{"id":204468,"date":"2026-07-20T17:13:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T16:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swoop-patagonia.com\/blog\/?p=204468"},"modified":"2026-07-20T17:13:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T16:13:01","slug":"how-sustainable-trail-design-is-helping-hikers-protect-torres-del-paine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swoop-patagonia.com\/blog\/how-sustainable-trail-design-is-helping-hikers-protect-torres-del-paine\/","title":{"rendered":"How sustainable trail design is helping hikers protect Torres del Paine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a travel company with deep roots in Patagonia, we often ask ourselves how we can be better guardians of the places we love. The answer often lies with the partners we work with closely across the region. One of these is Hotel Las Torres<\/a> in Torres del Paine, which has one of the most incredible locations in all Patagonia, at the entrance to the Base of the Towers hike \u2013 the climax of the celebrated W Trek<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a recent visit to Torres del Paine, I met with Juan L\u00f3pez Contreras, Sales & Marketing Director of Hotel Las Torres, to talk about overtourism, how bad hiking trails can cause ecological damage to fragile ecosystems, and how they\u2019ve invested in sustainable tourism to protect this precious destination for future generations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How cattle helped shape Torres del Paine<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The story of Hotel Las Torres<\/a> starts long before the granite spires of the Paine Massif started to appear on any tourist itinerary. When Torres del Paine National Park<\/a> was first established nearly 70 years ago, it was much smaller than today, and was centred around Lago Peho\u00e9. Most of the remaining land was given over to private livestock ranching. This included the area around the Paine Massif and the three valleys that now make up the route of the W Trek. The trails that now draw hikers from around the world were first broken by gauchos on horseback, driving their cattle to fresh pasture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The original Hoster\u00eda Las Torres<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This area was part of the Cerro Paine ranch, but as the boundaries of the national park slowly expanded, the ranch \u2013 including the land now occupied by Hotel Las Torres \u2013 became entirely surrounded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1992, as tourism to Patagonia started to expand, the owners of the ranch, the Kusanovic family, decided to invest in this new interest in Torres del Paine. Hoster\u00eda Las Torres, which had just a handful of rooms, was built at the entrance to what was to become the Base of the Towers hike. Within a few years, several refugios for hikers<\/a> were added, including Refugio Central, Refugio Chileno further along the trail, and Refugio Franc\u00e9s in French Valley. The W Trek as we know it today<\/a> was on its way to becoming one of the most popular hiking routes in South America \u2013 second only to the Inca Trail in Peru.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Hotel Las Torres today<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In time, the family recognised that preserving the area for tourism and conservation was a more valuable and sustainable long-term land use than livestock farming, and the decision was made to remove all livestock from the land. With the land no longer being grazed by cattle or roamed over by gauchos, the area\u2019s natural flora began to flourish again. But the generations of livestock left behind one permanent feature: the paths beaten through the landscape by cows and horses. When there were only a few tourists coming to the park, this wasn\u2019t much of a problem, but as Torres del Paine has grown in popularity, it\u2019s increasingly been understood that what makes a good path for a cow doesn\u2019t necessarily make a good path for a hiker \u2013 or the landscape they\u2019re walking through. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guardians of the Base of the Towers hike<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Torres del Paine\u2019s history explains why access to some of its centrepiece activities \u2013 the Base of the Towers hike and French Valley \u2013 are privately owned within a state-run national park. This puts Hotel Las Torres in a unique position as guardians of these trails. It\u2019s a responsibility they take very seriously, as Juan L\u00f3pez explained to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The start of the Base of the Towers hike from Hotel Las Torres<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The Kusanovic family realised that no one else could look after the land, and decided to take away all the cattle and other non-endemic animals. In 2004, we created the NGO Las Torres Patagonia Conservancy<\/a> as a way to formalise the conservation work that we wanted to do here.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the two decades since then, the Las Torres Patagonia Conservancy has become a leading voice for protecting the national park. Funded by Las Torres Patagonia, it works in conservation and reforestation, as well as research and environmental education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Las Torres Patagonia manages the land \u2013 including the trails on the W Trek \u2013 as part of its own private reserve. Because of Torres del Paine\u2019s unique mix of public and private land, can\u2019t do this in isolation. As well as working with CONAF, Chile\u2019s national park authorities, all its work is in line with the aims of a wider a conservation plan for the entire Torres del Paine Biosphere \u2013 an area that stretches all the way to the Argentinian border \u2013 that was drawn up in 2024 by the international conservation organisation Nature Conservancy<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last few years, Las Torres Patagonia Conservancy has turned its hands to an issue on the hotel\u2019s own doorstep: the increasing popularity of the Base of the Towers hike, and how the trail can be protected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We can get up to a thousand trekkers a day,\u2019 says Juan L\u00f3pez. \u2018Not every day yet, but from January to March we\u2019ll get that many people. That means we need to control the carrying capacity of the trail \u2013 the impact that visitors can create on the soils, on the trails, and with their waste\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Hikers at the Base of the Towers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Las Torres Patagonia and the Conservancy have been working with CONAF to discuss the idea of capping the number of people who can hike to the Base of the Towers every day. Nothing has been agreed yet, but a total of 1400 hikers a day is one number that might be under consideration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018With all our respect to Machu Picchu, we don’t want Torres del Paine to be like that or become another Everest Base Camp Trail\u2019 he says. \u2018We really want to look after the land carefully.\u2019 While the Base of the Towers still receives less than a quarter of the Inca Trail\u2019s 4500 daily hikers, it’s clear that there\u2019s concern that the impact of even today\u2019s numbers of visitors needs to be carefully managed. The way that Hotel Las Torres and the Conservancy are doing that is to rethink from scratch what the trail should actually look like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to build a sustainable hiking trail<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u2018There has been no trail design until now,\u2019 Juan L\u00f3pez tells me. \u2018Everything evolved naturally from the cattle moving around.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
New trails must be wide enough for hikers to pass easily in both directions<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Trails that are good for cows aren\u2019t necessarily good for hikers or the environment. The results can be seen along several parts of the Base of the Towers hike, or parts of the park where people arrive for day hiking<\/a> to some of the most popular viewpoints. The most common are the bottlenecks that are too narrow for hikers to pass in both directions. More destructive are sections where there is no natural drainage. Standing water after rains can tempt hikers to leave the trail and make their own path, trampling native plants in the process. This can be a particular problem when people are doing a self-guided hike and don\u2019t have a guide with them to explain the impact of their actions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, a well-designed and built trail is an opportunity to create a long-term relationship between humans and nature. It\u2019s a science as much as an art, and involves surveying topography, then working with the terrain to avoid unnecessary cutting of vegetation to create paths with gradients that allow for drainage but don\u2019t leave the ground prone to erosion. Smart trail design takes into account control points for hikers \u2013 keeping the best viewpoints while cutting off desire lines that might tempt a walker to leave the path for another view or shortcut. Crucially for the Base of the Towers hike, a good trail allows a clear flow of hikers in both directions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We\u2019ve been working with Conservation VIP for seven years on rebuilding the trail, Juan L\u00f3pez Tells me. They\u2019re an NGO from the USA who send rangers south to Torres del Paine when the American national parks they work in are shut for the northern hemisphere winter (in 2024 Swoop worked with Conservation VIP to rebuild Las Guardas bridge<\/a> on the O Circuit<\/a> when it was damaged by winter storms). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conservation VIP helped Las Torres Patagonia Conservancy design a new trail that moves well through the environment, avoids damaging the surrounding flora and \u2013 for the first time \u2013 is constructed with international standards of width and slopes. Volunteers have carried out the physical work over the last few seasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bridge to the future<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Base of the Towers hike is about a 22 km (13.7 mile) round trip, and the first new section that covers 3.3 km (2 miles) was opened to hikers in March 2026. A further 6.5 km (4 km) has been completed, but are awaiting the construction of three new bridges crossing the Ascencio river before hikers can start using them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Volunteers creating part of the new Base of the Towers trail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018This is the main stone in our shoes, because each bridge costs around US$1 million, Juan L\u00f3pez, nodding to engineering challenges of working in an area where construction logistics are tough, \u2018But I believe we’re going to see the light this year with funding. If that comes into place, then in three years\u2019 time we\u2019ll have the bridges in place.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first hour of the trail, where the landscape starts its slow ascent and the path begins to narrow, the issue immediately becomes apparent. The existing bridge only allows one person to cross at a time, making long queues a regular phenomenon \u2013 and when people queue, there\u2019s the temptation to turn the wait into a break stop and wander off the trail to find somewhere untouched to sit down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Because Hotel Las Torres is just inside the trail entrance, we can manage our guests to be away from the crowds, but when groups of other hikers arrive in vans at the same time, the infrastructure isn\u2019t enough,\u2019 says Juan L\u00f3pez. \u2018People think that Torres del Paine is collapsing just because of the poor flow.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new trail and its bridges offer Hotel Las Torres a roadmap for protecting the Base of the Towers hike for the generations to come, while giving visitors the chance to be inspired by the epic nature of the landscape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018This isn\u2019t a mass tourist destination,\u2019 he concludes. \u2018People come here to be in nature, not to be in New York.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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