Cuernos del Paine

The Horns of Paine are the most arresting silhouette in Chilean Patagonia: a jagged row of towers rising about 2,600 metres, their lower walls of pale grey granite abruptly capped by bands of almost black rock, as if someone had set dark hats on the peaks. From the shore of Lake Nordenskjöld the summit rises more than 2,500 metres in a horizontal distance of only two and a half kilometres, and the contrast of pale stone, dark caps, turquoise water and yellow steppe is the image most people carry away from Torres del Paine National Park.

The two-tone look is a geological snapshot. Around 12 to 13 million years ago a body of magma pushed up and spread sideways between layers of older mudstone and sandstone, cooling into granite and gabbro-diorite; the heat baked the surrounding sediments into dark metamorphic rock. Erosion later stripped away most of the covering layers, leaving the dark remnants perched on top of the granite. Dating of the intrusion shows that the whole body of magma was emplaced and crystallised in a geologically brief span of roughly 160,000 years, which is why the contact between light and dark is so clean and sharp.

The Cuernos have a climbing story as dramatic as their shape. The main horn, Cuerno Principal, was first climbed on 31 January 1968 by a party of four from Santiago; Cuerno Norte followed on 30 December 1971, while Cuerno Este held out until 19 January 2022. For walkers the massif is the centrepiece of the treks around the Paine range, and one of the most rewarding short outings leads from Pudeto past the Salto Grande, the waterfall where Lake Nordenskjöld spills into Lake Pehoé, to the Mirador Cuernos, a viewpoint about three kilometres on that looks straight up at the horns across the lake. The wind here is fierce and constant, and the southern summer, December to February, brings the mildest conditions.

Getting there

The Cuernos stand in Torres del Paine National Park, about 90 km north-west of Puerto Natales, the usual base for the park. Teniente Julio Gallardo Airport (PNT) at Puerto Natales is roughly 80 km away. The Mirador Cuernos walk starts at Pudeto, where there is parking and a small café and from where the catamaran crosses Lake Pehoé to Paine Grande.