Torres del Paine – 4 days of snow, rain, wind and sun

Getting up quite early the first day, we left Puerto Natales at 7.30 am. Two hours later we arrived at the entry of the Torres del Paine Nationalpark. As the wind was very strong and conditions were quite bad, we had to wait for the second ferry, which should bring us across Lago Pehoe to Refugio Paine Grande, the place where we slept the first night.

After setting up the tent we started with the 11km hike to Refugio Grey where we got some great views of Glaciar Grey. Walking up that valley was quite exhausting as the wind was very strong. In the last daylight we arrived back at our tents and after dinner we went to bed soon. The next day we started with a 8km hike to Camping Italiano at the beginning of Valle Frances. In the afternoon we hiked up the valley where we also got some snow.
The third day we did our longest hike. 16km with the heavy bags along the shores of Lago Nordenskjöld up to Refugio Chileno in Valle Ascencio. Fortunately the weather was good. Some sun and the wind calmed down.
The highlight of this trek was the sunrise at Mirador de los Torres. We got up at 4.30am and arrived two hours later at the Mirador and saw the amazing change of colours. Lucky us, we had hardly any clouds. At 8am we went back to our tents, had some breakfast and finally went down to the base of the valley, where we got picked up from a shuttle, which brought us to Laguna Armaga, the entrance of the national park. In the late afternoon we arrived happy, but exhausted in Puerto Natales.