M. Cook and D. Heyburn, UK. Jan 2025, Paine Circuit Self-Guided.
My friend & I recently did the 8 day O Trek self guided which was organized by Andean Trails. We are so pleased we paid the extra to have all the camps set up & food included rather than carrying all our camping equipment & food. The camps were run by two different companies. One company looked after Seron, Frances & Central where we had tents on stilts. These came with a very comfortable mattress that filled the whole tent, sleeping bags & pillows. The other company looked after Dickson, Los Perros, Gray & Paine Grande where the tents were on the ground with individual mattresses & sleeping bags. I was very impressed with the tents on stilts & found them to be more comfortable & spacious.
The included food was very good & sometimes excellent! We appreciated having a welcome drink which we had before our three course dinner, either a glass of wine or a pisco sour! Very civilized especially as we were in the mountains.
We received plenty of information from Kathy at Andean Trails before the trek began & we received all our vouchers for the transfers into & out of the park & the camps. It was all very well organized.
We also received a welcome pack at the bus station in Puerto Natales which included a sleeping sheet liner, a large travel towel & a water bottle. I had brought my own but I need not have done although it was handy having two water bottles. I filled one with water & one with a fruit tea.
I have wanted to go trekking in Torres del Paine for many years & choose to do it as part of my 60th birthday celebration whilst I'm still fit & able! We are very pleased we choose the O Trek rather than the W Trek as we explored the whole circuit & the first four days from Central to Gray were much quieter & we made friends with some lovely people from all around the world. It was very special. The trek from Gray to Paine Grande was the busiest day on the trail as many people doing the W Trek were doing a day walk there & back. We were also there during peak time. We started the trek on 26th January.
We were very lucky with the weather. We only had one day of rain although it was on the longest day when we trekked over the John Gardner Pass from Los Perros to Gray. We were able to dry our wet clothes by pegging them up in the back porch of our tent & they dried overnight thanks to the wind!
My friend & I enjoyed taking our time every day except on the longest day as we had to be at El Paso ranger hut by 14.00 plus it was raining! We took our time to enjoy the scenery, take photos & we made our packed lunches last most of the day!
We also appreciated having a hot shower every evening except at Los Perros camp which is the most basic camp. Originally we were advised there would be no food provided there but we were offered a simple dinner which consisted of rehydrated food. It was better than nothing!!
It would have been good to have had an extra night at Frances then we could have had a more leisurely trek up to the Mirador Britanico although it would have been backtracking but it was less than 2kms to the Valle del Frances.
The last trek up to Mirador Base Torres was quite emotional. We saw many of the friends we had made on the O Trek plus it was goodbye to an Amazing Memorable Adventure. Thank you Andean Trails for your organization. We have been recommending you to all our friends!
M. Cook and D. Heyburn. Jan 2025, Paine Circuit Self-Guided. UK
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