Torres del Paine National Park

Long ago, hot melted rock pushed up under the ground. It cooled into pale granite.

Later, rivers of ice scraped away the rock around it. Now the granite towers stand tall, some still wearing dark rocky hats.

About 12.5 million years ago, molten rock, or magma, pushed its way into older, darker layers of sedimentary rock underground. There it cooled and hardened into a huge sheet of pale granite, more than 2 kilometers thick.

Later the land was lifted up, and erosion, mostly by glaciers, stripped away the rock around and above it. That is why the Paine peaks are two-colored: light granite below and dark sedimentary rock on top. Geologists call it a world-class place to study how such granite bodies form.

The International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) lists the Torres del Paine Intrusive Complex as a geoheritage site. It is a Miocene laccolith, about 12.5 million years old (Michel et al., 2008): a subhorizontal granite body more than 12 km long and up to 2.5 km thick, intruded on top of a mafic body and into dark Cretaceous sedimentary country rock 98–86 million years old.

The granite arrived as three sheets, each underplating the one before. High-precision U-Pb dating of zircon shows the more than 2,000 m of granite was emplaced within about 90,000 years. Tectonic uplift and erosion, mostly glacial, now expose the complex from base to top, which is why the peaks show pale granite beneath dark sedimentary caps.

Big glaciers flow down from a huge field of ice.

Water from the ice fills rivers, lakes, ponds and waterfalls.

The park's rivers, streams, lakes, ponds and waterfalls begin in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. CONAF says it is the third-largest mass of ice in the world, after Antarctica and Greenland, covering 13,500 square kilometers.

Several glaciers flow out of this ice field into the park: Dickson, Grey, Zapata, Tindall and Geike. The Dickson Glacier shrank back by about 17 meters a year, on average, between 1897 and 1943. Visitors can cross Lake Grey and Lake Pehoé by catamaran.

CONAF describes a broad hydrological network of rivers, streams, lakes, ponds and waterfalls originating in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, which it ranks as the third-largest ice mass in the world after Antarctica and Greenland, at 13,500 km². The Dickson, Grey, Zapata, Tindall and Geike glaciers descend from it; CONAF singles out the Dickson, which retreated an average of 17 m a year between 1897 and 1943.

The landscape shows the landforms CONAF lists: valleys, glaciers, mountains, moraines and plains, with folds and faults in the rock. Catamarans cross Lake Grey and Lake Pehoé.

Many animals live in the park.

Guanacos and foxes live here. Pumas are big wild cats. Condors fly high in the sky. Rheas are big birds.

CONAF counts 126 kinds of birds and 25 kinds of mammals in the park so far. Visitors often see guanacos, foxes, rheas, swans and Andean condors. Pumas live here too, along with the huemul, a kind of deer, and the Magellanic woodpecker.

The plants change with the land. Cold Patagonian steppe covers the plains, wind-tough shrubs cover most of the park, forests of lenga beech grow in some areas, and higher up there is a treeless Andean desert. More than 274 plant species have been described.

CONAF lists 126 bird species so far, among them the lesser rhea (Rhea pennata), imperial cormorant, Chilean flamingo, coscoroba and black-necked swans, Andean condor, peregrine falcon, austral parakeet and Magellanic woodpecker, and 25 mammals, including the puma (Puma concolor), culpeo and South American gray foxes, guanaco (Lama guanicoe) and huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus), plus six reptiles, three amphibians and six fishes.

Its more than 274 described plant species form loose communities: Patagonian cold steppe with up to about 400 mm of rain a year; pre-Andean scrub, the most extensive, with plants adapted to save water against the wind; Magellanic deciduous forest dominated by lenga (Nothofagus pumilio); and treeless Andean desert at altitude.

Visitors hike on trails and sleep in tents or huts.

Stay on the trail, dress warmly, and watch animals from far away. Never feed them.

Visitors camp, hike, climb, sail, ride horses and walk on glaciers in the park. CONAF rates each trail for length and difficulty; from May to September snow is a risk, and in winter one section of the W trail can only be walked with a guide.

The park has no gas stations, and mobile phones work only at the administration center, so plan ahead. Stay on the trails, keep a safe distance from wildlife, and get the latest opening times and rules from CONAF before you go.

CONAF lists activities including camping, hiking, mountaineering, boating, river descents, glacier crossings and horseback riding. Each trail is rated for length, duration and difficulty, with snow listed as a risk from May to September; part of the W route may be walked only with a guide in winter under the winter visiting protocol.

Practical limits matter: there is no fuel for sale in or near the park, mobile coverage exists only at Villa Monzino, the administrative center, and the park radio frequency is used for emergencies. CONAF stresses that official information comes only from CONAF and its Pases Parques ticket site. Visitors should stay on marked trails and keep their distance from wildlife.