W Track – Nov 2025

The day finally arrived for us to start the W. To make us feel better about our early pivot the O Circuit was still closed [and as it turned out was closed for several more weeks]. It was a long day – starting with a 5:15am alarm. I’d had to change our bus bookings and had been a bit annoyed I couldn’t get us on the earliest bus (6:45am). With hindsight I should have put us on the latest bus (7:15am). The earliest bus is helpful if you’re just trying to go to Central/Hotel Las Torres, but as we were now heading to Hotel Grey it was of no benefit. This was because less than a busload of people continue on to Lago Grey and so everyone from all of the morning buses gets consolidated into one bus – so we had to wait for the last bus to arrive before we could get going. The road (which we’d driven a couple of days earlier) is windy, corrugated, narrow and dirt – all leading to a very slow trip.

I was hoping since all the passengers were going to Lago Grey that we wouldn’t stop at all the intermediate stops but that wasn’t the case. We even had a longer stop at the Pehoé campground so the bus driver could get his maté. But don’t worry he assured us – it’s South America, you just need to go with the flow… We eventually got to Hotel Grey just on midday (scheduled to arrive 11:30am). We quickly checked in for the ferry and started walking. It’s about 3km from Hotel Grey to the boarding point of the ferry. Unfortunately the rain started about half way there.

The forecast had said rain for the afternoon but it arrived a couple of hours earlier. By the time we got on board we were quite wet. Then once we had the welcome blurb from staff, been given our ‘free’ calafate sour complete with glacier ice, gone on the deck in the rain for photos, retreated back inside… we were already at the Refugio Grey dock. We were slightly less disappointed about missing the sailing next to the glacier given how poor the weather was!

If we’d known how slow check-in was going to be at Grey Campsite we might have hustled off the ferry a little faster. As it was we were probably the last ones to leave the beach (about 10 min walk to camp), and therefore a long way back in the check-in queue. There were plenty of people arriving on foot from Paine Grande so we weren’t at the back of the queue for long. However, it was a pretty inefficient system and we were in the queue for at least 45 minutes.

By 2:30pm we’d made it to the front of the queue, and then been shown to our designated tent. Given the field of tents, and some of the angles they were pitched on we got a pretty good spot. You might be wondering why we opted to go for the pre-erected tents? The demand for overnight spots (whether it’s in the refugios, pre-erected tents, or own tent sites) is incredibly high. In order to get the dates and sites you want you need to book several months in advance. It seems the operators of the campsites release the pre-erected tent offerings first, and only offer the pitch-your-own sites later. So to get the dates you want it’s a gamble to wait for the pitch-your-own sites. Also, as you’ll see from some of the later sites we stayed at – there are no pitch-your-own sites, as the sites are on the side of a hill! Plus, in our case, we had to decide whether we wanted to schlep a tent around South America for 4 months when we’d only be using it for at most about two weeks – and ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the effort.

After a very late lunch we walked out to the Grey Glacier viewpoint. We had hoped to walk further up the track over the various suspension bridges. However, a couple of days before we started the police investigation had decided that section of track needed to be closed – even though the deaths didn’t occur anywhere near this section. So that wasn’t to be. Fortunately the viewpoint we could go to was pretty good (and it had stopped raining).

The facilities at Grey seemed completely disproportionate to the number of people staying there. The cooking room for campers seated 30-40 (depending on the squeeze), asides from that room there were 3 picnic tables under cover and maybe another 5 that weren’t undercover. Given the number of campers that it was capable of taking that meant a lot of people who weren’t able to fit – especially on a night where it was still drizzling on and off. Plus, you’re not meant to cook anywhere other than at the designated areas. We fortunately managed to get an undercover picnic table for our dinner that night!

It poured with rain much of the night and there was a bit of wind. The tent handled it all with ease and our mattresses were  comfortable. It was a relatively short day ahead to Paine Grande so there was no need to get going early. By 9:30am, when we started walking, the rain seemed to have cleared but it was still cloudy and windy.

We got great views of the glacier throughout the morning – though we kept having to turn around to see them.

Somewhat ironically we had lunch off the track next to this sign which seemed to be prohibiting everything! Not that I disagree with most of it.

Shortly after lunch we spotted a family of Caiquen – mum, dad & 5 goslings which were incredibly cute. So many walkers had just marched straight past them without seeing them.

We got to Paine Grande at 2pm, and had a very straight-forward check-in compared to the day before. The facilities were much better than Grey – a much larger dining/cooking hall. The tents were on platforms so less chance of a slope – though Tom complained this made the sleeping overnight harder – can’t please some people!

We got away slightly later than planned (7:55am rather than 7:30am). It took us 2 hours to get to Italiano “Camp” (it’s no longer a camp), where we, and hundreds (?) of others could leave our full packs and proceed with day packs.

It was so nice to have the light weight pack as we took 2h10 to get up to Mirador Britanico (approx. 500m ascent). We pushed fairly hard on the way up, not stopping or taking too many photos. The views from Mirador Francés did make it a worthwhile destination in its own right, and the views throughout the walk were outstanding.

We had lunch at the top at 12:30pm and after an hour started heading back down. We had a more relaxed approach to the descent – having a lot more stops and photos. Looking back over the whole trip, from our perspective, the side-trip to Britanico was the highlight (but only worthwhile in good weather!).

We were back down at the packs just before 4pm. We were clearly some of the last as the pile of bags was decimated compared to when we’d left in the morning and we’d struggled to find somewhere to squeeze our packs!

Loaded back up with our full weight we just had 2km to get to Francés Campsite. When we’d booked the sites we’d been tossing up between Francés or Cuernos for this night. We thought we’d be pretty tired after the long side trip to Brittanico but we were feeling pretty good when we got to Francés and could have kept going. Francés was our first experience of the safari-style tents built onto the hillsides. The first two campsites were run by a different operator and the mattresses were way more comfortable. The ones in the safari-tents were hard and uncomfortable. We’re used to far more primitive conditions, but given we were paying an extortionate amount to camp here, we definitely enjoyed the hot showers.

The landscape was somewhat prohibitive to installing a large dining hall, instead there were small cooking rooms dotted through the campsite. In addition, the cafeteria sold drinks, pizzas and provided the pre-booked meals for those who didn’t want to self-cater. Given the prices of everything else the wine was somewhat reasonably priced so we treated ourselves before retreating to a cooking shelter for our dehy meal.

One definite downside of the campsites nestled on the hill is the bathrooms being a bit of a slog to get back from in the middle of the night!

The safari tents were very dark, which was a plus for actually sleeping in. Given how far south we were the sun was getting up pretty early. After the first couple of days the weather was now settled and, leaving at 8:30am, our first hour to Cuernos was spectacular – completely still lake and lots of surrounding mountains. It was too early to have a break at Cuernos so we pushed on and had morning tea at 10:15am at the last lookout before the track swung away from the mountain views.

We ended up having an early lunch at Rio del Arriero. The bridge was one-way and as you had walkers coming in both directions there were some short queues. The walkers behind Tom were quite impatient and rushing to get across. They ended up jolting the bridge and Tom’s hand rather than grabbing the handhold, had his finger jammed into the wire instead. So, we decided to have lunch by the river so Tom could ice his finger in the glacial water.

The scenery after lunch was mainly rolling hills with a heap of Firebushes. We stopped at a few more creeks for finger-icing and drinks. I didn’t carry any water for the day, just drank at creeks every couple of hours. It was a very sunny and still day – even at Windy Pass.

We got to Chileno campsite about 3:40pm. If we’d thought Francés was vertical then this campsite was even more so. I groaned as we were allocated a tent that was about half way up the hill. It was a bit of an effort to get to it after an 16.5km day (all with full packs). While my brand new boots were keeping my feet lovely and dry, I was suffering in all the ways you’d expect from having non-broken in boots.

No stoves are allowed at Chileno, so you either need to buy dinner from the Refugio or else just use the boiling water which was on tap in the camp kitchen. All the day walkers for Base Torres go through Chileno so it’s not the most relaxing spot. On a nice day, like we had, it was pleasant to sit outside on the picnic tables, but if the weather was poor there was very limited covered space.

Really you’re paying for the location, as it puts you in a good position for hiking up to the Base of the Towers for sunrise. As the sun was rising at 5:30am, and we wanted to be there 45 minutes before that, we concluded we needed to start walking by 2:45am. Given how awful the mattresses were we weren’t too unhappy to not spend the entire night on them. The alarm went off at 2:30am, and we were walking by 2:42am. We quickly overtook lots of people – it was an easy track compared to much of the rest – compacted with no rocks. I guess I’m also somewhat used to walking at night with my rogaining experience. We made very good time – 3:35am at the ranger station (3 of 4km done).

The final 1km is steep and in the dark we inadvertently left the track and ended up in a boulder field. I quite enjoyed the scramble up through the boulders (though I assume it was slower), and we eventually rejoined the track. Not long after that we were at the base of Los Torres at 4:15am. It was already first light and was amazing to be there by ourselves. Twenty minutes later there was a constant trickle of other hikers arriving – probably around 100 people there for sunrise. Fortunately there was a lot of room and it didn’t feel too packed.

We hung around till 6am and then headed back down to Chileno. It was clear why we’d lost the track on our way up – it was largely going up a creek at that point, and not at all obvious.

We were back at Chileno at 7:30am, where we packed up, and then had breakfast. We left a bit after 9am, there were already so many people on the trail who’d walked up from Central/Hotel Los Torres. Little did we know how many more we were going to see! As we started hitting the day trippers who had arrived by bus from Puerto Natales, we counted 600 people in a short space of track.

We were at the Welcome Centre by 10:30am and could have just made the shuttle bus to go to Laguna Amarga. But, given our bus to Puerto Natales was booked at 3pm, we didn’t want to run the risk of not being able to get on an earlier bus. Laguna Amarga was a dust bowl and so we didn’t want to be stuck hanging out there for several hours. The Welcome Centre by contrast had a cafe, gift shop, and some picnic tables in a grassy meadow with nice views. At 2pm we got the shuttle to Laguna Amarga, and then unfortunately the buses to Puerto Natales were running late so we didn’t get on those till 3:30pm, but we were back in Puerto Natales at 5:10pm, only 5 minutes after schedule.

I was pretty happy with the decision to book accommodation only 3 minutes walk from the bus station – both for when we arrived that afternoon, and for the departure the next morning. We had a lovely meal in Puerto Natales and slept incredibly well on a comfortable mattress 🙂

Day	Finish	Km	Total Time / Moving Time	Max Alt (m)	Ascent/Descent (m) per GPS	Route
1	Grey Campsite	7	2h-ish	132	+100/-100	Puerto Natales – Bus – Hotel Grey – Grey Ferry – Grey campsite
2	Paine Grande Campsite	11.3	4h 45 / 3h 30	277	+591/-621	Grey campsite – Paine Grande campsite
3	Francés Campsite	21	9h / 7h	777	+1726/-1616 (dubious??)	Paine Grande Campsite – Mirador Frances & Britanico return – Francés Campsite
4	Chileno Campsite	16.3	7h 30 / 5h 20	473	+1092/-827	Francés campsite – Chileno campsite
5	Central	16.2	8h / 6h	973	+1582/-1881	Chileno campsite – Mirador Las Torres – Central – bus – Puerto Natales