A layer of mist covers the mountain peaks of the Torres del Paine National Park at sunset. Torres del Paine National Park, Chile. Photograph © Galen Rowell/CORBIS

Torres Del Paine
By Richard Bangs

It was after dark when I arrived in Torres del Paine National Park in far southwestern Chile. As I stepped from the van I met the frigid, fire-hose-force wind for which Patagonia is known. At 51° south, this was latitude-with-an-attitude weather, blowing north from Antarctica. It slapped my face and stung my hands. I had to bend to walk. At the hotel I curled up to sleep wondering why on earth anyone would come to this half-million-acre park at the bottom of the world.

Morning showed me why. I awoke to a choice austral summer day and, out the window, the view of a lifetime, encompassing Lago Pehoé, Los Cuernos (horns) del Paine, and the Torres del Paine, the impossibly steep towers after which this mountainous park is named.

Eager to explore, I hired another van and set off. Something long-necked and furry skipped across the road: a guanaco, the wild cousin of the llama. My guide told me the males surround themselves with harems. Minutes later we passed three guanacos together, then a dozen, then 20 more. Suddenly they were everywhere, like 250-pound gremlins.

We stopped, and as I photographed a guanaco against the ice-clad peaks, a Patagonian red fox appeared in the tall grass just a few feet away from me. I stepped so close I could feel its hot breath before it scampered away. Where else, I wondered, did wild animals have so little fear of man?

The next day I hiked into the Cordillera del Paine, a 19-mile-long mountain range. In geological terms, the Paine (PIE-nay) range is an upthrusted batholith, a giant bubble of once molten granite that rose from the Earth and was later covered with glaciers. As the glaciers retreated, they left behind deepgashes and an uproar of wild peaks.

I arranged to visit the Valle del Francés, an enclosed sanctuary deep in the Cordillera del Paine. I had to cross Lago Pehoé by boat then ride on horseback up to a staging area known as the Italian camp, where I paused for a picnic lunch before continuing on foot. As I arrived at the highest point of the walk, the ground began to tremble. Loud booms echoed across the valley as avalanches spilled from the upper reaches of the French Glacier, a spectacular mass of ice and snow splintered with deep canyons and jagged blue pinnacles. I turned and looked up into the smooth-walled Gothic Towers and then down on the pearl-colored waters of Lago Nordenskjöld. It was all savagely beautiful.

Later, during the horseback ride back down, a williwaw hit, and the tableau I'd enjoyed in sharp relief on the way up was now a vague canvas of gray. I slouched in my poncho, occasionally looking over my shoulder at the towers behind me, which, wrapped in clouds, now looked hunched like mourners at a funeral. At the shores of Lago Pehoé, the wind cranked up and rain lashed us. Several Andean condors, among the world's largest flying birds, traced curves across the leaden sky.I boarded the boat and set out for the 45-minute crossing. As the boat pitched and reeled, I stretched a weather-burned smile. I knew then that while the forces of nature keep most visitors away, to step through the magic glass into this mountain paradise, one has to take the pills of wind and weather. Then the wonderland that is Torres del Paine becomes real.

The information in this story was accurate at the time it was published, but we suggest you confirm all details before making travel plans.