Top10 Tips for Torres del Paine:
- Bring enough cash! You have to pay cash for the the camping grounds as well as for food if you run out… How many people we have seen struggling with their reserves for lack of a few dollars more
including your correspondant - Lots of insect repellent
- Do the “O”, that is the full round, if you want to have some real outdoor experience. The “W” might include all the “highlights”, except one for sure: Tranquility, just you and the nature. Expect to meet fellow hikers every 5mins on the “W” route. On the backside of the mountains you might see a just a couple in a whole day even in high season. Plus: you get the 1.200m pass and the great view on huge glacier Grey
- Pasta and rice, no instant mashed potatoes…
- If you do more hiking trips, invest in a MSR white gas/kerosene cooker. So much faster cooking, less fuel to carry
- Camp Grey is a great place to stay 2 nights, or even 3
- Consider the trip from Camp Grey onto and into glacier grey – costs quite some extra money (180dollars in fact), but we heard it’s a unique experience and saw amazing pictures of friends: you enter ice caves within the glacier
- Take … with you
- If you do the “O”, bring your trecking sandals, no flip-flops. Easier to do the creek crossings – you need something under your feet as it’s freezing and slippery. And the trecking sandals don’t wash away in the stream
- Do the trip from Puerto Natales, not Punta Arenas. Puerto Natales is closer and it’s really a cute place also to relax after the trip. Better hostals for better money as well. And actually you can forget about Punta Arenas, nothing to see there, except for the Penguin Island. But that you also have near Ushuaia which again is so much nicer.
DAY 1: From Hosteria Torres del Paine to Seron (and a bit further)
Our food for the 9 days
Ready to go
Around 18kg here...
First hundred meters, already looks nice!
One of the many creek crossings on the first day - doesn't look big, but just big enough so you cannot jump over it
...and another... I think on the one between these I had lost my flip-flop
Funny cloud formations
resting
Luckily we didn't have to cross that one
First night camp - we had skipped Camp Seron as we thought it would be nicer to advance a bit more (in the end we made another 35minutes...) and also to have a bit more nature - only later we learned it was absoltely illegal to camp wild, ouch!
DAY 2: to Campamento Dickson (aka Mosquito Mayhem…)
Breakfast - porridge, yummy!
and on the road again
This must be a cold place: even the insects wear fur!
Tea break with some extra motivation
"Is it far yet?" yes it was
Yey, a bridge!
Yeeey, Dickson!
But still a bit to go, around that river, down that cliff
First things first: shower!
No, it's not actually THAT cold, it's mosquito protection...
Dinner time - around 18h or so. At 20h we were usually already in bed, sleeping 11hrs every night never in my life slept that much and that deep
Evening walk on the glacier lake, beautiful
DAY 3: from Dickson to Campamento Perros
Leaving Dickson
towards Perros, past more glaciers
Another glacier, just before the entrance to camp Perros
Dinner in Perros - in a cooking tent, no mosquitos, luxury!
hmmm, and a special desert
...giving us strength for a little evening sidetrip: Glacier Puma - "Wir sind ja nicht zum Spass hier!" 
Glaciar Puma, and you can get pretty close too
Here my personal interpretation why this is the Puma Glacier - right?!
DAY 4: From Perros over the pass (1.200m) to Campamento Paso
Thaaat's the way
Through the snow again
and further up
getting hot
getting closer
Finally there! with the 15kg backpacks. Thinking that our guides did this for us in Peru, only 3.000m more altitude, puh
And what a view on the other side of the pass: the whole space filled by glacier Grey
then there was still the way down on the other side... leg muscle killer
The other side of the pass, bit steeper here
Downhill skiing on size 11
Finally in Campamento Paso, dinner time
DAY 5: From campamento Paso to campamento Grey
Morning number 4: feeling as fresh as it looks
Hours walking past glacier Grey
Climbing some river beds
after 5hrs of walk, reaching the end of the glacier
Campamento Grey, a peaceful paradise (and no mosquitos btw, 0, nil, nada)
DAY 6: From Grey to overcrowded campamento Italiano (welcome to the “W”)
Morning number 5
more river beds, more ladders
Luxury food once more
First glance of "los cuernos"
Arriving at campamento Italiano
2,000 pesos for this one
DAY 7: Side trip into Valle Frances and then to campamento Cuernos
Walking up the French Valley
Later that day, approaching campamento Cuernos right down at the sea shore
And there they actually accepted credit cards so we finally had some change in the diet for dinner
Please take off your shoes will not talk about the air inside now
he? inside??
DAY 8: Up to campamento Torres
Meeting a Guanaco
and up again
Oh, still not finished climbing today
First glimpse of the "Torres" we're climbing up to see at sunrise
Thank God we made it
Campamento Torres - pretty cold here
Hamburg's Globetrotter Curry Chicken, saved for last
Going to sleep at 0 degree, brrr. My 15 year old sleeping bag and a flat formerly inflatable matress wasn't big help either. First time I envy Rieke for her equipment
DAY 9 – Finale: Getting up at 4.30 am to climb up to the Torres del Paine view point – and finishing the treck in the afternoon
Dusk to the back
There they are!
Group foto with 3 very nice Israelis we had met continuously since camp Perros
Going back home
Back in Puerto Natales - only days til Christmas!
