Torres del Paine: O Circuit

From Laguna Amarga the circuit turns its back on the postcards: rolling pampas up the Paine river with guanacos posing and the massif's rarely-photographed north walls ahead. Camp at Serón among old beeches.

Around the windy shoulder at Lago Paine — leaning-into-it walking, ridiculous turquoise below — then down to the grass shore of Dickson with its glacier calving at the far end. The circuit's quietest camp.

A forest day climbing steadily beside the Perros river to the moraine lake below its grey glacier, camp among wind-bent lengas. Kit dried, alarm set: the pass owns tomorrow.

The crux, started dark: through dripping forest, over the moraines, to the 1,241m pass — and the moment everyone goes quiet, because Grey glacier fills the world below. Long steep descent on ladders and roots to Paso camp.

The balcony day above Grey: three suspension bridges over side-gorges, icebergs drifting below, the glacier's blue seams close enough to read. Refugio Grey's hot showers arrive precisely on schedule.

Easier miles along Lago Grey's iceberg shore and over the shoulder to Paine Grande on windy Pehoé — the lake so vividly blue it reads as an error. Afternoon spare for legs, laundry and the bar's window seats.

Up the middle valley to the Británico lookout: hanging glaciers calving off Paine Grande's face on the left, the Cuernos' twisted granite on the right, and a natural amphitheatre that makes everyone sit down and stop talking.

The traverse under the Cuernos along Nordenskjöld's shore, then up the windy Ascencio valley to Chileno camp, positioned for the dawn raid. Early dinner, boots by the door, alarms compared and dreaded.

Headtorches through the forest, the boulder-field staircase, and the towers arriving in grey — then the light hits: granite igniting orange over the green lake, the single most theatrical dawn in trekking. Down to Central; bus; champagne bought days ago on purpose.