Panorama Photo

This view should at first confuse quite a bit the Paine experts, because it bridges in a strange way between the two halves of this curious world.
The first half is the south side: that of the wonderful lakes and of the views on Torres and Cuernos. In trekking terms, that of the W circuit, called this way because of its shape on the map, and touching Lago Grey, Valle del Francés and Mirador Torres.
The second half is that of the "back", hidden side, that featuring the valley of Río Paine and the big Lago Dickson: in trekking terms, this is the "Macizo Paine" circuit, also known as O circuit because it encircles all the heart of the massif.
Of course O and W can be combined: this gives a 130 km walk, at least according to
en.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=212629 - alas, not according to my data... Namely, since in Puerto Natales I was negligent in the recharging of AA batteries, I was not able to record the whole of 15 days that I spent cycling/walking inside the Paine park.

This is the unique object of type pano that I was able to shoot that day from the ridge - had it been wrong, no alternative was available. Even the Einzelfotos are incredibly few, since most of the time I laid stretched down on the ground, grabbing stones with both hands, in order not to be swept away by the wind. In the waist-bag normally keeping camera and GPS I had hosted also wallet and passport, just in case the wind had torn away my backpack...

A choice of details follows - some of them are to be checked on the larger version linked below.

128°: the summit, being the highest of this sector, should actually coincide with what is called Cerro Koch, 1750, on the Metzeltin/Buscaini book. Also the Chilean maps report, unnamed, a 1750 m summit. There is some reason to believe that the reading of my GPS (in remarkable agreement with Udeuschle) is more correct;

150°: lago Sarmiento de Gamboa. Find somewhere on Wikipedia the reason of its curious white shores;

180°: inside here is hidden the classical mirador of Laguna Torres;

207°: here you find the Espada, at the base of which is taken panorama 18441 where, as a consequence, you find this first summit at 207°-180°=27°, aligned with Lago Argentino, see below;

255°: Paso John Garner, the highest point of the O circuit and, technically, highest point reachable by trekkers in the Paine;

327°: Dedo del Cesar, a mighty rock spire visible also from the surroundings of El Calafate (see N.23975);

010°: Lago Paine is hidden here, down in the valley;

026°: Lago Argentino (the one of El Calafate - Perito Moreno) is clearly visible here in the larger version, behind Paso Zamora. When I cycled for a while north in its direction, at a certain point the GPS told that I was at 55 km from the Perito Moreno... Since there is no border crossing on that pass, to reach the Perito I had to cycle more than 300 km, mostly in the windy pampa, just to have the passport stamped...

075°: this is the prominent mountain chain that you see all the time while approaching the Paine from Río Gallegos. I do not know if it has any trekking/mountaineering relevance.

17 HF, Canon G1X, 50 mm equiv, f/8, 1/640 sec.
Larger: goo.gl/Au2Bnx
GPS track: www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=12060871