W Trek from West to East: Everything You Need to Know
The W Trek is in Torres del Paine National Park in the Chilean region of Patagonia. As this is in the Southern Hemisphere, the best time to do the hike between November and March. We did the trek in January as this is peak summer. It is approximately 46 miles long and is a self-guided trek that you can do at your own pace. There are hostel style accommodations along the way or you can choose to camp in tents. If you choose to camp, you can bring all your own gear or rent a tent that is already set up with the companies that run the refugios. Vertice and Las Torres are the companies that run the refugios. Vertice runs Grey and Paine Grande. Las Torres runs Central, Chileno, Cuernos, and Frances. If you choose to reserve one of their tents, you can add-on mats & sleeping bags to your reservation if you don’t want to carry your own. Each refugio has drinking water, showers, bathrooms, a food prep area with access to hot water, and outlets to charge devices. Most refugios also have a general store & bar. All of the refugios accept credit cards for drinks at the bar and a-la-carte food. Water in the Patagonia region is potable so having access to drinking water is not a problem on this trek.
We completed the trek West to East, starting at Refugio Grey. The trek is typically done East to West, starting in the Central sector near Hotel Las Torres, or starting in Paine Grande for West to East. There are a few reasons why we didn’t want to do either of these options. If you start in the Central sector and trek East to West, the first day is a very long hike up to the Base Towers (which is considered the highlight of trek). We wanted the Base Towers to be our reward at the end; the ‘grand finale’ if you will. Also, by starting in Central, the hike to the Base Towers is much longer. This makes it difficult to make it up to the Base Towers in time for sunrise and also means you are hiking during the day which makes it much more crowded with all the day hikers coming from Central. We also did not want to start a Paine Grande (the traditional starting point if trekking West to East) because this would require backtracking and hiking the portion of the trail between Paine Grande and Refugio Grey twice, which we did not want to do with our limited time. If you were to book the trek through a tour, it is typically suggested to take 5 days for the full W Trek. They also have a 4 day ‘expediated’ version. However, we booked this last minute and only had limited time so we did the trek in 2.5 days, cutting out the middle portion up the French Valley. I would suggest taking at least 3 full days for the trek and having a full 4 days would make it more enjoyable.
Getting to Las Torres & Starting the Hike
We started off with our international flight into Santiago and stayed there for one night. The next day, we flew from Santiago to Puerto Natales on LATAM. (There is also another cheaper airline called Sky Airline that is an option to fly between Santiago and Puerto Natales, but the site is very difficult to navigate and I couldn’t ever get my payment info successfully entered to complete a booking with them.) Once we landed in Puerto Natales, I had arranged a taxi to pick us up ahead of time at the Puerto Natales airport to take us to Hotel Grey. We used Radio Ulen and I messaged them WhatsApp (+56 9 4255 2517) to arrange. The drive is about 1 hour and 45 minutes on mostly unpaved roads. On the way to Hotel Grey, you stop to show your national park pass. You can buy it right there at the stop, but I would recommend buying online ahead of time from CONAF (www.pasesparques.cl/en/parks/torres-del-paine). Since we had purchased ahead of time, this made the stop much quicker. There was a slight miscommunication on paying the taxi fare because when I pre-arranged the ride, I was told they accept cash or credit cards. However, our driver only took cash so I would advise having cash if you plan to go this route. The taxi cost 140,000 CLP, which equates to about ~$140 USD. We went with this option because we were on a very tight schedule and wanted the assurance of having something pre-arranged. However, I did check Uber prices when we were at the airport and an Uber from the PNT airport to Hotel Grey was going for around 70,000CLP (~$70), so basically half the cost.
Day 1
Once we arrived at Hotel Grey, we checked in for the Grey Navigation ferry to Refugio Grey. After you check-in, you have to walk 1.2 miles along the beach to catch the ferry. We were advised it would take about 40 minutes, but it actually only took us around 20 minutes. Since we took the last ferry of the day (the 4pm ferry), the ferry stopped at 3 viewpoints to see Glacier Grey before dropping us off at Refugio Grey. Note: if you take the first or second ferry of the day, apparently it goes directly to Refugio Grey first so you would miss the viewpoints on the ferry. I was glad we were able to see these viewpoints on the ferry since you don’t get as up close when you’re hiking.
We arrived at Refugio Grey around 6pm. Refugio Grey is run by Vertice so I booked our campsite directly with them. You can book at www.vertice.travel/en. There are several different options you can book: 1) a bed in a shared hostel type room, 2) a tent that is already set up, or 3) a basic campsite where you bring all your own gear, including your own tent. We opted for option 2 so a tent was already set up waiting for us. This cost $90 for one night. We just needed to bring our sleeping bags and personal items. This campsite was our least favorite of the three we stayed at. The tents were very small, close together, and directly on the ground. When booking your accommodations, you have the option of reserving meals as well. However, they are quite expensive. We opted to reserve breakfast and dinner at each of the refugios along the way. At Refugio Grey, we paid $130 for half board (dinner and breakfast) for the 2 of us ($65 each). However, you do not need to do this and can carry your own food with you. Each refugio has a small kitchen area, and access to hot water for meals. You can also purchase wifi at each of the refugios. Knowing what I know now, considering price and quality of the food, I probably would have opted to bring more of our own food. However, this does make your pack heavier so you have to weigh the pros and cons.
We had dinner as soon as we arrived to Refugio Grey. It was a buffet style dinner with soup, salad, chicken, beef, pasta, and dessert. It stays light out very late during January (the sun sets after 10pm), so after dinner we hiked north from Refugio Grey up to the suspension bridges for more viewpoints of Glacier Grey. I would suggest going to at least the second suspension bridge – it only took us about 25 minutes from the first bridge to the second. There is a very nice viewpoint of the glacier right before the second suspension bridge. In total, out and back, the hike was 4.5 miles and took us about 2.5 hours. We got back to the campsite and went right to bed since we missed the cut-off for the showers.
Day 2
The next morning, we had breakfast before departing. The buffet style breakfast was very basic with just canned fruit, yogurt, and some baked goods. Again, price did not equate to quality.
After breakfast, we departed for Refugio Frances. This was our longest day so we planned to stop at Paine Grande for lunch. The hike from Grey to Paine Grande took us about 3.5 hours including some stops along the way (6.8 miles). We did not have lunch reserved at Paine Grande. When we got to Paine Grande around 11:30am, we learned that they do not serve food until 2:30pm after the reserved lunch is over. Luckily, we were able to grab some snacks from the general store which was enough for lunch. The next stretch was from Paine Grande to Italiano. On the map (below), you can see the typical route is to go west of Lake Skottsberg up to Italiano. However, there is a route that goes east around Lake Skottsberg that gives beautiful views of the French Valley. We decided to take this longer route east of Lake Skottsberg because we wouldn’t have time to go up French Valley. From Paine Grande to Italiano (taking the longer route as just described), it was about 2 hours and 40 minutes of active hiking (6 miles). We stopped to take in many viewpoints along the route though so it took us about 4 hours total including all these stops. The map below shows the traditional W trek route in blue. I added the route around Lake Skottsberg we took in red. When you are in the park hiking, all the maps are much more detailed and will show this route as well.
Italiano is a campsite run by CONAF (the national park). There were bathrooms and spots to drop your pack as this is the starting point to go up the French Valley to the Frances and Britanico viewpoints. They have rangers at the entrance to the French Valley because they do cut-off at what point you can start this hike each. I had read online that it closed at 4pm, but it turns out the cut-off time is at different times each day depending on the weather. On the day we were there, the cut-off time to start hiking up the valley was 2pm. The hike from Italiano to Frances is very short – only about 30 minutes. Refugio Frances is run by Las Torres and can we booked at lastorres.com. We found the Las Torres campsites to be much nicer than the Vertice campsites. The tents are much larger 4 person tents and are elevated off the ground. We paid $210 for one night at Frances. We did the halfboard option again (dinner & breakfast). This was $156 for two people ($78 each). We checked into our campsite and received our dinner time slot. We had time to shower before dinner so we showered and then made our way to dinner. Dinner was not buffet style like at Refugio Grey. It was one individual dinner in a takeaway box that included chicken, potatoes, cold vegetables, and a dessert. We were still hungry after dinner and they offered a-la-carte items, so we decided to get a small pizza and a drink.
Day 3
We had our pre-reserved boxed breakfast in the communal dining area in the morning. The breakfast included 2 hard boiled eggs, a granola bar, bread, and a banana. We were quite tired from the long day before, so we took our time getting going in the morning. We started hiking to our final campsite: Refugio Chileno. This was another long day so we planned to stop at Cuernos for lunch. The hike from Frances to Cuernos took us an hour and 20 minutes (2.3 miles). As we learned from the day before, do not count on getting any food along the trek unless you have reserved it ahead of time. We got lucky at Cuernos and they happened to have 2 sandwiches left so we bought those for lunch. From Cuernos to Chileno, it took us 5 hours and 20 minutes in total, including a few stops along the way (8 miles). Refugio Chileno is also run by Las Torres and has the same nice, elevated tents as Frances. We paid $280 for the tent for one night at Chileno.
The dinner at Chileno was a hot communal sit-down dinner that we had booked ahead of time. We did the same half board and paid $160 ($80 per person) for dinner and breakfast. It was nice to be able to chat with other people doing the trek and this was our favorite dinner we had along the way. The meal started with soup and bread, and we also decided to both have wine. I opted for the vegetarian dish, which was a stuffed pepper and rice. My partner had the standard meal, which was salmon and rice. There was also a small dessert, which was basically just small blobs of whipped cream. Since we had reserved breakfast for the next morning, we had the option to have a sit down breakfast at 8am (similar to the communal dinner), or grab & go anytime before 8am. We decided for the grab & go since we planned to do the sunrise hike to the Base Towers in the morning. It is difficult to go to bed early with the sun setting well past 10pm; however, we tried our best knowing we’d have an early morning the next day.
Day 4
We woke up around 3:15am and headed to the restaurant to pick up our breakfast. It was a very simple breakfast with each of us getting a hard-boiled egg, 2 pieces of bread, a few slices of ham and cheese. We wanted to hike up to the Base Towers at sunrise because there are beautiful views of the rising sun shining on the towers. It also helps avoid the crowds of day hikers. The weather forecast for this day was overcast and cloudy so we didn’t know if we would be able to see the towers, but it was our only day for the hike so had to just hope for the best. We started our hike to the Base Towers around 4am. The hike starts out through the forest, but ends with a steep climb up rocks and boulders (trekking poles highly recommended). The hike from Chileno to the towers took us about an hour and half with a few stops (3.2 miles), with us arriving around 5:30am, just in time for sunrise. While it wasn’t a totally clear view, we did still get to fully see the towers and the sunrise. At the top, it was extremely cold and we were definitely underdressed. I would suggest a hat and gloves for this hike, as well as full rain gear if there is any overcast or clouds in the forecast. On the way down from the towers, it started to rain and we were soaked by the time we arrived back at camp since we didn’t wear our rain gear for this hike.
When we arrived back at Chileno, we still had about an hour and a half until we needed to ‘check-out’ of our tent. We took a quick nap before packing up and starting the hike back to Central. Chileno is actually down in a valley, so the first part of the hike back to Central has quite a bit of incline before you descend down at the end. The rain really started to pick up after the towers hike in the morning so the first hour or so from Chileno to Central was cold, rainy, and windy. Luckily, it did start to clear up for us and the entire hike wasn’t in the rain. Chileno to Central took us 2 hours 20 minutes (4.2 miles). When hiking back to Central, you will first come to Hotel Las Torres. You need to continue past the hotel another mile to get to the Welcome Center.
The Welcome Center has a small gift shop, food, drink, and space to relax to wait for your bus. You can take a bus from the park back to Puerto Natales, but the bus does not pick up right at the Welcome Center. You have to take a shuttle from the Welcome Center to the Laguna Amarga bus station. This shuttle is about 10 minutes long and is run by Las Torres. They advertise that this is cash only (4,000 CLP each) and you have to pay as you are getting on the bus; however, you can pay for this ahead of time at this website: mi.appbusticket.com/TransportesLasTorres/portal/tickets. The link to this site is actually included in very small print at the end of the email confirmation you get from Las Torres when you book your campsites. Then when you board the shuttle, you can just show the QR codes on your phone instead of paying cash at the door. The shuttle schedules change based on the bus schedules, so just look at the chalk board at the Welcome Center to see which shuttle bus aligns with the bus you will take back to Puerto Natales. You will not be left behind – they bring as many shuttles as necessary to get everyone to the bus station. Bus Sur runs the bus from Laguna Amarga to Puerto Natales. You can book online at busbud.com. The bus costs $31.28 for the both of us (~$15.50 each) and is about 2 hours long. I highly recommend Bus Sur. The buses are very comfortable. There are large, reclining seats with good leg room and foot rests. You can pick your assigned seat when booking so there is no fighting for spots. We were so tired from the trek that we fell asleep right away and slept the whole back to Puerto Natales.
Additional Tips
A few other tips for before and after the W Trek:
Santiago
You will likely fly into Santiago and spend a night there before and after the trek. We stayed at the Four Points by Sheraton Santiago both times and were very happy with it. We were even able to leave extra bags with them for free while we trekked. I had originally booked the City Express by Marriott, but they said we couldn’t check in early even if a room was ready. If one became available they said they “might” let us check in an hour early for another $60 (one night was $99 so this was crazy). They also charged $10 per bag to store while trekking. The shuttle situation to and from the airport also looked like an overcrowded, disorganized mess. It is definitely worth the $15 Uber to the other side of town to stay at the Four Points. Plus, it’s a better area to walk around and get dinner.
Puerto Natales
You may need to also stay in Puerto Natales before or after the trek. I wish we would have spent more time in Puerto Natales, but we didn’t have time with our quick trip. It is a cute little town. We stayed at the Pristine Patagonia Hotel. It was $103 per night and was very comfortable. It also included breakfast. If you’re looking for gear rentals, I highly recommend Day Zero Patagonia rentals (address: Manuel Baquedano 955). After our trekking poles were taken away at TSA, I worked with Peter from DayZero to arrange for our taxi driver to pick up our poles for us and pay upon our return to Puerto Natales. He was great to work with. You can reach Peter on WhatsApp at +56 9 5306 8070.
Packing Essentials
My essentials for the W trek:
- Hiking boots
- Rain jacket & rain pants
- Trekking poles
- Rain cover for backpack
- Hydration pack
- Sunscreen
- Hand sanitizer
- Microfiber towel
- Power bank
- Outlet converter
Check out my daily recaps from the W Trek on Instagram @globe_tott
