Torres del Paine National Park

Torres del Paine National Park sits in southern Chilean Patagonia, a landscape of mountains, glaciers, lakes, and rivers. Its heart is the Cordillera del Paine, a mountain group that rises where Magellanic subpolar forests meet the Patagonian Steppes. The park lies 112 kilometers north of Puerto Natales and 312 kilometers north of Punta Arenas. It was made a national park in 1959. The name "Paine" comes from the Tehuelche (Aonikenk) language, meaning "blue," and is pronounced PIE-neh.

This park is part of Chile's National System of Protected Forested Areas. As of 2013, it covered about 181,414 hectares (700 square miles), making it one of Chile's largest and most visited parks. Roughly 252,000 people visit each year, with 54 percent coming from abroad. It also lies along the End of the World Route, a scenic tourist drive.

The Torres del Paine—three distinct granite peaks in the Paine massif—are the park's iconic feature. From south to north, they are Torre d'Agostini, Torre Central, and Torre Monzino, rising 2,500 meters above sea level. They are joined by the Cuernos del Paine. The area also holds valleys, rivers like the Paine, and lakes such as Grey, Pehoé, Nordenskjöld, and Sarmiento. Glaciers including Grey, Pingo, and Tyndall belong to the Southern Patagonia Ice Field.

Lady Florence Dixie gave one of the earliest descriptions of the area in her 1880 book, calling the three towers Cleopatra's Needles. She and her group are sometimes considered the first foreign tourists to visit what is now the park. Later, European scientists and explorers like Otto Nordenskjöld, Carl Skottsberg, and Alberto María de Agostini came through. Gunther Plüschow was the first to fly over the Paine massif.

The park was first established on May 13, 1959, as Parque Nacional de Turismo Lago Grey, and got its current name in 1970. In 1976, British mountaineer John Garner and two park rangers, Pepe Alarcon and Oscar Guineo, pioneered the Circuit trail around the Paine massif. In 1977, Guido Monzino donated 12,000 hectares to the Chilean government, helping set the park's final boundaries. UNESCO designated it a World Biosphere Reserve in 1978.

Fires have repeatedly struck the park. In 1985, a tourist started a blaze that burned about 150 square kilometers east and south of Lake Pehoé. In February 2005, a Czech backpacker accidentally started a fire that lasted ten days, destroying 155 square kilometers, including about 2 square kilometers of native forest. The Czech government gave US$1 million for reforestation. In late December 2011, a major forest fire linked to an Israeli backpacker burned roughly 176 square kilometers, including 36 square kilometers of native forest, affecting areas around Lake Pehoé and Lake Sarmiento but sparing the Cordillera del Paine. In 2019, a cigarette butt caused a small wildfire that was quickly put out by nearby fire brigades. Paleoenvironmental studies show fires have been frequent in the park for at least the last 12,800 years.

Under the Köppen climate classification, the park has a temperate climate of cold rain without a dry season. Weather is variable due to the complex terrain. Strong winds are famous here, with the windiest months being November through January, which is also peak tourist season. Summers are cool, with January temperatures below 16°C. Winters are cold, with July highs averaging 5°C and lows around -3°C. The rainiest months are March and April, with about 80 mm of rain each—double the winter rainfall from July to October. Studies have analyzed the chemical makeup of the precipitation.

The park has a large drainage network of rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and cascades flowing from the Southern Patagonia Ice Field southeast to the Última Esperanza Sound near Puerto Natales. These watercourses are turbulent, with abrupt changes in course caused by waterfalls and rapids. The Southern Patagonian Ice Field covers the park's entire western side and feeds four main glaciers: Dickson, Grey, Zapata, and Tyndall, listed from north to south. Tyndall is rapidly receding. The largest, Glacier Grey, is split into two arms by a peninsula of ice.