Hiking the W-Trek in Patagonia (Chile)
Lying in one of the most southern points of the world are the
impressive Torres del Paine mountains, accessible either on a day hike
or two multi-day hikes (the W- and O-treks). We did the W-trek so we
could fit in time for all the other amazing parts of Chile!
The patagonia trek is definitely worth it on a visit to Chile or South America, but it's difficult to book and tour groups can cost thousands of dollars!
But it's certainly possible to do this on your own and on a very tight budget. Not including our equipment (which we brought ourselves), we did the trek for ~100 USD including bus tickets back and forth from the national park!
Firstly there's three different treks you can do. Tourists who are less inclined to do a multi-day trek can actually take a bus into Torres del Paine (entrance Laguna Amarga, see below for more information on buses) for a day hike to the "mirador" (viewpoint) for the Torres del Paine (which is basically the photo above!).
For the more adventurous, there's two different hikes available. The O-trek and the W-trek. If you're doing it by yourself, you can time the hikes however you like, but in general the O-trek takes 8-10 days and the W-trek half that. Below is a map courtesy of the National Park service of Chile (http://www.parquetorresdelpaine.cl/en/mapa-oficial-1).
The entire trail is a circle with two paths that go inwards at the bottom half o the O (like if you connected the right and left ends of a W with a semi-circle. The O-trek refers to the entire trek with the two paths and the W trek refers to the O-trek minus the top semi-circle.
How to Get in and Out?
To get in and out of the national park, you can book bus tickets online. There's a few different bus services and websites but the company we used was https://www.recorrido.cl/en.
If the plan is to do the W-trek you take a bus into the western entrance of the park ("Terminal Pudeto"), you do the trek, and you end up at the eastern entrance where you leave ("Terminal Laguna Amarga").
If the plan is the O-trek you leave and enter via the same point (usually Laguna Amarga), but could actually be whichever one you prefer.
If you arrive via Terminal Pudeto you also need to book a catamaran to take you across the lake to the starting point Camp Grey.
Where to Stay?
There's a variety of different options. There exists refugios, buildings where you can stay overnight, but these tend to be expensive and may have been booked up by tour groups. You can rent tents available at the sites, or if you're like us, you can bring your own tent and pitch it at every stop!
Organizing camp sites is probably one of the most daunting steps of doing this alone. When booking camp sites, you can look at the above map and pick out different camp sites (three different companies offer camp sites). Essentially you need a booking in order to stay at a camp site, so you need to plan a itinerary accordingly. You should ensure that you plan a reasonable hike each day such that you can safely arrive at every site every night.
There are three companies that provide lodgings on the trail, CONAF (http://www.conaf.cl/), Fantastico Sur (https://www.fantasticosur.com/), or Vertice Patagonia (https://www.verticepatagonia.cl/home).
In general if you aren't a fan of roughing it, I would advise avoiding the CONAF sites as they often have a lot less facilities than Vertice and Fantastico.
Many self-planners run into difficulties at this stage. Each of the companies have a website but sometimes people run into problems being able to book all the campsites they need. The key here is to call them! Each of the websites have contact numbers and if you call those numbers there's an agent on the other side that can help you manually book the sites (sometimes there are just bugs on the sites that lead to the problems).
What do Pack?
Depends on what you're planning to do. We decided to bring everything (tent, sleeping bags, food, cook ware, etc). But if we could go back, we'd probably have brought food for 3/4 of the meals and left some room to buy meals at the refugios (some of them have restaurants, and after a long day of hiking a cold beer and a non-powdered real food sound amazing!).
Weather is the primary challenge of the hike, so I'd recommend ensuring you pack properly for it (depending on the season). A good rain jacket is a must. We found it got so rainy that having a rain cover for your backpack was of limited use, we actually brought a bunch of plastic garbage bags and simply put all our belongings inside plastic bags inside our backpack.
The Best for Last... Highlights of the Hike!
View of the Final Torres del Paine Mirador!
The patagonia trek is definitely worth it on a visit to Chile or South America, but it's difficult to book and tour groups can cost thousands of dollars!
But it's certainly possible to do this on your own and on a very tight budget. Not including our equipment (which we brought ourselves), we did the trek for ~100 USD including bus tickets back and forth from the national park!
Firstly there's three different treks you can do. Tourists who are less inclined to do a multi-day trek can actually take a bus into Torres del Paine (entrance Laguna Amarga, see below for more information on buses) for a day hike to the "mirador" (viewpoint) for the Torres del Paine (which is basically the photo above!).
For the more adventurous, there's two different hikes available. The O-trek and the W-trek. If you're doing it by yourself, you can time the hikes however you like, but in general the O-trek takes 8-10 days and the W-trek half that. Below is a map courtesy of the National Park service of Chile (http://www.parquetorresdelpaine.cl/en/mapa-oficial-1).
The entire trail is a circle with two paths that go inwards at the bottom half o the O (like if you connected the right and left ends of a W with a semi-circle. The O-trek refers to the entire trek with the two paths and the W trek refers to the O-trek minus the top semi-circle.
How to Get in and Out?
To get in and out of the national park, you can book bus tickets online. There's a few different bus services and websites but the company we used was https://www.recorrido.cl/en.
If the plan is to do the W-trek you take a bus into the western entrance of the park ("Terminal Pudeto"), you do the trek, and you end up at the eastern entrance where you leave ("Terminal Laguna Amarga").
If the plan is the O-trek you leave and enter via the same point (usually Laguna Amarga), but could actually be whichever one you prefer.
If you arrive via Terminal Pudeto you also need to book a catamaran to take you across the lake to the starting point Camp Grey.
Where to Stay?
There's a variety of different options. There exists refugios, buildings where you can stay overnight, but these tend to be expensive and may have been booked up by tour groups. You can rent tents available at the sites, or if you're like us, you can bring your own tent and pitch it at every stop!
Organizing camp sites is probably one of the most daunting steps of doing this alone. When booking camp sites, you can look at the above map and pick out different camp sites (three different companies offer camp sites). Essentially you need a booking in order to stay at a camp site, so you need to plan a itinerary accordingly. You should ensure that you plan a reasonable hike each day such that you can safely arrive at every site every night.
There are three companies that provide lodgings on the trail, CONAF (http://www.conaf.cl/), Fantastico Sur (https://www.fantasticosur.com/), or Vertice Patagonia (https://www.verticepatagonia.cl/home).
In general if you aren't a fan of roughing it, I would advise avoiding the CONAF sites as they often have a lot less facilities than Vertice and Fantastico.
Many self-planners run into difficulties at this stage. Each of the companies have a website but sometimes people run into problems being able to book all the campsites they need. The key here is to call them! Each of the websites have contact numbers and if you call those numbers there's an agent on the other side that can help you manually book the sites (sometimes there are just bugs on the sites that lead to the problems).
What do Pack?
Depends on what you're planning to do. We decided to bring everything (tent, sleeping bags, food, cook ware, etc). But if we could go back, we'd probably have brought food for 3/4 of the meals and left some room to buy meals at the refugios (some of them have restaurants, and after a long day of hiking a cold beer and a non-powdered real food sound amazing!).
Weather is the primary challenge of the hike, so I'd recommend ensuring you pack properly for it (depending on the season). A good rain jacket is a must. We found it got so rainy that having a rain cover for your backpack was of limited use, we actually brought a bunch of plastic garbage bags and simply put all our belongings inside plastic bags inside our backpack.
The Best for Last... Highlights of the Hike!
View of Glacier Grey near our Start Point!
One Scary Looking Bridge, especially with a 30 pound backpack
Mirador Britanico!
Another View ...
The Last Stretch Before the Final Campsite
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