|
| Located 150 km from Puerto Natales on Seno de Ultima Esperanza (Last Hope Inlet), is Torres del Paine national park. It has 180,000 hectares of spectacular scenery. The park was created in 1959 and declared part of the International Biosphere Reserve Network by the UNESCO in 1978. It is part of the 11 units of the National Wild Area Network protected by the Chilean government in the Magellan and Antarctic region.
The Paine Massif is a small mountain system completely independent from the Patagonian Andes Range. It was formed some 12 million years ago when granite pluton penetrated through a crack in the Magellan's basin. With the passage of time, this pushed sedimentary rock upwards. The granite can be seen in the Towers (Torres from which the park gets its name), the lower part of the horns (Cuernos). Both, the last Ice Age and the weather eroded the rock away to give its current shape. The Southern Patagonian Ice Field (Campo del Hielo Sur) stretches itself down into the park with Glacier Grey being at its southern tip. While the elevations of the mountains are modest compared to the mountains of the High Andes in the rest of the continent, the mountains in the park do involve steep ascents and descents. There are more than 200km. of hiking trails, the most popular one being the W-trek, so called because of the shape formed by the route as viewed from above. |
|
|
|
|
| © JAlbum & Chameleon | Help |