When I first arrived in Chile, or even, when I first started to plan my Trip to Chile, all I saw was the following photo, in some form or another. It was on the front of every single travel book, on posters, postcards, ads and even on the 1000 peso bill. I had to go.

I arrived in Chile in August and hoped to travel to the towers at the end of my stay, in April, but one thing led to another, and there I was in November, setting off for my trip to Patagonia.

Fortunately for me, the trip was already planned by a good friend of mine, Tannis, who was meant to go with another friend, but who could no longer make it, so she invited me to go, and of course, I said yes. Just three days later, I was at Santiago airport, ready to board my flight to Punta Arenas, one of the most Southern cities of the world.

From Punta Arenas, Tannis and I jumped straight into a coach which took us up to Puerto Natales, which took around 2 hours. Puerto Natales is a really lovely town which sits on the Patagonian fjords and is the closest piece of civilization to the park.

We spent quite a few days there before we set off on our Trek, so we had time to explore quite a bit, and most importantly pack and prepare for our trip and get all the last bits and bobs we needed. Turns out we were quite unprepared, well I certainly was.

The main thing we had to buy was food, of course, we were doing the whole trek unguided, so we needed to buy all of our food for 5 days at once, which included a lot of beans, rice, soup and chocolate.

The other thing I wasn’t prepared for, was how cold it was (understandably now considering how close it is to Antarctica). So I had to buy a hat, a long-sleeved underlayer, some wind-proof trousers, among other things.

If you want to be more prepared, unlike I was, then you can check out Zoe Baillargeon’s ultimate packing guide, on the Cascada Travel website.

It was soon time to start the trek. We actually did the reverse W-Trek, where you finish at the Torres del Paine, rather than start there. What we did was pretty similar to this:

Pretty soon after you leave Puerto Natales, your signal cuts out, there’s no wifi (except in a few of the refuges, but it’s really expensive), and you’ve disconnected from the world.

The W-Trek Day 1:

Day one was a great day because at that point of the trek you’re in such high spirits, you feel good, you have lots of energy, and you’re not sick of beans and rice yet.

The day starts by taking a bus into the National Park, then a catamaran boat to the Refugio Paine Grande. From there, we walked a long way to the Grey Glacier and the Refugio Grey, where we camped for the night. It’s only an 11km trek, and the shortest trek of the whole trip, but as it was the first, we weren’t used to the distance, especially while carrying such big bags on our backs, so it felt like miles.

Every turn you take on this trek opens up to a brand new piece of stunning scenery until eventually, you get to the massive Grey Glacier, which is like nothing I had ever seen before. I had never even seen icebergs before that day, so that alone was really cool, let alone the glacier.

The W-Trek Day 2:

On day 2, we woke up to find our tent covered in snow. It was beautiful, of course, but meant that the ground became slippy, muddy and wet, and the soggy tent had to be packed up in my backpack, which made everything else soggy and wet too. Lesson learnt.

This day was one of our longest days. We had to walk the 11km back down the way we came to the Refugio Paine Grande, and then another 9km to our next campsite, Campamento Italiano.

(Let me just mention that 18km feels like about 30km when you’ve not slept much because of the cold, you’re carrying a 15kg backpack and it’s pretty hilly.)

The second part of our trek that day was stunning (I’m going to say that a lot because the whole thing is stunning) as the trail opened up onto a lake, with an amazing backdrop of the mountain.

The W-Trek Day 3:

I was still feeling awesome on day 3. I was tired and a little sore, but none of that mattered, I was in Patagonia, the most amazing place I had ever been.

In fact, day 3 was probably my favourite day, as in my opinion, it was the most beautiful trail of them all. On this part of the trek, you get to hike up into the Valle Frances, to the Mirador Britannico, and for the very first time since we had arrived, there were blue skies, all day long.

Another great thing about that day was that we got to hike without our bags for the first time, as it was a round trip where we finished in the same place we started.

The trek to the middle of the valley was 6,5km, with the last kilometre or so being up a steep hill that takes you to an amazing viewpoint, perched right a the top of a rock, where you can see a 360° panoramic view of the whole valley.

We sat on the rock for a good while snacking on chocolate, of course, until we decided we had better make our way back, as we had another 10km to do that day, back to the original point we started at, then a little further on to the next campsite… or so we thought because right before we got back to the point we started at to pick up our bags, Tannis tripped and badly hurt her knee (tore her meniscus, ouch). So change of plans, we stayed at that campsite another night, with no idea what we were going to do the next day.

The W-Trek Day 4:

When we woke up early the next morning the first question we asked was what the plan was, seeing as we didn’t complete our trek the day before, meant that that day’s trek would be even longer than we thought, and we didn’t know if Tannis’ bad knee would make it.

The only other option would be to walk the 9km back, so Tannis thought she may as well fight the pain and do the extra few kilometres so we would be moving in the right direction at least. I took all the heaviest things in my bag, and as much of her stuff as I could fit, to try and make it a little easier for her.

It turns out that trek was quite a bit longer than we thought… a total of 21km. And on top of that, it was heavily raining and incredibly windy for the majority of the trek, but we made it in under 10 hours. As usual, though, the whole trail was just so incredibly beautiful that I think it was worth the pain (just).

Most of the path is along the Lago Nordernskjöld, a bright blue lake which stood out despite the grey clouds overhead. It was hard to get my phone out without it getting too wet because of the rain or fly away in the wind, but I managed to capture this:

The last few kilometres that day were really hard, Tannis was limping and in a lot of pain, and I couldn’t even feel my legs at that point, but we were there, at the Las Torres Campsite, the last campsite of the trip, and where we would be leaving from the next day, after our last trek up to the Torres del Paine and back.

The W-Trek Day 5:

Today was the day, the day we’d see the Torres del Paine, the towers we walked 5 days for… but it didn’t start out so great.

That day was the foggiest and windiest day yet, and we were told so my many people that it wouldn’t be worth the trip up there because its the steepest trail of all and the winds were 74km/h that day, and temperatures we’re severely low too. Oh, and let’s not forget about Tannis’ knee.

We didn’t make it all the way to the towers, but we did get to see them, just for a few minutes.

Believe it or not though, I wasn’t disappointed. I was tired, hungry and ache-y, but definitely not disappointed. Foggy or not they were still amazing.

Every single bit of the 5-day journey to the towers was stunning, beautiful and honestly, life-changing. The towers were cool, of course, but if you come to Patagonia just to do the day-trek to the Towers, I think you’re missing out.

The W-Trek is an experience, an adventure and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If it’s not on your bucket list yet, then it should be! I loved every second of it, some bits were harder than others, but every bit was worth it, I didn’t want to leave!