A national park in Chilean Patagonia where three vertical granite pillars dominate a landscape of glaciers, turquoise lakes, and condors — one of the world's most dramatic mountain panoramas.
The name means Towers of Blue. The blue refers to the lakes — the surreal turquoise colour produced by glacial flour suspended in the meltwater — and the towers are the three granite spires that rise 2,850 metres above sea level at the southern end of the Andes. Together they produce one of the most photographed mountain panoramas on Earth, and one of the few that consistently exceeds its photographs.
The towers were formed 12 million years ago when magma intruded into older sedimentary rock. The surrounding softer rock was stripped away by glaciation over millions of years, exposing the harder granite core. What remained are three near-vertical pillars — the Torres themselves — flanked by subsidiary peaks and horns in a landscape that looks like a movie poster for the end of the world.
The Patagonian weather does everything in its power to prevent you from seeing them clearly. Winds reach 200 kilometres per hour on the exposed ridgelines. Clouds build and dissipate in minutes. Rain arrives horizontally. A clear view of the towers — all three lit by morning alpenglow, the glacial lake below them reflecting the pink — is something that trekkers wait multiple days for. When it comes, it comes without warning: one minute cloud, the next minute towers, burning orange in the light.
Condors nest in the cliffs. Guanacos move across the pampas below in groups. Pumas hunt them. The ecosystem functions as it did before any of this was named.