Most people come to Torres del Paine in summer, when the days are long and the air is warm. I bring photographers in autumn, because that’s when the park is actually worth photographing.
From late March into early May the southern beech turns. Lenga and ñire go from green to yellow to a deep red that climbs the hillsides and fills the valleys under the Cuernos, and by the middle of April it peaks on both sides of the border, the Chilean park and the Argentine side alike. That color is the reason to come, and by late May – early June it’s gone.
Color isn’t the only thing that shifts. The summer buses and vans clear out after March, so the overlooks that were three-deep in January go quiet and you can set up where you want. The famous Patagonia winds from the Southern Patagonia Icefield settle down, which lets the lakes hold still at first light and hand you the reflection under the towers. And the sun rides lower and slower, so instead of one hard blast of light at each end of a sixteen-hour day, the good hours stretch out. It’s colder, sure. You trade a few degrees for all the beauty.
There Are No Secret Spots — Only Time and Light, and Being There
Let me clear something up. Torres del Paine has been photographed for years, and I’m not going to pretend I know hidden locations nobody else does. Every easy and great viewpoint in this park is on a map, and I’ve shot them all, because they’re that good. The difference between a snapshot and a photograph you’ll hang on the wall isn’t a secret spot. It’s standing in the right place at the right hour, with the time to wait and to come back when the light finally does what you came for. But, I have shot in enough places that are not the standard view or similar angles as everyone else and I have many places that I consider worthy of an investment of time. They do not necessarily mean they are inside the park…and that is the difference between snapshots given to you and photos you create.
That’s the whole game here, and it’s the opposite of a drive-by tour. The bus trips pull up to the famous overlooks at midday, when the light is flat and the place is three-deep, snap, and move on. We work the other way. We stay close, we shoot both ends of the day, and if the towers are socked in this morning, we go back tomorrow. Patagonia’s weather turns on a dime, give it time and access and it hands you the frame. Rush it and you leave with the same postcard as everyone else.
Where the Pictures Are — All of Them
So here’s the park, spot by spot, and how we work each one. None of it is secret, and that’s the point.
The Towers — Mirador Las Torres. You’ve seen this one even if you’ve never heard the name: three granite towers over a milky glacial lagoon, catching the first sun and burning orange-red for a few minutes at dawn. It’s a cold, dark, hours-before-light climb to be standing there when it happens, and plenty of mornings the towers stay wrapped in cloud and it doesn’t. That’s the bargain. But when the water is still you get the towers twice, once in the sky and once in the lake, and I’ve never found anything else quite like it. Because we build in the days, a clouded-out dawn isn’t the end of it, we come back.
The Cuernos over Lago Pehoé. We base on the little island in Lago Pehoé at the Hostería Pehoé, with the horned peaks of the Cuernos del Paine standing straight across the water. Step out before dawn on a calm morning and the whole massif lands upside down in the lake, pink then gold, the island’s footbridge and boulders right there for a foreground. One of the great front-porch views in Patagonia, and it’s waiting the moment we wake, no drive required.
Salto Grande and the ghost forest. A few minutes up the road, Salto Grande throws all of Lago Nordenskjöld into Pehoé in a wide, thundering sheet, the Cuernos rising right behind it. Get there for first light, before the buses arrive around nine, and you’ve got moving water, still peaks, and an empty frame. Just up the trail stand the fire-scorched forests from the old burns, bleached and twisted skeletons of lenga that make some of the strongest foregrounds in the park, especially under a moody sky.
Grey Glacier, from the water. For the biggest ice, we sail. A boat runs up Lago Grey to the face of Grey Glacier, and the best angle and best light come mid-morning, from the deck, blue séracs breaking off a wall of ice with the drifting bergs floating between you and the glacier. Down on the grey-sand beach at the lake’s foot, stranded icebergs sit like blue glass you can walk right up to.
The French Valley, on foot. We take the catamaran across Lago Pehoé from the Pudeto landing to Paine Grande, at the foot of the W and O treks, and walk into the Valle del Francés, the granite amphitheater at the heart of the range, with hanging glaciers cracking off the walls of Paine Grande above you. This is the up-close, inside-the-mountains country the day-trippers never reach.
The east — Laguna Amarga, Lago Sarmiento, and the grasslands. The eastern side is wide open and full of life. Laguna Amarga at sunrise gives you the towers mirrored in a still lagoon with guanacos on the shore. Nearby, Lago Sarmiento’s pale calcium shelves rim the water like bleached coral. And the drive out is all pampa, guanacos red against the grass, gauchos working horses across the plains, condors riding the ridgelines. Autumn, crowds gone and the guanacos drifting low, is the season for all of it.
Mirador Río Serrano. For the grand, take-it-all-in frame, the lookout above Río Serrano at the south end shows you more of the massif in one sweep than almost anywhere, the whole range stacked behind the river and the plains, and its magic at sunrise. Same view, at water level…it’s a different photo, even more powerful when the light and the clouds line up just right.
None of these is a secret. Every one of them rewards the photographer who’s there at the right hour with the time to wait, and to come back for the light. That’s the difference between seeing Torres del Paine and photographing it.
You Can’t Order the Color in Advance
I’ll be straight with you. The turn moves a week or two every year depending on when the first cold arrives, and nobody, me included, can promise peak red on a date you picked nine months earlier. What I can do is put you there in the weeks that give you the best odds, and build in enough days that the park has time to show up.
And nine months is about the lead time you need. There are only so many beds near the park and only so many 4×4 vehicles available, and in autumn they’re claimed early. The flights south are cheaper and easier the sooner you lock them. So if Patagonia next fall in South America is in your head, the time to start talking is now, not the week before. Torres del Paine will still be around but the colors will be gone.
Pumas, Guanacos, and the Rest of It
The region in and around Torres del Paine holds more pumas than anywhere on the continent, and as the crowds leave and the guanacos drift to lower ground, autumn is a better season to find them. I won’t promise you a cat. Nobody honest will. But if that’s what you’re after, I can add tracking with the local guides who know which valleys the pumas are working that week. Guanacos you’ll see all day, red against the pale grass, and the condors work the ridgelines above, as well as Southern Rhea, eagles, grey fox and culpeo and geese.
Getting There, and What You’re Paying For
Every trip starts in Puerto Natales, the small Chilean town at the edge of the park. You can fly to Punta Arenas and drive three hours north, or fly straight into Natales from Santiago, which I lean toward when the schedule allows, since it skips a long run of fast two-lane road full of traffic. Less time on the road means more time in Puerto Natales which has lots of great places to shoot nearby, when done, you have great hotels and restaurants in town.
When you weigh my trip against a cheaper one, look at the vehicle and the clock. I run private, so we roll out in the dark for the light that counts and we’re not lashed to a busload of strangers on a fixed loop. The bargain tour is almost always a shared bus that pulls up to the famous viewpoints at noon, when the light is flat and the place is packed. That’s the whole difference in the price, and it’s the whole difference in what you bring home.
Come Talk to Me
If autumn in Patagonia is on your mind, call me, text me, or drop me an email. Tell me roughly when you can get away and what you’re chasing, the towers at dawn, the fall color, the pumas, and I’ll tell you straight what that time of year tends to do and which weeks I’d put you in. The good dates go early, so the sooner we talk, the more we’ve got to work with.
sergio@sergiophototours.com
See the 12-day autumn itinerary →
Autumn in Chile’s Torres del Paine — the Cuernos over Lago Pehoé, red beech forests, Grey Glacier, and Patagonian wildlife, from Sergio Photo Tours’ autumn expedition.
