Traveling to Torres del Paine

Day One — Get My Pass, Reach the Park, See Some Wildlife

I had flown to Punta Arenas and picked up a rental car. Then I drove north about three and a half hours, through Puerto Natales and then another 60 kilometers north to Cerro Castillo. I knew that I needed a national park pass, but I didn't know how to get it. My innkeeper helped me that first evening.

You purchase your national park pass at www.pasesparques.cl. For foreign visitors, the prices are US$ 35 for up to three days, US$ 50 for four or more days. You pay in Chilean Pesos, of course, but it seems that they adjust the price to track those US$ amounts.

They send you your pass as an image that you can show on your phone at the ranger station at the park entrance.

It's 60 kilometers up Highway 9 from Puerto Natales to Cerro Castillo. The highway arrives at a roundabout at the south edge of town, next to a Carabineros post. To the right, there's a border control gate for the nearby border with Argentina. Halfway around and straight ahead takes you to the second roundabout overlooking the town. Three-quarters of the way around and off to the west, Highway 9 continues.

Right after breakfast on my first morning there, I started out in my rental car. Up to the edge of town and onto Highway 9, heading west.

That stretch of Highway 9 was brand-new during my visit in October 2024. 30 kilometers northwest of Cerro Castillo, the Y-150 road turns off to the west. That immediately became 15 kilometers of gravel road parallelling what soon would be a nice concrete highway toward the park entrance. Then it was onto Y-156, paved but older, for another 10 kilometers.

That brought me to Amarga, which is a named location but not a village. There are some park service buildings there, including where you need to stop to check in with the rangers.

To The Park

The new Highway 9 has a broad and smooth concrete surface and full emergency or breakdown lanes. Remains of the temporary gravel road remain.

Here's the turn off Highway 9 onto Y-150. I have pulled off the highway just past the intersection, looking slightly back over the intersection and into the park.

This page has a collection of pictures from different days. However, even within one day the scenery changes rapidly from place to place and over time. There are many microclimates in and around the park, and most of them change rapidly through a typical day as strong winds blow down off the Southern Patagonian Ice Field.

The first 15 kilometers of Y-150 were under construction when I visited, I drove on the temporary gravel road parallelling the new one.

Half-way through that 15-kilometer stretch of Y-150, the road passes the east end of Lago Sarmiento. The temporary gravel road crossed to the opposite side of the new road.

Larger Wildlife

Signs along the new Y-150 warned of larger animals. The first was about Darwin's rhea or the lesser rhea, Rhea pennata to the ornithologists. It's a large flightless bird found in the Antiplano and Patagonia.

The lesser rhea is large, standing about a meter tall with long legs and a long neck. Yes, there's a greater rhea and it's even bigger. But they live well to the northeast of here, in Argentina and beyond.

The local rhea can run at speeds up to 60 km/h, and if cornered, the claws on its toes are formidable weapons against predators.

Unfortunately, Chile has no coyotes to really test the running ability of the rhea.

Chile does have a variety of foxes, known locally as zorro. They're not true foxes, but a canid genus unique to southern South America. Some of them resemble true foxes due to convergent evolution, but they're more closely related to wolves and jackals.

I saw a sign a short distance further along warning of, um, glyptodonts? No, not any more, but the related large armadillos still found in this area.

The glyptodonts reached up to 1.5 meters in height, weighing up to 2 tonnes. Some had clubbed tails similar to ankylosaurid dinosaurs.

The glyptodonts arose in South America in the late Eocene, around 38 million years ago. They spread to North America after the Isthmus of Panama formed around 2.7 million years ago and connected the continents.

The glyptodonts and most other large animals in the Americas quickly went extinct about 12,000 years ago in what is called the Late Pleistocene extinction event. Debate continues as to the relative importance of over-hunting by the newly arrived humans versus climatic changes. Only their relatively small cousins the armadillos remain, some of them being road hazards in this area.

Another sign warned of the guanaco.

Guanaco are all over. Fences that keep sheep within grazing areas are a simple hop for a guanaco.

The guanaco and the vicuña are the wild camelids of South America. The llama and alpaca are the domesticated ones. It was long thought that guanacos were domesticated into llamas, and vicuñas into alpacas, but recent genetic studies have shown that it isn't that simple.

Guanacos stand up to 1.3 meters tall at the shoulder, weighing 90–140 kg, and are also fast runners, moving at up to 65 km/h. Unlike the domesticated llamas, guanacos are all similarly colored — light brown to dark cinnamon with white underneath.

They're very attractive animals, and they seem to pose along the road to show off for visitors.

"Make sure to get my profile!"

Guanacos graze on plants, lichen, and fungi. They live at altitudes up to 4,000 meters further to the north in South America. Their blood is rich in red blood cells, enabling them to thrive at high altitudes. But in Patagonia, ice covers the vegetation at those altitudes. Their soft wool is prized for its warmth, and is used to produce luxury fabrics.

"Look at meeeeee!"

The ranger station had further wildlife warnings.

Should you punch a puma in the face?

If necessary, yes, but it's best to avoid needing to do that.

Entering the Park

Continuing toward the park, Y-150 and Y-156 split. Follow the signs to the park entrance, on Y-156. It runs around Laguna Amarga. On some days there is a spectacular view from here. On days like this, you can only see that there are some peaks ahead of you, extending up into the low clouds.

Amarga is a cluster of estancia buildings, some function as lodging for visitors.

You arrive at the gate, the entrance into the park. Pull through and park to the left, get out and talk to the rangers.

They will ask you where you are planning to go. Some areas may be closed due to sustained winds above 80 km/h. There will some areas you can only go in the company of a guide. For others there are time limits, you need to be on your way by a certain time.

Torres del Paine on a Dark and Wet Day

On my first day in the park I had plenty of time to make sure that I had my national park pass, and to find my way to the entrance. It was sort of a warm-up in bad weather for my real visit.

The day was very dark and wet. I enjoyed doing and seeing what I could, but I could tell that there would be so much more with better weather. Below is the view from about 300 meters elevation looking toward some peaks extending up to almost 2,700 meters. But all that was visible was the lowest snow-covered area plus some hints of the slopes continuing up to the much higher peaks.

Give yourself multiple days in the park. With the microclimates and rapid changes, there is no way to predict the local conditions.

I could see some of the brilliant blue color of some of the lakes.

A later sign told me that the orange flowering plant is known locally as Neneo Macho and Mataguanaco, to the English as the Scarlet Gorse of Patagonia, and to the botanists as Anarthrophyllum desideratum. It has been described by a British botanist: "Its prickly, gorse-like hummocks erupt in spring in dense masses of brightly coloured flowers, which have inspired generations of hopeful cultivators to attempt to grow these plants — with almost no success at all (Bone et al. 2015). We include this brief coverage of the genus here as a tantalising reminder that not every woody plant of apparent garden merit is in cultivation."

Some brief glimpses of the higher slopes were visible from time to time.

I drove further into the park.

The cloud base lifted some, partially revealing the peaks of Cuernos del Paine.

I would return the next day to find much better weather conditions.

Magellan Geese

The Magellan goose or upland goose, Chloephaga picta to the ornithologists, looks and behaves like a true goose but is more closely related to the ducks. Here's a pair of them. I always saw them in pairs.

The Magellan goose is the largest bird of the Chloephaga genus. The males have white heads and breast plumage with black legs, while females have reddish-brown heads and breast with yellow-orange legs. So, female closer to us, the male beyond her.

A short distance away, here is another pair.

Returning to Cerro Castillo

I returned to Cerro Castillo. When I reached Highway 9, the sun was shining there.

Part-way back, stopped to look back, I saw that the park, off to the left of this picture, was still covered with clouds.

A little further along, Cerro Castillo came into view in the distance.

Zooming in, you can see the red roofs and the white water tank.

The next day would have the best overall weather. One area I had planned to visit was closed off, but I was able to do and see so much more!

Next❯ The best weather of my visit