CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 276 km loop that starts and ends near Puerto Natales, about 6 h 47 of riding. On the way it passes Cerro Castillo Chile, Laguna Amarga, Pudeto and Grey Lake. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
For about 27 km this is Torres del Paine Scenic Circuit, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 14 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go. Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
Puerto Natales sits on the edge of the Última Esperanza Sound, the Last Hope, a name given by a sixteenth-century expedition that hoped to find a passage through the channels and found only more water. The town of about twenty thousand people lies on a low shore facing west across the water to the snow-capped peaks of the Patagonian ice field, and the light on a clear evening, with the mountains turning pink, is the best the town has to offer. It was once a base for sheep ranching and meat-packing, and its character is still that of a frontier port.
Read the complete Puerto Natales write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Puerto Natales is where the day begins. Next is Cerro Castillo Chile.
Cerro Castillo is a tiny settlement on the Patagonian steppe in the Magallanes region of southern Chile, close to the Argentine border, and it is the last place of any size on the road from Puerto Natales to the Torres del Paine national park. Around it the land is a vast sweep of tawny grass, scrub and low hills, broken by lakes and rivers and a long horizon with snowy peaks far off to the west. It looks empty, and it is not: guanacos graze in small herds beside the road, rheas dash through the grass, and condors circle on the thermals.
Read the complete Cerro Castillo Chile write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cerro Castillo Chile comes up about 60 km into the recorded legs. Next is Laguna Amarga.
Laguna Amarga is the entrance to Torres del Paine, and the first view of the park's famous towers makes the whole long journey seem worth it. The lagoon itself is a shallow, brackish lake of milky green water on the open steppe, ringed by low hills, and behind it rise the granite spires of the Paine massif, three vertical towers of rock that seem to belong in another country. The name means bitter lake, from the salty water.
Read the complete Laguna Amarga write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 109 km into the recorded legs you reach Laguna Amarga. Next is Pudeto.
Pudeto is a jetty, a car park and a thunderous little waterfall, and it earns its place in Torres del Paine for one reason: the view. The lake beside it is Pehoé, a startling milky turquoise made by glacial flour, and across the water the Cuernos del Paine, the Horns, rise as dark granite spires crowned with paler rock. On a still morning the reflection doubles the mountains, and the wind that normally ruins everything eases off for an hour or so.
Read the complete Pudeto write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pudeto, about halfway. Next is Grey Lake.
Lago Grey is the park's glacial lake, and unlike the warm-looking blues elsewhere in Torres del Paine it is cold grey-green, scattered with icebergs that have calved from the Grey Glacier at its far end. The glacier is an outlet of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, the largest mass of ice in the southern hemisphere outside Antarctica, and the bergs drift down the lake on the wind, some as blue as sapphire, some striped with dust and sediment. They wash up on a beach of dark pebbles near the lodge, where you can stand close enough to hear them crackle.
Read the complete Grey Lake write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grey Lake sits at 168 km, late in the day. Next is Puerto Natales.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Puerto Natales write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 276 km.
Puerto Natales → Cerro Castillo Chile is 60 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Cerro Castillo Chile → Laguna Amarga is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Laguna Amarga → Pudeto is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pudeto → Grey Lake is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grey Lake → Puerto Natales is 105 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.