In March of 2014 I spent several weeks traveling around in Patagonia, Chile. The highlight of that trip was four days hiking “the W” in Torres del Paine national park. The timing turned out to be perfect: just after the main holiday season in South America, so not too crowded, but still good enough weather for hiking.
On the first day I hiked up to the famous Torres viewpoint. Coming back down the same way, I then spent the first night in one of the park’s “refugios” (mountain huts).
The next day was mostly hiking along one of the many lakes in the area, with a view of the same mountain range from a different angle. And another refugio to spend the night.
On the third day it was a relatively short hike to the next refugio, but in the afternoon I did a side-trip to the viewpoint of the Grey glacier.
Finally, on the fourth day I hiked all the way out to one of the park entrances, rather than taking the boat across the lake. And it was worth it, with a full view of the entire mountain range on the way out.
This was definitely a very memorable trip, and I’d love to go back some day, with a better camera! (These images were all taken with a simple 5 Megapixel smartphone camera…)