The 'W' trek in Torres del Paine - Chile

Feb 10 2012, We boarded a bus from town and headed the 3 hrs to and into the national park to Gaurdería Pudeto to catch a boat across to Refugio Paine Grande to start the trek. This area we were advised to skip due to a fire that had started up at Refugio Grey campsite on the 28th of Dec, when a camper wandered off into the bush to go to the toilet, tried to burn his toilet paper, which resulted in probably about 40% of the National park being destroyed! No idea how nobody died because the hundred km strong winds that blow basically all the time would have spread the fire incredibly fast. This section of the walk had only just opened and a few of the campsites were still closed. Somehow Refugio Paine Grande which is a massive hut/hotel, which was in the direct path of the fire survived, and sits in the middle of a black charcoaled valley with a meter of green grass surrounding it! Check out the photos.The first day was freezing, wet, with a massive head wind (Patagonia is always windy), and sleet, but this was only a short 11km day. When we got to the refugio grey, next to glacier grey, we were cold and wet, so walked straight into the refugio and they had spare beds for $30. It was like a five star hotel. But we still had to cook with the camping plebs and felt a little bad, especially when we pulled out and cooked up some chorizo sausages and most of these walkers had been 5 days into the 10day full circuit of Torres del Paine.The next day was beautiful so we made the most of the good weather and did 2 days worth of hiking, 36km. The route took us back through the burnt Forrest passing Refugio Paine Grande and around to Campamento Italiano. This camp was closed, so we left out big packs and headed up the 800m climb into French Valley. Absolutely amazing! The scenery beats cradle mountain. After heading back and picking up our bags we headed around to Refugio Los Cuernos, which sits under the spectacular Cuernos peaks. The camp here was almost full by the time we got there so we got a crap camp site, and got smashed by the wind the next morning. The third day was windy again, wind that when it hits you knocks you over! But it was weirdly warm. We were going to have an easy day to camp Torres but we found out this was shut due to the wind (maybe it was windier than normal?) , so we left our bags at Camp Chileno and did the hike up to The Torres peaks, amazing, and back down to catch the late bus back to town. The photos of the Torres peaks don't really show how massive they are, but the lake at the base is at ~900m and the peaks are upto 2850m! You do the math...