Morning
Fly Buenos Aires to El Calafate
Aeroparque to Comandante Armando Tola (FTE), about three hours over 2,100 km. There is no sane overland alternative.
Afternoon / Day
Check in: Posada Los Alamos
Ing. Hector Mario Guatti 1135. A long-standing garden hotel with its own kitchen, minutes from the main street.
Buy both Los Glaciares park passes
Los Glaciares sells the Perito Moreno sector and the El Chaltén portada as two separate tickets. Parques Nacionales lists both on its tarifas page — sort them before you need them.
Walk Avenida del Libertador
El Calafate runs along one street. Outfitters, chocolate shops, and a bus terminal reached up a flight of stairs off it.
Evening
Bahía Redonda at last light
The costanera along Lago Argentino. Flamingos feed on the shallows and, this far south in January, the light holds until nearly ten.
Dinner at the hotel
Guatti 1135. The kitchen is on site, which matters when the flight lands late. Cordero patagónico is the local order.
Morning
Bus to the Península de Magallanes
About 80 km west of El Calafate on Ruta Provincial 11, roughly ninety minutes each way. Services leave the terminal early and return mid-afternoon.
Perito Moreno balcony walkways
Steel pasarelas drop in signed circuits down the peninsula opposite the glacier front. Allow three to four hours and expect a great many stairs.
Afternoon / Day
Packed lunch on the balconies
Buy it on Av. del Libertador before the bus goes. Eating in front of the ice is the entire point of the day.
Stand still and wait for a calving
Blocks the size of buildings drop off the front with no warning, and the boom reaches the walkways a second after the ice hits the water.
Evening
Bus back to El Calafate
The scheduled return leaves mid-afternoon. Miss it and you are chartering a remise back over 80 km of Ruta 11.
Parrilla on the main street
The asadores cluster along Av. del Libertador. Cordero patagónico is cooked on a cross-spit over embers, not on a grill — it takes hours, so it is always ready.
Morning
Bus to El Chaltén
Caltur and others run the El Calafate terminal to El Chaltén, about three hours north on Ruta 40 then RP23 along Lago Viedma.
Afternoon / Day
Check in: Hostería El Puma
Lionel Terray 145. Twelve rooms and five suites, running since 1997, a few steps off the avenue where every trail in town begins.
Have the north-zone ticket ready
The El Chaltén portada is its own ticket, and you are asked for photo ID with it. Screenshot the pass before you set off; there is no signal up the valley.
Chorrillo del Salto
A flat waterfall walk north out of town along the Río de las Vueltas road, roughly three hours there and back. The right size for a day that started on a bus.
Evening
Mirador de los Cóndores
Signed from the visitor centre at the south entrance. A short climb to a bench over the town and Lago Viedma — the standard arrival-day leg-stretch.
Dinner on Avenida San Martín
The breweries and pasta places fill from eight. Carry pesos: connectivity in El Chaltén is thin and card readers fail often.
Pack for Laguna de los Tres
Eight to nine hours, nothing sold on the route, and a last kilometre that climbs about 400 m of loose moraine. Two litres, layers, broken-in boots.
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Morning
Transfer up RP41 to El Pilar
Ruta Provincial 41, km 17, where the Río Eléctrico meets the Río de las Vueltas. Starting here turns Laguna de los Tres into a one-way walk that ends downhill in town.
Río Blanco trail to Piedras Blancas
The path from El Pilar borders the Río Blanco; the Piedras Blancas glacier is in view inside half an hour, and its lagoon is a short detour further on.
Afternoon / Day
Laguna de los Tres
The final kilometre is 400 m of moraine straight up. Fitz Roy and Poincenot stand over the lagoon at the top; the full day is eight to nine hours.
Lunch at the lagoon
Everything you eat today, you carried — there is no kiosk anywhere on this trail. Streams below the final climb are drinkable; the lip is exposed and cold.
Laguna Sucia overlook
A few minutes along the moraine from Laguna de los Tres the ground drops away to Laguna Sucia, sitting in its own cirque well below.
Evening
Descend past Laguna Capri
The town-side descent runs by Laguna Capri with Fitz Roy reflected in it. The four-to-five-hour Capri walk exists for this view alone.
Late dinner in El Chaltén
Nothing here closes early in January — daylight runs past ten and the avenue is still busy after it. Order the milanesa and a litre of something cold.
Morning
Early breakfast on the avenue
Bakeries open around eight. Take a second medialuna for the trail — nothing is sold once you leave the last house.
Sendero Laguna Torre
Trailhead at the west end of town. Seven to eight hours return over rolling ground — far gentler than Fitz Roy, and walkable in worse weather.
Mirador del Torre
About an hour in, the trail tops a rise for the first clean view of Cerro Torre. On its own this is a three-to-four-hour walk if the weather turns.
Afternoon / Day
Laguna Torre and the Glaciar Grande
Icebergs calved off the Glaciar Grande drift across the lagoon. The wind funnels straight down the valley off the ice — layer up before you stop moving.
Lunch behind the moraine
The lagoon shore has no shelter at all. Drop back behind the moraine ridge to eat, then walk out again for the view.
Evening
Dinner and a Patagonian ale
Av. San Martín. El Chaltén brews its own; the dark ones are better than the pale ones and both are cheaper than in El Calafate.
Last light on Fitz Roy
Walk to the north end of town after dinner. In January the light holds until nearly ten, and the massif goes orange for about four minutes.
Morning
Mirador de las Águilas
Signed from the visitor centre at the town entrance. A short walk out onto the steppe edge for a last look down Lago Viedma, then back for the bus.
Bus back to El Calafate
Three hours south down RP23 and Ruta 40 along Lago Viedma. The morning departure gets you in for lunch.
Afternoon / Day
Lunch on Av. del Libertador
Back to a town with more than one street of choices. Trucha and centolla both turn up on menus here; the trout is the local one.
Reserva Laguna Nimez
On the north edge of El Calafate above the lakeshore. A flat couple of kilometres of boardwalk through wetland — flamingos, black-necked swans, upland geese.
Buy tomorrow's seat to Chile
Bus Sur runs El Calafate to Puerto Natales from September to April, and not every day. The 08:00 departure is the one that leaves you an afternoon in Natales.
Evening
Last Argentine dinner
Av. del Libertador. Spend down the pesos on steak and malbec — Chilean border posts will not take them and Natales runs on CLP.
Passport out of the pack
Tomorrow is an international crossing on a bus. Passport somewhere you can reach it standing up, and no fresh fruit, meat or dairy in your bag.
Morning
Bus across the border to Puerto Natales
About six hours. Everyone gets off at Cancha Carrera to stamp out of Argentina, then again at Cerro Castillo to enter Chile; Chilean SAG x-rays the bags.
Afternoon / Day
Check in: Hotel Costa Australis
Pedro Montt 262, facing the costanera on the Seno Última Esperanza. Central, and geared to people heading into or out of the park.
Buy the Torres del Paine entry pass
CONAF sells Torres del Paine entry through pasesparques.cl. Buy it here in Natales rather than at the barrier — this is the one booking that can end the trip.
Walk the Costanera
The waterfront runs the length of Puerto Natales along the sound, mountains on the far shore. Twenty minutes end to end, and the wind decides how long you stay.
Trek briefing at Erratic Rock
Natales' long-running trekking outfit, running guided and self-guided W trips. Worth a stop to hear what the weather in the park is actually doing this week.
Evening
Dinner at Mesita Grande
Arturo Prat 196. Trattoria and pizzeria, noon to ten Monday to Saturday and one to eight on Sunday. It fills up with trekkers, so go early or wait.
Split the pack
Three nights inside the park with only what you can walk in. Trail kit in the daypack, town clothes left with the hotel to collect on the way through.
Morning
Cueva del Milodón
25 km north of Puerto Natales on the park road. Skin and bones of Mylodon darwini were pulled out of here from 1896 on. Tickets through pasesparques.cl.
Bus on to Laguna Amarga
Puerto Natales to the park is around two hours. Laguna Amarga is the eastern gate and the one for Sector Torres; have the pass on your phone at the barrier.
Afternoon / Day
Shuttle to Sector Torres
A connecting minibus covers the last few kilometres from the gate to the hotel and refugio cluster at the foot of the Ascencio valley.
Check in: Hotel Las Torres Patagonia
Sector Torres, at the gateway entrance to the W and O circuits. Book months out — beds at this end of the park are the scarcest thing in it in January.
Late lunch, whatever was booked
Meals inside the park are reserved with the bed rather than ordered on the day. Check what your booking actually includes before you go looking for a menu.
Walk out to the Ascencio bridge
Tomorrow's first forty-five minutes, done in reverse: across the flats to where the trail turns up into the valley. A good place to read the weather.
Evening
Guanaco hour on the steppe
The open ground between Laguna Amarga and Sector Torres carries the park's densest guanaco herds, and the pumas that follow them. Watch from the road.
Dinner, and ask for the forecast
Sector Torres. Get the morning outlook from reception before you set an alarm — the towers are in cloud more often than not, and a clear dawn is worth a 5 am start.
Morning
Climb the Valle Ascencio
From Sector Torres the trail crosses the river and climbs the valley to the halfway refugio. The exposed first hour is where the wind does its worst.
Through the lenga forest
Past the refugio the path drops into southern beech along the river — the only sheltered stretch of the day — before the last hour turns to boulders.
Afternoon / Day
Mirador Base Las Torres
The final scramble up moraine takes about forty-five minutes. Three granite towers stand straight out of a glacial lake at the top. Eight to nine hours return.
Lunch at the lake
Whatever the refugio packed. Nothing is sold above the halfway point, and a flask of something hot earns its weight in the wind at the mirador.
Wait out the cloud
Weather tears off these towers in minutes. Sitting an extra half hour at the top is the highest-return decision available on this trip.
Evening
Descend to Sector Torres
The same way down. The moraine is meaningfully worse under tired legs than it was on the way up — this is the stretch poles are for.
Dinner at Las Torres
Sector Torres. Eat whatever is put in front of you; after nine hours on moraine it will read as the best meal of the trip.
Morning
Transfer west to Pudeto
The park road runs west from Sector Torres along Lago Nordenskjöld under the Cuernos to the Pudeto jetty on Lago Pehoé.
Catamaran across Lago Pehoé
Pudeto to Refugio Paine Grande with Catamarán Lago Pehoé. Sailings are few and fill in January — book ahead, because missing one costs the whole day.
Afternoon / Day
Drop the pack at Refugio Paine Grande
Vértice Patagonia's refugio and campsite at the west end of Lago Pehoé, the hinge of the W. Beds here go months ahead for January.
Out along the Grey arm
The trail north from Paine Grande climbs to a saddle then runs high above Lago Grey; the first icebergs show about two hours out. Turn at Mirador Grey.
Lunch above the lake
Box lunch from the refugio. This is the most exposed section of the W — the saddle above Paine Grande offers nothing at all to hide behind.
Evening
Back down to Paine Grande
Five to six hours out and back to the mirador. The refugio faces the Paine Grande massif, the highest thing in the park, across open water.
Dinner in the refugio
Communal tables, one menu, lights out early. Charge everything you own tonight — power is limited here and there is none at all on the trail.
Salto Grande and Out
Morning
First catamaran back to Pudeto
Refugio Paine Grande to Pudeto across Lago Pehoé. Take the earliest sailing — the bus connection to Puerto Natales does not wait for the later one.
Salto Grande
Fifteen flat minutes from the Pudeto car park to where Lago Nordenskjöld pours into Lago Pehoé, with the Cuernos standing behind it. Hold on to your hat.
Afternoon / Day
Bus out to Puerto Natales
Around two hours back down the park road and south past Cerro Castillo. Collect the bag left at the hotel on the way through.
Centolla on Arturo Prat
Around the Plaza de Armas. King crab is the thing Puerto Natales does that nowhere else on this trip can, and this is the last chance at it.
Evening
Bus to Punta Arenas
Three hours fifteen on the Bus Sur service down Ruta 9. Departures run through the day; take an earlier one than the flight strictly needs.
Fly out of Punta Arenas
Presidente Carlos Ibáñez del Campo (PUQ), north of the city, with evening departures north to Santiago.
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