Hiking aficionados will, sooner or later, come across The W Trek in Torres del Paine National Park – one of the most popular treks in Chile. This 5 day trek covers most of the park’s highlights including, among others, the Valle del Francés, which is often rated as the best landscape in the park.
I’d like to say that I did the complete W Trek – but I didn’t.
Instead, we stayed at one of the few hotels in the area and took day excursion to explore the different branches of the Trek. Was I lazy? Maybe – but I couldn’t really consider it part of my annual vacation leave if I had to return to the office with a damaged back, right?
Valle del Francés (or Frenchman´s Valley) is the central spike of the W, starting at Lago Pehoe towards the north east. Soon after departing from the Refugio Paine Grande, which was conveniently located next to the lakeshore, we could already admire the majestic Cuernos del Paine in front of us.
After an almost leisurely walk with easy paths and only minor ups and downs, we reached a suspension bridge over Río Francés. Even though this bridge was not as impressive in height and length as the one I crossed over the Massa River in Switzerland, the view over the raging river, the mountains and glacier definitely made up for that bit.
When crossing the bridge, we could get a 360º View over many of the park’s attractions: turquoise blue lakes to the right, the Cuernos del Paine to the front, Glaciar Francés to the left and Paine Grande to the back.
Waking up at 6:30am already became worth it!
Once on the other side, we arrived at the Campamento Italiano, a simple (but therefore free of charge!) campsite in the park. From here on, day hikers are advised to continue up north as much as they want (there’s meant to be a beautiful viewpoint another 2 hours away from this point), always keeping in mind the departure of the last ferry back to the other side of Lake Pehoe.
Since our group was mixed in age and level of fitness, we all decided to continue up the river for another 20 minutes and find an exclusive spot to enjoy our lunch with a first class view of Glaciar Francés and take our time to explore the area.
We wanted to postpone our time to return as much as possible – It just felt too good to sit on a warm flat stone, getting some color on our skins while cooling down our feet in glacial water. However, when the time had come to catch the last ferry of the day, we were surprised by a breathtaking view of Lake Pehoe (no Photoshop for this one, I swear!).
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
The pictures are amazing and do justice to the place: rough, unexplored and amazing!
I didn’t complete the W either, too much logistic involved (gotta book the shelters ahead and all). Just hiked to the three towers and that was worth it!
Oh you hiked to Base Torre I guess… I loved that one too (should be posting about it soon)!
wow- no matter what version of the trek you did, the outcome and rewards are gorgeous. I can’t believe how crystal clear everything is.
I think most of the people in the park did the complete W Trek, and we might have decided to do so too if we had some more time… I’m sure it’s worth it too!
This looks so refreshing! I am sick of winter in Canada. Just when I thought it was gone, it starts to snow again and all my jogging/hiking plans go out the window!
I am blown away with the amazing mountains and such interesting colours/layers of rock.
Thanks for sharing and glad I found your blog!
The Wanderfull Traveler
(i posted again because my blog e-mail was wrong sorry!)
Hi Murissa, thanks for your kind words, I’m glad you enjoyed the post! It’s still quite wintery here in London, too… so it’s really refreshing to go through these pictures from Patagonia!
I heard this is the most beautiful part of the W circuit. Great photos! Looks like you had perfect weather.
Everyone told us how lucky we were with the weather… from 5 days in only rained a couple of hours, really rare.
This photos are absolutely stunning. They’re made me so excited for spring when I can get out and about in the countryside again, although I’m not sure I’ll find anything this beautiful in the UK.
I just got a book for 52 country walks around London.. which I hope to start seeing soon, you should come join some time!
A day excursion seems fine to me!! Looks lovely though- that last photo makes it all worth it!
{ 1 trackback }