Forests & Glacier Peaks of Patagonia

Day 1 – Arrival in Puerto Natales, Chile

¡Bienvenida! Your touchdown in Puerto Natales marks the end of what’s probably been one hefty journey right to the end of the world. Who wants to hang around the airport after that? No one. That’s who. So, there’ll be a driver ready and waiting to whisk you across town to your hotel for a freshen up and a chill. It’s sure to be an exciting afternoon, too, as your fellow Camino Women join you, one by one. The whole group will finally gather for a meet and greet sealed with plenty of hearty Patagonian foodies.

Accommodation: Hotel the Veat, Puerto Natales, Chile
Included: Dinner

Day 2 – Enter the Torres del Paine National Park

Patagonia wastes zero time introducing itself. The impression is first made in the town of Puerto Natales itself, but once your group hits the road leading north, the landscapes become, simply, sublime. You’ll see ice caps reflected in fjords, and feel minuscule as the silhouette of the Andes approaches. Told you this was the end of the world!

Sadly – and we don’t often say that when it comes to transfers! – the drive is only 1.5 hours long. The good news is that the destination is just as cinematic as the trip in. You’ll step out of the vehicle and find yourself at Seno Obstrucción, welcomed to the Mandala Retreat Center, with Patagonia’s wild beauty already working its magic.

At Camino Women, we firmly believe in gentle ease-ins, which is why we’ve lined up a grounding start to the trip here. The group splits into two: one group does stretching and yoga, while the other does forest bathing (then they swap). It’s a shortie, just a few hours on an undulating trail through the forests. Your local guide leads the way so you won’t actually get lost, but be ready to lose yourself in another way: In the rhythms and tempos of Mother Nature herself.

Then it’s time to continue on into Torres del Paine National Park. You’ll step out of the vehicle and find yourself gazing head-on at the Torres del Paine, Chile’s most iconic mountain range. Settle in to your tear-drop shaped tent – your base camp for the next four nights – those rugged peaks just outside your door. Nice.

Accommodation: Chile Nativo Riverside Camp, Torres del Paine NP, Chile
Included: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 3 – Salto Grande and the Aonikenk Trail

Warning: Gentle ease-ins are now over. You’re onto the serious hiking phase of this adventure and you’ll clock up about seven hours on the trail today.

It’s broken into two. First, you’ll transfer through gorgeous country to the trailhead at Pudeto, where you’ll enter a strange world of Pre-Andean scrubland. Stand in awe above the gushing waters of Salto Grande Waterfall as it rolls between two teal-blue lakes. Then stand in even more awe before the granite spires of Los Cuernos – they look more like sculptures than natural mountain peaks!

The second hike of the day is a touch longer. You’ll need to hitch another transfer to the trailhead, and then join the route that links Sarmiento Lake to the Laguna Amarga. It’s not hard-going but you should take it slow – the abundance of wildlife won’t spot itself! This part of the park is legendary for its guanacos, strange South American ostriches, and pumas (keep every finger you’ve got crossed that we spot one of those!).

Accommodation: Chile Nativo Riverside Camp, Torres del Paine NP, Chile
Included: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 4 – French Valley

We know Patagonia will already have left you speechless in awe. But what if we said that there was a secret, hidden corner of the Torres del Paine that takes the meaning of epic to all new and dizzying heights. Welcome to the French Valley, where the mountains lurch like cathedrals, the rivers run milky blue, and glaciers roll like ribbons between the forests.

We hope that’s whet the appetite because you’ll need some motivation to get there – the hike in is an eight-hour romp on rock-speckled terrain that begins with a catamaran transfer across an alpine lake. It’s no easy feat, but rest assured, your trekking guides will be at hand every step of the way, as will your supporting crew of Camino Women.

We won’t even attempt to sum up what the views are like at the end of the hike – that’s something you’ll need to see for yourself.

Accommodation: Chile Nativo Riverside Camp, Torres del Paine NP, Chile
Included: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 5 – Grey Glacier and Condor Lookout

Breakfast done and dusted, it’s time to get acquainted with the Grey Glacier, one of the many tongues of ice that flows down from the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Getting to that spot on the western side of the Torres del Paine will be a real joy.

After a hearty breakfast, the group loads into the vehicle to whiz across the alpine tundra, joins a quick hiking path through woodland, and then boards a boat. The captain will dodge stray icebergs (yes, that does say “icebergs”!) to get you up close to the face of the glacier. If you’re lucky you’ll get to see a calving event – when massive blocks fall from the huge blue wall ahead. It’s a goosebump-inducing experience to say the least.

Lunch comes with a view – naturally. Then a hike up, up, and up some more, to a spot appropriately called the Condor Lookout. Mountains swirl around the horizon, and so do majestic birds of prey with a wingspan of up to three metres!

Accommodation: Chile Nativo Riverside Camp, Torres del Paine NP, Chile
Included: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 6 – Base of the Towers Lookout

Lace the boots well today, folks, you’re about to embark on a 22-kilometre whopper through the very middle of the Torres del Paine massive. No pressure…this is just one of the most iconic hikes in the world! 

You’ll follow a section of the classic W Trek route, which zigzags up into the Ascencio Valley. Smell the wet wood of the low-lying beech forests first, then sense the air get cooler and the wind stronger as the mountains loom above. You’ll gain over 800 meters in altitude before you emerge into a great amphitheatre of mountains. And there they are: Las Torres. You’ll sit below this trio of dagger-like peaks, an icon of Patagonia, meditating and soaking up the sheer wonder of it all.

Keep some energy for the return leg, as it follows the same challenging route back to the base station, where your road transport will whisk you into the relative civilisation of Puerto Natales.

Accommodation: Hotel the Veat, Puerto Natales, Chile
Included: Breakfast and Lunch

Day 7 – Andddd rest….

The Torres del Paine really do live up to their name, so don’t worry if you’re feeling the last five days of hiking in the legs a little! The good news is that you’ve got nothing but well-earned rest and recuperation on the schedule today. Take some time to wander the streets of Puerto Natales, watching for black-necked swans and their cygnets along the waterfront, sipping coffees in the hiker cafes. We do have one little surprise lined up, but it’s less hardcore hiking, more hardcore cooking.

Accommodation: Hotel The Veat, Puerto Natales, Chile
Included: Breakfast and Lunch

Day 8 – Welcome to Argentina!

You’ll wake just as the sun is peeking over the pampas. The group has to get on the road, because there’s a hefty drive of around five hours to get through today. But, remember when we said there’s really no such thing as a boring transfer in Patagonia? Yea…same story here.

It begins with a cruise through the low-lying hills outside of Puerto Natales, before an emotional farewell to our Chilean drivers at the Argentina’s border. But #sadface only lasts a moment, because your Argentine guides are waiting, smiling, and buzzing to show you their incredible corner of the region. The drive continues on through the wild, wild Pampas, a steppe so vast you could fit something like 12 New Zealand North Islands in there and still have room to swing an empanada.

The final destination is El Calafate, a small hiking town that’s named after a native Patagonian berry, but famed for jagged mountains and gleaming glaciers.

Accommodation: Hotel Sierra Nevada, El Calafate, Argentina
Included: Dinner

Day 9 – The Perito Moreno Glacier

Check any bucket list for Argentina and we’ll bet you a whole peso that the Perito Moreno Glacier is somewhere close to the top. That’s why there’s a buzz about the hotel this morning – you’re headed right there, to come face to face with one of the most iconic ice caps in the Southern Hemisphere.

The journey across to it is a wild ride. Strap in for a whizz over the undulating steppe. Then, hop aboard a catamaran to dodge big blocks of ice in a huge lagoon the same colour as the sky. Then, you’re on the hiking paths, moving between gnarled trees that are millennia old. And, finally, you see it: A huge wall of white spurting waterfalls, calving icebergs, and drifting down from summits in the clouds.

It’s a day of gasps, wows, and photo ops.

Accommodation: Hotel Sierra Nevada, El Calafate, Argentina
Included: Breakfast and Lunch

Day 10 – The Petrified Forests

Let’s pause a moment – you’re 10 days into this trip and you’ve faced down glaciers, hiked to hidden valleys under mountains that look like bull horns, and been swooped upon by Andean condors. All that and we still have the fabled Trekking Capital of Argentina (official nickname, by the way) to go!

The journey there is another real expedition across the steppe. Gaze east to see endless grass plains. Gaze west to see the cloud-spiking silhouette of the Andes – they’re still there! Suddenly, the vehicle will stop somewhere along the way and your guide will begin a hike through ancient petrified forests peppered with the bones of dinosaurs. Yep, that does say “dinosaurs!”.

By late afternoon, the group should be settling in at the hotel in El Chalten – fingers crossed there’s still enough light left to see the mighty wall of the Fitz Roy massif lurching above town!

Accommodation: Hosteria Senderos, El Chalten, Argentina
Included: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 11 – Laguna de los Tres

What if we told you that today’s hike involved three different glaciers, a mountain lake that’s so shiny it looks like a mirror, and some of the best views of the whole Fitz Roy massif on offer? Already lacing up the boots? Thought you might be. Just one thing: It’s a 10-hour effort, so bring along plenty of water and all the get-stuff-done energy we’d expect of a Camino Woman!

Truth is, you probably won’t even notice the 22 kilometres of walking – the trail is a real distraction from beginning to end, starting with visions of the wide Rio de Las Vueltas in the valley below, and ending with ice-carved mountains on the roof of the Andes.

Accommodation: Hosteria Senderos, El Chalten, Argentina
Included: Breakfast and Lunch

Day 12 – Laguna Torre

You did awesome yesterday, so pat yourself on the back and prepare for…another 22 kilometres! This one’s not quite as challenging, but it’s just as stunning. It skirts the Fitz Roy River, going through lenga forests and over ancient moraines created by moving sheets of ice. Every now and again, a gasp of amazement will echo out from the group, because, straight ahead, you’ll see the wide face of the Adela Range, with its spires of rock and whiter-than-white snow coverage.

To finish up – and this will be the last big reveal of the whole trip, mind you – you’ll stand head-on to yet another Patagonian glacier, watching as more icebergs fall and drift in the lagoons below it. It’s a place to take stock, hug your hiking companions, and thank Mother Nature for the highs of the trip.

Sure as guanacos eat cactus flowers, your final dinner together is bound to be an emotional business. But it’s that good sort of emotion. You know, the kind where the tears are because you’re laughing or reminiscing about life-changing moments on the trails of the southern Andes. Yep, that kind.

Accommodation: Hotel Sierra Nevada, El Calafate, Argentina
Included: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner

Day 13 – Farewell

There’s no easy way to say this, but the trip is over. It’s been a whirlwind, hasn’t it? Condors, craggy peaks, Argentine pampas, mountains you’ll be seeing in your dreams for months to come – this one’s had the lot. Oh, yea, and new friends for life. It’s had those too. Say your (hopefully temporary) goodbyes, and then head off to the airport with a question that seems simple at first. Which adventure are you off to next?

Included: Breakfast

At the end of the trip, the group transfer to Puerto Natales will be provided. You can choose if you want to go straight to the airport or to spend more time in Puerto Natales.