The W-trek is the most popular multiple-day hike in Torres del Paine National Park. While it’s not as complete as the O-circuit, it’s a great alternative for people who don’t have the time for the O, or for whom a 5-day hike is challenging enough. It’s still a long hike in the mountains, and a very popular one, meaning this hike does require some preparation. This is why I wrote this extensive guide which includes everything you need to know about hiking the W-trek in Torres del Paine National Park.
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Table of Contents - Everything you need to know about hiking the W-trek in Torres del Paine
Orientation
What is the W-trek
The W-trek is a 5-day hike (on average) passing by the main viewpoints of Torres del Paine National Park: Grey Glacier, Frances, Brittanico and Las Torres. Getting to and from these viewpoints means you have to backtrack some parts of the trail, which gives it a W-shape. Hence the name.
The official website of Torres del Paine has a great map available, where you can perfectly see the W-shape of the trek.
How many days is the W-trek in Torres del Paine
The standard time to complete the W-trek is 5 days. But you can make alterations and do it in 4 days by skipping a viewpoint or take it easy and do it in 6. You might want to consider this if you want to do extra activities at Glacier Grey (I will get to this later).
Is the W-trek worth it?
Yes, absolutely. Torres del Paine is an amazing National Park and you should spend as much time there as you can. I actually recommend doing the O-circuit if you can, but if a 5-day hike is enough for you, the W-trek is definitely worth it as well.
If you have doubts whether the W-trek really is the right option for you, you can refer to my comparison between the O-trek, W-trek and day trips in Torres del Paine.
Know before you go
Before you start to plan your hike, there are a few important things you need to know in advance:
- Due to its popularity, the cheaper accommodation options book out very quickly. This makes it almost impossible to do this hike last-minute. Especially in January and February, the most popular months in Patagonia in general.
- Weather changes quickly in the mountains, so it’s important to be prepared for everything. Even in summer, it can get cold and rainy. Therefore it’s important to have the right gear. especially when you want to do a multiple-day hike like the W-trek. This means either buying equipment in Chile, bringing it with you on your trip, or renting it in Puerto Natales.
- Torres del Paine National Park is one of the most popular destinations in all of Chile. While I absolutely loved the hike and would recommend it to every hiking enthusiast, it is important to know that it is quite a commercial and busy hike.
- You can hike the W-trek in both directions, so you will need to decide whether you want to start with the Grey Glacier and end with Las Torres, or the other way around.
Planning the W-trek in Torres del Paine
Booking your accommodation
There are several ways to book your accommodation. The two most popular are booking directly with the campsites, or booking with Booking Patagonia Travel. I chose to book directly with the owners of the campsites, since I’m a bit of a control freak and I like to know exactly what I am booking. Booking Patagonia offers different packages based on current availability at the different campsites. Since booking with them saves a lot of hassle and puzzling, they have quickly become a popular way to book accommodation. In order to keep all the information organized, I have explained the booking process in detail in this How to book campsites for Torres del Paine article.
Getting the right gear
Firstly, you will need to decide whether you want to bring gear you already have, buy gear just for the hike and sell it after, or rent gear in Puerto Natales.
If Patagonia is your only destination for this trip and you have good gear, the choice is easy: bring it!
If Patagonia is part of a longer trip in South America, you will have to keep in mind that if you want to bring your own gear and keep it. This means extra weight you will be taking with you on your whole trip. This is what I do though, and while my backpack is a little bigger and heavier than that of the average traveler, I’m very happy to always have what I need with me. But this is a choice everyone will need to make for themselves.
You can also choose to buy things and sell them when you don’t need them anymore. This is a great option if you don’t want to take the extra weight with you once you leave Patagonia. Do note that you will need to calculate some extra time to sell your things in this case and that this will be easier if you travel earlier in the season.
There are also many rental places in Puerto Natales which rent gear. This is the more expensive option, but the easiest if you don’t want to buy or bring gear.
Of course, you can also mix and match, taking things that will come in handy throughout your trip, and renting a tent for example, which you might not use anymore.
Last preparations before you start hiking the W-trek
Puerto Natales or Punta Arenas
Puerto Natales is the gateway to Torres del Paine and most people leave from here. It is the closest town, so the most convenient place to leave from. But it’s a relatively expensive place. Punta Arenas is a city only 2 hours from Puerto Natales, and a cheaper place to buy last-minute things, and flights to Punta Arenas are generally also a lot cheaper than to Puerto Natales. So you might want to consider either leaving from Punta Arenas, or pass by here and only spend one night in Puerto Natales before you start your hike.
If you need to rent things for your hike, Puerto Natales has more options. If you want to buy, Punta Arenas is just as good, or even better than Puerto Natales, depending on the things you need.
You can buy all the food for your hike in Puerto Natales, but if you want more specialized options, you have more options in Punta Arenas.
Buy your National Park pass
It is not possible to buy the National Park pass on the spot. You have to buy it in advance, which you can do on the official website. Make sure to save your QR code on your phone as soon as you have bought the ticket. There is no internet or phone reception at the park entrance, so you won’t be able to retrieve your booking there.
Buy your bus tickets
There are several companies that sell tickets in the terminal. We bought our tickets at the Bus Sur office in Punta Arenas, but you can buy tickets online as well. Do buy a retour ticket, as it’s cheaper and there is no ticket office to buy tickets at the National Park entrance and no internet to book online either.
Pack your bag
Packing your bag for the W-trek is pretty similar to packing your bag for any other multiple day hike in the mountains. So in order to not repeat myself over and over again, you can refer to this packing list for multiple day treks in the mountains.
You can be a little more stingy with food on this hike, as you can buy food at the campsites or even get complete meals included. The meals are generally very expensive though, but you can buy a pack of pasta, instant noodles, sauce, tuna etc. at the kiosks at the campsites if you do run out of food.
As for camping gear, you can opt for staying at huts at several campsites, or rent equipped tents, meaning you won’t have to bring your own camping gear. But this is also very expensive and budget travelers will need to bring their own.
W-trek in Torres del Paine itinerary
As I mentioned before, you can hike the W-trek in both directions: From Grey to Las Torres, or the other way around. Both directions are good options.
Unless you’re staying at Chileno, I think starting at Grey is a little more beneficial. If you’re starting with a night at Central, you’ll either just set up camp and hike up the next day, or start at the same time as all the day trippers and be a little pushed for time. Therefore I will write this itinerary from West to East (Grey to Central).
Day 1: Puerto Natales to Grey
Today starts with some traveling. The most common way is taking the bus to Pudeto, from where you’ll need to take the ferry. The ferry ride takes about 30 minutes, check the current schedule in advance. The ferry will take you to Paine Grande. From here you will need to hike to Grey. This hike is about 11 km and takes 3-4 hours. The closer you get to the Grey campsite, the nicer the views become.
Another option is taking the boat from Hotel Grey directly to the Grey campsite. While more scenic (it’s actually a tour, but you can hop off at the Grey campsite), it’s also more expensive. Be aware that not all departures visit the glacier before dropping passengers off at the Grey campsite, so make sure to book one that does if you’re going for this option.
Once you’ve arrived at the campsite, check in and settle in. If you arrive in time, I recommend heading over to the viewpoint close to the campsite, from where you can see the front of the Glacier.
Grey campsite
The Grey campsite consists of different sections. One being more comfortable than the other. But since we arrived rather late, the good section was already full. Our section wasn’t so bad, it was just very uneven. But since we have inflatable mats it wasn’t so bad.
There is a cooking shelter available, hot showers and of course toilets. You can charge batteries outside of reception, or ask the staff in the kiosk if they are full.
Day 2: Grey to Paine Grande
In the morning you can hike to more viewpoints over glacier Grey. Leave your camping gear at the campsite, you can pick them up when you hike to Paine Grande.
Follow the trail to the hanging bridges. You want to hike to the second hanging bridge, to get the best possible views over the glacier on the W-trek. The hike is about 6 km return and takes about 2.5 hours.
Or, for a completely different experience, you can also opt for a glacier hike and walk on the Grey Glacier itself. Enquire at the reception of the Grey campsite if you’re interested in this activity.
Once back, you can have lunch at the campsite before making your way to Paine Grande. This leg takes about 3-4 hours.
Paine Grande campsite
Paine Grande offers both platforms and grass to pitch your rent. As long as there is availability you can choose. The cooking area and dining room are separated, you’re not allowed to cook at the tables. This makes it a little less comfortable and less cozy compared to the other campsites. The dining room is huge though, so more space for more people. There are plugs here too, but they also fill up quickly. The hot showers and toilets are located in a separate building.
The restaurant here offers a simple buffet dinner at the best value you’ll find on the trek. So if there is one day you won’t be cooking, make it today. Food at the kiosk is also slightly cheaper compared to other campsites, so if you forgot something, this is the best place to buy.
Day 3: Paine Grande to Frances + Mirador Britanico.
The first part of today is quite easy: hiking to the former Italiano campsite. The trail will split at some point, and here you can go either left or right. The path to your right is officially the correct way to take when hiking from Paine Grande to Frances. The path on the left is officially the path to take when hiking in the other direction. This wasn’t made very clear though, and people were hiking in both directions.
The hike to Italiano is about 8 km. While the campsite is no longer in use, you can leave your luggage here when hiking to the viewpoint. You don’t want to be hiking up with your stuff.
From Italiano, it’s 2.5 km one way to the Frances viewpoint and 5.5 km to Britanico. Even if you don’t have the time or energy to hike to Frances or Britanico, I recommend still going to the unofficial lookout. You’ll see an area with big rocks from where you have an amazing view over the Frances glacier. Then you can decide whether you want to hike 2.5 km uphill to the Frances Mirador. From here you’ll see the glacier from closer and higher up. It’s another 3 km uphill to the Britanico viewpoint, from where you’ll have a beautiful view of the mountains. The viewpoint closes at 4 pm and a ranger will start to send people down at that time, so don’t start your hike too late!
Cooking lunch – If you really want to cook your lunch, you can also continue to Frances instead of dropping your luggage at Italiano and have lunch there. The reception doesn’t open until after 2 pm though and since you’ll need to pitch your tent on a platform, you’ll need to wait until after the check-in to pitch your tent. We hoped to be able to pitch our tent already, so we could hop right in after a long and tiring day, but that didn’t work out that way. But at least we had a nice hot lunch before starting this demanding hike.
It did add a little extra distance to the hike and my tracker was showing just over 27 km for today, so it was quite a big day with lots of elevation gain and loss.
Frances campsite
The Frances campsite was by far my least favorite. It’s built on a steep slope in the forest and after a long and tiring day the last thing you want to do is having to keep going up and down. We had one of the upper platforms, making it even worse. Especially since the building with the showers and toilets is all the way down. There are several small cooking areas instead of one big one and luckily we had one close to our tent. But we still had to go all the way down to wash the dishes.
Day 4: Frances to Central
The hike between Frances and Central is quite an easy one. There is a hill at the beginning and other than that there are small ups and downs. The hike is about 14 km and with 6 days of tiredness adding up, the hike felt tougher than it actually was. I had to think twice when Miguel called me over to the hill where he was standing. But he seemed very excited so I went over and we saw a Guanaco! Surprisingly, this was the very first, and last, guanaco we saw in Torres del Paine. There used to be many in the area of Central. But with the huge numbers of tourists passing by every day and more hotels popping up, they have been driving out of this area.
Central campsite
One of the best things about the Central campsite is that it’s big. There is plenty of space available and also a few showers and toilets. Other pluses are that you’ll get a welcome drink and if the sky is clear you get to see the iconic towers from the campsite.
The restaurant was full of people, but we had plenty of space in one of the cooking shelters. Plugs are rare, if the ones outside the reception are full, ask the people working there. They might have a space inside, or check at the restaurant when having your drink.
As at the campsites there is a small kiosk at reception as well where we bought some well deserved chocolate. This was going to be our threat at the towers tomorrow!
Day 5 - Base Torres
The hike to Base Torres from Central is about 10 km one way. So if you have booked the 3 pm bus, you will need to hike up for sunrise. If you booked the 8 pm bus, or will be spending another night, you can go later too. Don’t leave it until too late though, as it often gets cloudy in the afternoon and at 4 pm a ranger will start to send people down.
We had booked the 8 pm bus to be on the safe side but still wanted to do the sunrise. The forecast was not so good though, so we decided to just see what the weather was like at 4 am. Since it was super cloudy, we zipped the tent up again and went back to sleep.
When we got out of the tent around 8 am, it had completely cleared up and the towers were beautifully lit up by the rising sun! Oh well… I have to say I did really need those extra hours of sleep, so it was hard to be mad about that. And I still loved the viewpoint, also later in the day.
We started our hike at about 8 am when fewer people start. At this time the day trippers haven’t arrived yet and most campers go up for sunrise, so that was nice too. I’m saying relatively, as there were still a lot of people. This is the busiest trail in Torres del Paine after all.
The first 3 km are quite steep, but then it flattens out a bit more with smaller ups and some downs. Until you get to the last kilometer, which is very steep. But then it’s only 1 more kilometer and if you made it this far, you can do the last km too! Enjoy a nice break and snack at the top. Take in the beautiful landscape and reflect on the amazing hike you just completed. Or almost completed. But the way down is quite easy, the hardest bit will be passing other hikes who might still be coming up.
Back to Puerto Natales
The bus to Puerto Natales leaves from the park entrance, which is quite a walk away. But there are shuttle buses (4.000 CLP at the time of writing, cash only) which will take you there directly from the Central section, behind the restaurant. There is no need to book these in advance.
If you end up being ready to leave earlier than your booked ticket for the bus to Puerto Natales, you can still make your way. If there is space on the bus, you’ll be able to hop on an earlier bus. Or you can just chill at the Central campsite and enjoy lunch and a shower before heading back.