8 Steps to Stress-Free Patagonia Planning: The Full Circuit

We do this blog for 2 reasons:
1. To update our friends and family on our adventures
2. To pay it forward: we get most of our plans and recommendations from others' blogs, and put a lot of time and thought into our plans. Hopefully someone, somewhere will find our information a little helpful :)
This blog post is specifically a "pay it forward" blog post. Planning our Patagonia hike is the single-most time-intensive part of our entire adventure, so hopefully this will save someone wanting to do the O even a little bit of time.

When you get frustrated with the planning, just remember that it's all worth it:

Step 1: Choose your time of year.
November through February is considered high season, with January and February being the peak of that. We chose the first week of March, hoping for solid weather and "shoulder season"-sized crowds. It worked out pretty well, but we did have quite a bit of rain. Keep in mind you should be planning this ~6 months out, and even further out if you are looking at Jan-Feb.

Step 2: Find your flights.
We flew into Puerto Natales (the closest city to the park entrance- 1.5 hr bus ride away), but other options are Punta Arenas (the most popular) and El Calafate. I found this article helpful when looking at different options, but Puerto Natales was a great hub that had everything we needed to be trek-ready 2 days after we arrived!
*Seriously consider arriving at least 2 days before your trek. Getting stuff all lined up can be stressful, and there are tons of resources in town to help you make sure you're all set. We were so grateful for this time to pick up random stuff and get packed up with our rental gear.

Step 3: Set your budget.
This feels like a strange step, but there are really 2 ways to do Patagonia: backpacking or glamping. If you're looking to stay at the all inclusive Refugios (basically a back-country hotel... a far cry from "roughing it" :) ), you'll need to adjust your route (Step 4) to avoid the CONAF free sites.

Step 4: Pick your route.
Picking the sites, length of hikes, and dates is the beginning of the tough stuff.

There are 3 basic routes:

1. The W: The red lines on the map- the most popular trek in the park
2. The O: the green and bottom part of the red 
3. The Q: The O route and an additional day-long trek up to Paine Grande.

We are going to focus on the O.

A few important things to know:

• This trek can only be done counterclockwise, starting at the Hotel Torres.
• It takes anywhere from 7-10 days to do the hike, with most completing it in 8 days.
• Camp sites or refugios are run by 3 different companies, with 3 different booking processes, and reservations must be made in advance. You also need to bring your reservation confirmations with you.
• Some people we met tried doing this without reservations, and they were met with a ton of resistance from rangers. Often times they would have to turn around and hike back, or hike 16 hours in a day. We wouldn't recommend this.

Since there are so many different camp sites, run by different companies, I made this spreadsheet to make it easier:

Ultimately, we ended up with this itinerary based on both lodging availability and our hiking preferences:

We were super happy with our plan. Unfortunately, we weren't able to hike up to either Mirador because of bad weather, but we still had an amazing time. A few notes if you're curious about plan adjustments:

• Some people start at Chileno, hike up to the Mirador, and then around to Serrano, leaving after Italiano. That seemed to work pretty well too.
• We would not recommend skipping Paso unless you are absolutely not going to carry a tent/sleeping bag. Perros to Paso is a tough day, and going all the way to Grey makes it close to 11 hours.
• If you're not feeling the gritty camping, Frances and Cuernos are both strong alternatives to Italiano. Cuernos is beautiful (and has board games!), but is very expensive.
• We skipped Grey, and that was a lonnnggg day, but we were totally fine. We skipped it only because it was booked out, but going back, it would have been good to do Paso to Grey to Cuernos and not stay at Paine Grande.

Step 5: Reserve your sites.

You'll need to book these through their respective companies, so get your ideal itinerary together first! A few notes on each:

• CONAF: 
• These are free! Wahoo! 
• They also have services commiserate with free campsites (like no hot water or flush toilets). 
• The booking process is fairly straightforward- you can do it all online, but you must book each individual campsite reservation separately. 
• Also, you can only stay at these campsites for 1 night each.
• Vertice:
• If you speak Spanish, or have a friend who is fluent that can help you, save yourself a TON of time and headache by throwing some money on a Skype account and calling them. 
• We didn't do this, and here's how it went: 
• I booked all three sites we were using with them at the same time on their website.
• I received an email telling me they'd reach out when I could pay.
• They never contacted me, and I followed up monthly for 3 months, and weekly when we were 8 weeks before the trip.
• They sent me a payment portal, which didn't work.
• After 3 more weeks of trying every few days, it worked!
• To note: they only replied to my emails that I sent in Spanish :)
• Do not stress about this back and forth. If things get held up or there is any confusion, just head to their office once you get into town and they will get everything sorted out for you.
• Fantastico Sur
• This booking process was the easiest (online, using PayPal when you check out), but their options are most confusing.
• Full board means it includes your meals for the night you arrive, and breakfast and a packed lunch for the next day. If this is the only option showing and you don't want to pay the price ($$$$), just send them an email. We didn't know that and paid, which was fine for only 1 night, but once we arrived here learned they almost always have camp sites available (with the exception of peak season in Jan-Feb).

Step 6: Trek Prep- What to Pack
Packing. Packing for this trek is different than others we've done for a few reasons:

• It's longer. As in, double the length of any other trek we've done. Beyond the obvious physicality of it, this also means much heavier packs.
• The wind and crazy changing weather. We've definitely hiked in the rain, but both the mud and wind were new adventures for us.
• We aren't coming from home, so we are doing all of our food prep and getting our gear while we're in-country.

Because of these reasons, we took a different approach: complete minimalism. Like to a nasty degree. We had 1 set of sleeping clothes and 1 set of hiking clothes. Yep. 1 set of clothes for 8 sweaty, muddy, rainy, snowy, adventurous days. Here's our full packing list:

Next, decide if you're going to buy or rent. Since we are on a 7 month long trip, we mostly rented. Erratic Rock is the most popular, and their folks are super-helpful. Their prices are middle-of-the-road for Puerto Natales. We ended up going with our hostel: Hostal Lili Patagonicos because it was just a little bit cheaper, and also convenient (we didn't need to haul all of the shit all the way across town to pack it up). They were not at all helpful in terms of what we needed, or trip advice, so if you're starting from scratch, I'd definitely just stick with Erratic Rock.

We rented a tent, sleeping pads, sleeping bags, and a stove/cooking stuff. We ended up buying trekking poles and rain pants because we have 4 major treks in the next 8 weeks, so we'll get our use out of them!

Things we were on the fence about that we would 100% recommend bringing for the O:

• Poles. We don't hike with poles, but we would have blown over in the wind without them.
• Rain pants. Mostly for insulation purposes because the rain feels more like ice.
• Chapstick with SPF. 

Step 7: Trek Prep- Food
Food planning and prep is so stressful the first few times you do it. We're getting better, but it's still a struggle. We have some go-to meals that we know we like, but had to throw those out the window this time around because they involved cans or liquids, which are just too heavy for an 8 day trek. Also, since we came from Brazil, we didn't have access to familiar staples to bring with us.

So, this is food prep for lazy hikers. We are by no means back country chefs or McGyvers, but there are TONS of blogs dedicated to great, creative, nutritious meals you can make from tree bark or whatever. This is our down-and-dirty meal plan.

• Breakfast/Lunch every day:
• 1 handful of nuts (large handfuls)
• 1 handful of dried fruits
• 1 granola bar
• 1 tortilla wrap (some with pb, some with salami and cheese)
• Dinners:
• They have these pre-made dehydrated meals to buy. They are expensive, EXCEPT! We found a great little store that had them of only $5 each ($3,000 pesos), which is half the cost they were elsewhere. Tag it and bag it.
• HAHA! Just kidding. Total fail. On trail, we realized that each meal was only 150 CALORIES! We ended up having to buy pasta, pasta sauce, and candy bars for a small fortune just so we didn't die of starvation. Don't buy the premade meals.
• We also have 2 other meals we cobbled together with a powdered soup mix, dehydrated mushrooms, and tiny alphabet noodles.
• Other stuff:
• A ton of Snickers bars
• Nesco instant coffee
• Herbal tea packs

We individually wrapped our snacks and meals by day, so we could just pull out the bag for the day and work through it rather than trying to get organized on trail. Works like a charm every time.

The grocery stores we thought were the best in Puerto Natales:

• Don Bosco for the basics (tortillas, peanut butter, nutella, plastic bags, etc.)
• Itahue on Calle Esmerelda- they have an incredible selection of trail mix, dried fruits, nuts, and seasonings. 
• UniMarc is like a nasty WalMart, but we were able to find salami, and individual coffee mixers. Also, beware: the lines are reminiscent of Best Buy the day after Thanksgiving a la 1999. It's crazy.
• Little mom 'n' pop shops for candy, granola bars, and -of course- wine.

Step 8: Trek Prep- Arriving in Puerto Natales

• Run, do not walk, to the Free 3 O'clock Talk at Erratic Rock Hostel. This was the MOST helpful thing we've ever done re: camping. We learned so many tips and tricks, in addition to in-depth details about the trail, refugios, distances, and camp sites. A few things, though, we don't fully endorse:
• They say don't pack liquid sauces. We say, liquid sauces are delicious, just double bag them.
• They say don't bother "gortexing-up," which we tried to follow, but this advice assumes the rain won't last for more than a couple of hours. We didn't experience any bouts of rain that lasted less than 14 hours. We say, gortex up or be a sad, sad human in your cold, wet shoes for the next 4 days.
• Buy your round-trip bus tickets to get to the park. You can buy these at most hostels, or right at the bus station.
• Don't pay more the $15,000 pesos per person for a round trip ticket (the return is an open ticket, so you can get on any bus coming back into town when you're done trekking).
• You need to book them at least a day in advance.
• There's a 7:30 AM bus, as well as an afternoon bus, that take you to the park.
• Get your rentals & buy fuel. Don't forget to practice putting up your tent and inspect it for holes before getting on trail.
• PRO TIP: Sit in the damn tent. Ours was so small, we couldn't sit up straight in it. This means that when you are 2 people and 2 bags deep in a tent in pouring rain, you're hunched over trying to finagle your shit. It was a nightmare. Make sure you have headroom!
• Make sure your food is in order.
• Pack! And leave anything unnecessary at your hostel. Most hostels offer free luggage storage.
• Have a beer :) You've earned it.