Las Torres

Day 7
Today is the big day! We will walk from Los Cuernos to Los Chilenos Camp at the foot of the arguably most famous natural towers of the world: las Torres, which inspired the Patagonia logo. And then down to the Torres Central camp (32 km and about 900 m elevation gain).
We start around 06:00 after a quiet breakfast with a view of the Nordenskjöld Lake. I love these 2 first hours of the hiking day, where we are alone on the trail in the morning light. We only start meeting people when we join the path coming from the valley (from where a day hike is possible). We reach Los Chilenos where we try our luck and ask if we could spend the night there instead in Torres Central. No, impossible, they only have 4 campsites for private tents. As you can imagine, these are booked long in advance (even though our American friends told us they could find a spot on short notice).
After a solid second breakfast at the crowded Refugio we start hiking up.
The hike is pleasant, without backpacks we feel like flying and in about 1 hour we are on the top!
The weather is perfect, not a cloud and warm and when we arrive there are not many people at the top. We find a spot slightly above the path and enjoy a solid 2 .5 hours of incredible views. Upon leaving we wanted to get closer to the lake to touch the water. This is when we realised that MANY people had come up and we were sheltered on our little spot of paradise. The first thought that came to my mind is « what a circus »; influencers shaking their heads, tourist groups cheering and many men without their top on refreshing in the lake (next to the « no nadar » sign). We quickly touch the water, get some money shots and leave. The best way to make me walk faster, I realised, is giving me people to pass (ups!), so we basically run down.
Late lunch at Los Chilenos and then we start the last descent of the O trek. We have a wonderful view of snowy Cerro Paine Grande; for the first time completely cloud free. Close to the camp we spot a huemul trying to cross the river from an island and almost being swept from strong currents. To our relieve it made it to the shore and we have to wait for it to cross the path safely.
At camp we find a nice, shadowy spot and go to the welcome center (where it all started) to change our bus ticket to Puerto Natales at 15:00 instead of 20:00 and enjoy a beer with the Venezuelan father-daughter duo who also finished the trek. He gives us the recommendation to hike the easy path to Mirador Los Cuernos the day after.Læs mere