Torres del Paine National Park is full of truly extraordinary landscapes, from its immense granite towers to the hulking mass of the Paine Massif itself. But in six seasons of working in the park as a guide and hiking the W Trek more times than I care to remember, there was one place that I could never get tired of seeing: Glacier Grey.
Glacier Grey is the largest and most spectacular glacier in Torres del Paine. While most of the ones you can see while trekking are hanging glaciers, cascading from mountains like giant scoops of ice cream sliding off a spoon, Glacier Grey is something more special. It’s an immense river of ice flowing slowly down a long valley, with three massive tongues reaching straight into the waters of Lago Grey, with blue cliffs more than 100 feet (30 metres) high. Let me walk you through my favourite ways to get close to this immense and extraordinary sheet of ice.
Hiking to Glacier Grey
One of my favourite views of Glacier Grey is on the trail. The treat for me as a guide ws the way that it always hides itself from a full view as the trail weaves in and out of the thick forest. When you set out on the final leg of W Trek from Refugio Paine Grande next to the catamaran dock on Lake Pehoé, it’s not until you get close to Refugio Grey that you start to get the scent of ice in the air. I would take my hiking groups to a viewpoint on a hill a further ten minutes past the refugio, where the glacier explodes into view.
Hikers will already have seen hanging glaciers in the park, but for most people it’s the first time that they’ve seen such a huge river of ice snaking into a lake, For many, it’s quite an emotional experience, and even though I’ve been there countless times, it’s a view I never get tired off. When the sun is out, the ice cliffs shine an almost iridescent blue, like they’re charged with impossible energy. And it is of course: ancient ice made from snow that fell over the Andes countless years ago, released into the lake with great crashes any time an iceberg calved from its face. You have to be lucky to see that actually happening, but nine times out of ten when I visited, there would be beautiful blocks of ice the size of enormous houses floating at the foot of its cliffs.
Incidentally, if you hike the O Circuit, you get longer and more sustained views of the glacier as you hike above it after coming down from John Gardner Pass. It’s a nice little reward for the extra effort and days you’ve put into your adventure.
Taking a boat to Glacier Grey
The views from near Refugio Grey are a perfect way to whet your appetite for getting a little closer to the ice. And for most people that means taking a boat trip on the catamaran that leaves from the Grey Beach. The brilliant thing about this is that it includes a stop close to Refugio Grey, so if you’re hiking the W Trek then it’s easy to add this to your itinerary – and let the boat take the strain as you cruise towards the glacier.
The boat trip lasts around three hours. As you sail close to the face of Glacier Grey, you quickly discover that it now has three tongues, as the ice slowly flows around two islands. These islands are called nunataks, which means they were once entirely surrounded by the glacier. Sadly, the warming climate means that the face of the glacier has been receding in recent years, so that these rocky islands now stand free in the waters of Lago Grey.
As a guide, I always loved the boat trip as it was a great opportunity for our hiking group to take stock of everything we’d seen and done. We always felt dwarfed and humbled by the ice cliffs when we got close to the glacier as we expected to, but people were always amazed by just how good the views of the Paine Massif are when you’re out on the water. That little bit of extra distance really seems to bring a whole new perspective.
There was also a celebratory drink. The guides on the boat always love to make a party piece out of fishing a chunk of glacial ice from the lake and serving it over drinks: a complimentary pisco sour is usually the preferred drink, though there’s always juice or a soft drink if you prefer not to drink alcohol. And you might think that ice is just ice, but there’s something about glacier ice that really does seem to make a drink taste fresher.
Ice hiking on Glacier Grey
You need a boat of a different kind to get as close as it’s possible to be with Glacier Grey – by putting on crampons and walking on its back. For this, you zip across Lago Grey on a small zodiac boat so you can approach the ice on foot. It’s a brilliant way to arrive – and when you, you feel even more adventurous when the guides hand you a pair of crampons, a helmet and an ice axe.
In truth, the ice hiking itself is pretty easy – the crampons are to make the walking safe and easy rather than tackling any serious climbs. The point is to get out onto the great expanse of ice and feel very tiny indeed in the face of some epic natural landscapes.
As you walk, you’ll cross narrow crevasses and narrow streams running through the ice. Even on a cloudy day I was always amazed by just how many shades of blue the ice could be, but on a sunny day the colours sing out in the light. It’s completely enchanting. Sometimes, there is a bigger crevasse that’s safe to enter, and you can feel completely engulfed by the glacier, listening to the sounds of the ice and the water.
The ice hiking takes about five hours in total – barely a short half day in Patagonia when the summer daylight stretches up to 18 hours. If the wind picks up the hiking can sometimes get cut short so you can safely get back across Lago Grey in the zodiac, but this was pretty rare in my experience.
Kayaking at Glacier Grey
The last way to experience Glacier Grey is by kayak. You don’t need any kayaking experience (I didn’t have any the first time I did this trip), just a good general level of fitness. It’s all about having a gentle paddle over a couple of hours amid the ice – serious kayakers usually want to add in longer trips in the national park along the Serrano River.
But that said, if you just want an easy adventure to add on to a hike then the kayaking at Glacier Grey is pretty much perfect. All the gear is provided, though I always liked to bring an extra thin body layer to go on under the wetsuit. All the extra insulation helps: even a mild Patagonian breeze can be chilly when it’s coming off a glacier.
You set out from the beach near Refugio Grey, and in no time at all you’re paddling alongside big big floating chunks of ice. The silence is always extraordinary: with no engine like on the boat, you feel strangely compelled to talk in whispers, so the only sound is your paddles in the water. If you get close enough to some of the small ice, you can pluck them out of the water. Newer ice pops as air bubbles escape from it, but the oldest glacier ice almost looks like glass, having had all the air slowly squeezed out of it as tons of pressure forced it down from the Southern Patagonian Ice Field where it was born. It’s an incredible way to get close to the essence of what a glacier is: the sound of ancient snow that fell high on a distant mountain range.
Whether by paddling in a kayak, putting on crampons, approaching it by catamaran or just hiking with a view. Glacier Grey has always had something new to show me. Perhaps it’s no wonder that no matter how many times I visited – and continue to visit from my home in nearby Puerto Natales – I’ve never become tired of Glacier Grey’s magic.
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