has some of the world’s best treks. The W trek and the Circuit Trek are the best known, but BlueGreen Adventures has 25 years’ experience taking travellers off the beaten trails and into the quiet wilderness. Choose from group tours or ask us to design a private tailor-made guided journey.
Snow Shoes Hiking
3 days
Four-day W Trek – Camping
4 days
Semi Circuit Paine Hike
6 days
Lodge to Lodge Active
6 days
Wilderness Explorer
6 days
Paine W Adventure
7 days
Pura Paine Winter Trip
7 days
Torres del Paine Circuit
8 days
Lodge to Lodge
8 days
Winter W Hike
8 days
Torres del Paine hiking highlights
A brief guide to the places we love.
The Paine Massif
At the centre of Torres del Paine National Park is the Paine Massif, a spectacular ice and granite spur of the Patagonian Andes. The Circuit trek loops around it, while the W trek weaves in and out of two deep valleys. Valle Ascencio heads to Las Torres (the Towers) and Valle Francés to a gigantic granite cirque with views of Los Cuernos (the Horns).
Named for their sharp bone-smooth peaks, the Horns were sculpted by glaciers slicing through the pale granite core of a Miocene laccolith, leaving the wind to chisel the darker softer tips.
Southern Patagonia Ice Field
The second largest extra-polar ice mass on the planet, the ice field feeds Torres del Paine’s glaciers, and they in turn, feed the Park’s turquoise lakes and rivers.
Grey Glacier
This is largest glacier in the park. The W Trek will take you to the 40 metre-high (130ft) calving glacier face, while the Circuit Trek also follows its eastern flank, with views all the way to the immense ice field beyond. With Grey glacier retreating at a rate of some 100 metres a year, both routes take trekkers along the frontline of a warming planet.
Grey Glacier with BlueGreen Adventures
We can extend the W Trek with a walk on Grey Glacier followed by a paddle around icebergs in kayaks. Our Blue Ice Trail combines hiking with a horseback ride to the glacier, while our Family multi sport trip will get you there in a boat.
Tyndall Glacier
At 331 km2, Tyndall Glacier is second in size only to mighty Grey Glacier, but it is a quieter option as it’s not on the W or Circuit treks. It flows from the Southern Patagonia Ice Field into Geike Lake, which began forming during the glacier’s retreat in the 1940s. The glacier’s retreat has also revealed marine dinosaur fossilized remains (such as ichthyosaurs).
Lakes
Lakes and rivers in Torres del Paine come in vivid shades of green and blue, intensified by rock flour from glaciers – ‘Paine’ means blue.
Lago Pehoé
Breathtakingly beautiful, Pehoé lake’s intensely turquoise waters are next to a campsite; a luxury hotel (Explora) and a large refugio for hikers, who cross it by Catamaran to reach the start of the W Trek.