100km Through Patagonia: The W Trek and the Road to Fitz Roy

A crescent moon of granite towers, a glacier the color of glass, and a snowstorm that nearly stopped us at the border: sixteen days across the bottom of the world.

Last sight of Fitz Roy when we said goodbye.

Crossing the World to Get There

Santiago is a long way from Sydney: across the Pacific, past New Zealand, over the international date line, all the way down to the tip of South America. Somewhere over the ocean, past the second in-flight movie and a lunch of cheese and crackers, it started to feel real: this wasn't just another hike. This was Patagonia.

We landed into a golden Santiago sunset, the city sitting in the shadow of giant mountains, colonial architecture lit red at the edges. A day of wandering, a rushed empanada dinner, and barely any sleep, then it was back to the airport for the flight south to Puerto Natales.

Trip Highlights at a Glance

Puerto Natales: Packing for Five Days

There's a particular kind of stress in packing a backpack for five days of trekking for the first time: working out what's essential, what's dead weight, what can go into luggage storage for the week. We fed ourselves leftover soup and peanut-butter bread at 5am, hurried to catch a bus in the cold dark, and three hours later were standing at the start of the W Trek.

Getting to the trailhead: most W Trek itineraries start with a bus-and-catamaran combination rather than a direct walk-in, and ours was no exception:

• Bus Sur, Puerto Natales Terminal de Buses → Pudeto: departed 06:45, arrived 09:45
• Catamarán Pudeto–Paine Grande (Hielos Patagónicos), across Lago Pehoé: departed 10:30, arrived 11:00

Both legs need to be booked ahead in peak season: Bus Sur and the catamaran operator both run limited daily departures, and missing the connection means losing most of a trekking day.

The goal: 20km on day one, into Torres del Paine National Park.

The W Trek: Five Days, 80 Kilometres

Grey Glacier and the First Big Sleep

After a brutal first day (jet lag, no sleep, a heavy pack), we slept twelve hours straight in a refugio bunk bed and woke up rejuvenated. That day we crossed our first glacier crossings, one after another, up and down, with the Grey Glacier itself opening up ahead of us: a vast field of ice threaded with impossibly blue crevasses.

A detour off the main trail led us straight to the edge of the ice, one of the unplanned highlights of the trip.

Rain, Wind, and a Rainbow

Patagonia doesn't do gentle weather. Most afternoons brought rain, and the wind was strong enough to shred a cheap poncho clean off; we learned fast that a proper rain jacket and windproof layer weren't optional gear, they were survival gear. But the same instability that brought the rain also brought this:

The sun always seemed to find a way through eventually.

A fellow trekker passed us on the trail just as the sun broke through after a downpour. "The sun came out at last," he said, and we all just laughed and agreed. Water on the leaves and rocks lit up like glass. We walked with the sun on our backs the rest of the way to camp.

Life in the Refugios

The refugios along the W Trek became their own small world each night: hot showers, warm fires, bunk beds, and a strange, quiet camaraderie with strangers from all over the planet. Breakfast was absurdly overpriced and everyone sat in assigned seats depending on whether they'd paid for a meal ticket. Outside the window: mountains you couldn't always see through the rain, but you always knew were there.

One of the trekking camps along the route, home for the night.

The Hardest Day, and the Best Camp

Some days blurred into pure endurance: eight hours walking non-stop, legs gone, energy low, rain setting in most afternoons like clockwork. But there were also days in flow: scrambling down steep rocky terrain feeling strong and fast, laughing through the descent, the balance and strength built over years of training finally paying off.

The reward at the end of one particularly long stretch: Camp Chileno, set in a valley between two towering peaks with glacial meltwater streaming past and fern trees crowding the trail in like something out of a fairy tale. A hot shower, a giant glass of Malbec, and a proper sit-down dinner, worth every peso after five days of trail food.

By the end of the W, we'd covered 80km in five days, real, complete, and properly exhausting.

The Border Crossing: When the Snow Won

Not every part of this trip was scenery and sunsets. Driving from Puerto Natales toward El Calafate, we hit a snowstorm at altitude that turned a routine border crossing into hours of genuine uncertainty.

The road disappeared under thickening snow. Our car got stuck. Twice. Strangers driving the same road stopped to help: someone lent us tire chains, another group pushed the car free with their bare hands in the wind and dark, a driver who spoke no English simply pointed and said, in effect, don't worry, we've got you. At one point we didn't know if we'd be stuck on that mountain overnight. We made it to El Calafate at 10:30pm, half in disbelief, incredibly grateful to people whose names we never even got.

It's the kind of moment that doesn't show up in a highlight reel, but it's as much a part of traveling somewhere remote as any glacier: the reminder that the margin for error is real, and that people will often go out of their way for two exhausted foreigners stuck in the snow.

El Calafate and the Road to Fitz Roy

After the trek and the storm, El Calafate felt like recovery: a sunrise drive out toward the glacier, quiet mountain roads, gold light on snow-capped peaks. From there, the road to El Chaltén delivered one of the trip's defining images: Fitz Roy at dawn, its granite spires catching the very first light while everything else was still in shadow.

A side trip near El Chaltén, one of those views that stops conversation entirely.

El Chaltén: The Final Climbs

The last hikes of the trip took us up toward Fitz Roy itself, part of Los Glaciares National Park, through steep, uncomfortable terrain in the best possible way, legs and lungs both working hard, views opening up with every switchback. On a clear day, Fitz Roy's peaks are visible from an astonishing distance; up close, they're something else entirely.

Fitz Roy in full daylight, the autumn view.

We hiked out from the last lookout with Fitz Roy at our backs, coloured pink by the last light, the same peaks we'd first seen at dawn, now saying goodbye at dusk.

Evenings in El Chaltén meant parrilla: proper Argentine barbecue, lamb cooked over an open fire with chimichurri, roasted vegetables, a glass of red wine after a long day on the trail.

Nothing tastes better than a parrilla dinner after a big day of hiking.

The Numbers

• Total distance on the W Trek: ~80km over 5 days
• Total trip length: 16 days, including travel
• Total cost: AUD $4,400 per person, all-inclusive, covering flights, accommodation, meals, trekking bookings, gifts (flights alone: ~$800 for 2 domestic + 2 international legs)
• Note on cost: flights were booked partly using Qantas points, so worth factoring in if you're comparing this budget to an all-cash trip

Tips & Tricks: Planning Your Own Trip

Best season: late March–early April, Southern Hemisphere autumn. Expect cold, wind, rain, and occasional snow at higher altitudes or border crossings: this is shoulder season, so trade some weather risk for thinner crowds on the trail and in the refugios.

Essential gear: a genuinely waterproof/windproof jacket (not a poncho, we learned this one firsthand), a proper winter layer for wind-chill, and enough food for 5 days if self-supporting the trek. Hire a 4X4 if the weather forecasts snow.

Booking sites:

• W Trek refugios and campsites: book directly through https://www.bookingpatagonia.travel/
• Bus Sur (Puerto Natales to Pudeto): book online in advance during peak season https://www.busbud.com/
• Hielos Patagónicos catamaran across Lago Pehoé from Pudeto to Paine Grande: book online, and check the schedule against your Bus Sur arrival time so you're not stuck waiting hours for the next crossing https://www.bookingpatagonia.travel/pehoe-catamaran

Final Thoughts

Patagonia doesn't ask permission before it changes the weather, the road conditions, or your plans for the day, and that's exactly what makes it worth going. Somewhere between the ice, the rain, the strangers who helped push our car out of the snow, and the first light hitting Fitz Roy, this trip became less about ticking off a bucket-list hike and more about remembering what the body and the mind are actually capable of, if you just keep walking.

If you're thinking about doing the W Trek or the Fitz Roy hikes yourself, go in shoulder season if you want fewer crowds and don't mind rougher weather, budget more than you think for food at the refugios, and pack for wind before anything else.