Your Complete Patagonia W Trek Itinerary, Day by Day
A real 5-day trail plan for Torres del Paine, built from an actual November trek, not a brochure.
- The exact trail order that avoids the crowds and the worst wind
- Where to sleep each night, refugio vs. campsite, with real booking timing
- Daily distances, elevation, and honest time estimates, not trailhead-sign guesses
- Which nights you can book same-day and which fill up months out
- The one gear swap that would have saved us a cold, wet night
This is the itinerary I actually hiked in November 2023: five days on trail through Torres del Paine’s W Circuit, named for the shape the three valleys trace on a map. There is no faster version that still shows you all three — the schedule below is the real one, with the timing, the tradeoffs, and the exact order I would hike it again. If you are still deciding whether the W is worth the days off, read Patagonia in November first. If you already know you are going, here is exactly how the five days break down.
Day 1 — Puerto Natales to Torres Base
The trek starts with logistics, not a trail. Buses leave Puerto Natales for the park entrance early, and after the entrance fee and a shuttle to the trailhead, you are looking at a late-morning start for the hike up to the Torres viewpoint. Plan on roughly 19 to 20 km round trip if you are staying near the base and doing the mirador as a there-and-back before settling in, and the last hour is a steep boulder scramble the trail signs undersell. The reward is the granite towers themselves, close enough that the postcard shot doesn’t do the scale justice. Budget six to seven hours on trail, more if the wind has you bracing between gusts — which in November, it will.
Day 2 — Catamaran to Paine Grande
Day two is the one nobody explains properly before you go: instead of walking the long way around the western edge of the park, you take a short bus back toward Laguna Amarga and a catamaran across Lago Pehoé to Paine Grande. The crossing is about 30 minutes and saves a full day of flat, unremarkable walking. It is worth doing for the view alone — Paine Grande’s face fills the window the entire way over. The hiking day itself is short by W Trek standards, which is the point: it is built-in recovery before the hardest day of the five.
Day 3 — French Valley
French Valley is the middle stroke of the W and the day most people remember afterward. It is a long there-and-back from Paine Grande — figure nine to eleven hours round trip depending on how far into the valley you go and how many times you stop for the avalanches coming off the hanging glaciers on the valley walls. You hear them before you see them: a low crack, then a slow-motion wall of snow. The full push takes you to the Británico viewpoint, ringed by the Cuernos and the Paine Grande massif on both sides. It is the one day I would not skip, even if you are tired and the weather looks uncertain. Pack your full layer system specifically for this day — the valley creates its own microclimate, and the wind funnels through it differently than the rest of the trail.
Day 4 — Grey Glacier
By day four the fatigue is cumulative, not acute — legs are fine in the morning and done by 3pm, a different problem than day one’s soreness. The hike out to Grey Glacier follows the lake north, and the ice becomes visible from the trail a solid hour before you are anywhere near it. If you have budgeted for it, the boat add-on gets you close enough to see the blue in the crevasses properly, though weather cancels these more often than tour operators like to admit — build in a buffer if seeing the glacier up close matters to you specifically. Refugio Grey is the last stop before backtracking, and it is the coldest camp of the five nights, so this is where the layering system you packed actually earns its space in your bag.
Day 5 — Out to Puerto Natales
The last day is a backtrack, not a new trail — retracing the route to the catamaran, then the bus back to Puerto Natales. It is less scenic than the first four days by design, so treat it as a logistics day: check bus times before you leave the refugio, because missing the last connection back to town adds an unplanned night. This is also the day the packing decisions from day one pay off the most — dry socks and a real waterproof layer are the difference between a forgettable transit day and a miserable one.
Where to Sleep Each Night
Refugio bunks and campsites both work for the W, and which you choose changes your pack weight more than your itinerary. Night 1: Refugio Torres or the campsite at the base, whichever is available when you book — this fills first for a November trip. Night 2: Refugio Paine Grande, right on the lake where the catamaran drops you. Night 3: back at Paine Grande after the French Valley day, or Refugio Frances if you would rather split the there-and-back into two shorter days. Night 4: Refugio Grey, the coldest of the five nights and worth the extra layer. Both the catamaran and the refugio beds need booking months out for spring season, not weeks — that timing is its own puzzle, and it is the entire subject of the booking timeline I put together separately, because it trips up more people than the trail itself does.
What the Five Days Actually Require
Five days on trail is the real number, not the compressed three-day version some itineraries advertise by cutting French Valley or the Grey Glacier leg. Add two travel days on either end just to reach Puerto Natales from a U.S. departure, and it is a nine or ten day trip minimum if you are honest about it. Daily distances range from around 11 km on the short catamaran day to over 22 km on the French Valley day, and the fatigue is cumulative — day four is where most people feel it, not day one. The layered clothing system matters more here than almost anywhere else I have hiked, because you will use every layer in the same afternoon, and trail runners versus boots is a real decision, not a gear-blog talking point. I go into the exact answer, plus every toiletry, document, and emergency item I carried, in the free packing list.
What I’d Do Differently
If I hiked the W again, I would add a rest day at Paine Grande after French Valley instead of pushing straight to Grey Glacier the next morning — the cumulative fatigue on day four would matter less with one more night to recover. I would also book the Grey Glacier boat add-on earlier in the week rather than on arrival, since afternoon wind cancellations cluster later in the trip. Neither changes the route, just the pacing, and pacing is the one thing no trailhead sign will tell you to plan for.
The Photographer’s Hour
November is spring in Patagonia, so daylight runs long and the wind tends to build through the afternoon and ease off toward evening, which is also when the lakes settle and the color in the water shows up the way it does in photos. My best shots of the Torres came in the last hour before sunset on day one, and the French Valley light on day three changes every twenty minutes as clouds move through — budget extra time there if photography matters to your trip.
Written by a former Team USA Women’s Handball athlete who has actually hiked the W Circuit — not a travel blog rewrite. Get the exact packing list I used for these five days, check the Torres del Paine booking timeline, or browse all itineraries for other trips.
Before you close the tabs
Two things worth sorting now.
The trail is the straightforward part. Beds, campsites, dates, and connections are where this trip gets messy.
