Torres del Paine National Park

Lore & Background

The park's three distinctive granite peaks, the Torres del Paine, rise 2,500 meters above sea level and are joined by the Cuernos del Paine. European scientists and explorers including Otto Nordenskjöld, Carl Skottsberg, and Alberto María de Agostini later visited; Gunther Plüschow was the first to fly over the Paine massif.

Reader's Guide

Torres del Paine National Park is significant as a major protected area in Chilean Patagonia, part of the Sistema Nacional de Áreas Silvestres Protegidas del Estado de Chile. It lies in a transition zone between Magellanic subpolar forests and Patagonian Steppes, and its landscape is dominated by the Paine massif, an eastern spur of the Andes. The park contains glaciers from the Southern Patagonia Ice Field, including Grey, Pingo, and Tyndall, and vividly colored lakes such as Grey, Pehoé, Nordenskjöld, and Sarmiento. Its climate is temperate with strong winds, especially from November to January. The park is part of the End of the World Route scenic route and is one of 11 protected areas in the Magallanes Region and Chilean Antarctica, which together cover about 51% of the region's land.

Did You Know?

• Paine means 'blue' in the native Tehuelche (Aonikenk) language and is pronounced PIE-neh.
• The Southern Patagonian Ice Field feeds four main glaciers in the park: Dickson, Grey, Zapata, and Tyndall.