Torres del Paine National Park
Approx. Time: 8 hoursActivity Level: Easiest
Torres Del Paine National Park, named for three amazing granite pillars which rise as high as 2600 meters, offers great hiking. Walk to its magnificent glaciers (be sure to see the Gray Glacier), and take some time to enjoy the stunning lakes (especially Pehoe Lake).
Drive out of Puerto Natales along the Seno de Ultima Esperanza to Milodón Cave, named after the remains of a prehistoric animal found by Captain Hermann Eberhard in 1896. The cavern itself makes for an amazing site at about 90 feet high and 200 feet deep. Continue on through the hills and extended pampas of the beautifully diverse Patagonian landscape en route to Torres del Paine National Park. The park is part of the United Nation’s World Biosphere Reserve system that allows pumas, foxes, guanacos and rhea to coexist in what is nothing short of a Patagonian “Eden.” A rich landscape of lengas and coigües, fragrant heather, legendary calafate and other amazing flora lines the park while Nordenskjold Lake, sitting at the base of the mountains, pours through roaring Salto Grande, or “Grand Waterfall,” in Pehoé Lake. Drive along the bank of the lake to Salto Chico, the “Little Waterfall, and stroll through an old lenga forest. Enjoy a picnic watching giant chunks of ice, pieces of the nearby Grey Glacier, drift along the Grey Lake. Cross Amarga Lagoon for yet another breathtaking view of the park’s iconographic Torres del Paine before returning to Puerto Natales.
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