Lady Florence Dixie, in her book published in 1880, gave one of the first descriptions of the area and referred to the three towers as Cleopatra's Needles.

[5] She and her party are sometimes credited as being the first "foreign tourists" to visit the area that is now called Torres del Paine National Park.

[6] Several European scientists and explorers visited the area in the following decades, including Otto Nordenskiöld, Carl Skottsberg, and Alberto María de Agostini.

[11] In February 2005, an accidental fire started by a Czech backpacker, which lasted for about ten days, destroyed 155 km2 (60 sq mi) of the park,[11] including about 2 km2 of native forest.

[12] In late December 2011 through January 2012, an Israeli backpacker was charged of having started a fire after being caught by a park ranger when lighting up some paper roll in a forbidden area.

[18] In 2019 an incipient wildfire caused by a cigarette butt was promptly extinguished by nearby fire brigades of the National Forest Corporation.

[23] The park possesses a large drainage network, which consists of numerous rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and cascades that come from the Southern Patagonia Ice Field and flow towards the southeast until the Última Esperanza Sound that bathes the coasts of the city of Puerto Natales.

It is divided into two arms, because of the appearance of a peninsula of ice, commonly called the Island or Nunatak, that becomes apparent a little more with each year that passes.

Studies of the glaciers in the park have given scientists a clearer picture of the epochs of the earth, or what happened after the last glacial age.

[24][25][26] The landscape of the park is dominated by the Paine massif, which is an eastern spur of the Andes located on the east side of the Grey Glacier, rising dramatically above the Patagonian steppe.

To the north stands the granite arête called Aleta de Tiburón (English: Shark's Fin).

Ascencio Valley is the normal route to reach the Torres del Paine lookout, which is located at the bank of a milky green tarn.

Much of the geology of the Paine Massif area consists of Cretaceous sedimentary rocks that have been intruded by a Miocene-aged laccolith.

[27] Orogenic and erosional processes have shaped the present-day topography, and glacial erosion is mainly responsible for the sculpturing of the massif in the last tens of thousands of years.

A good example of the latter is the Cuernos del Paine, whose central bands of exposed granite contrast strongly with the dark aspect of their tops, which are remnants of a heavily eroded sedimentary stratum.

[28] In the case of Las Torres, what once was their overlying sedimentary rock layer has been completely eroded away, leaving behind the more resistant granite.

In June 2014, scientists uncovered fossils of at least 46 ancient specimens of nearly complete skeletons of dolphin-like creatures called Ichthyosaurs which lived between 245 and 90 million years ago.

[29][30] During the last glacial period glacier extent in the area peaked about 48,000 years ago, much earlier than for the more northern locations of Chiloé and Llanquihue.

[31] During the late Pleistocene and early Holocene a series of proglacial lakes existed in the Torres del Paine area.

[32] In respect of it being 'a world class site for the study of structurally controlled emplacement and construction of shallow bimodal laccoliths', the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) included 'The Miocene Torres del Paine intrusive complex' in its assemblage of 100 'geological heritage sites' around the world in a listing published in October 2022.

Torres del Paine National Park is adorned with beautiful vegetation, including the evergreen Embothrium coccineum, which produces vivid red flowers grouped in corymbs, and Calceolaria uniflora, of striking shape and colors.

[36] The park contains four vegetation zones: Patagonian steppe, Pre-Andean shrubland, Magellanic subpolar forests and Andean Desert.

Among them are Andean condor, black-chested buzzard-eagle, rufous-tailed hawk, cinereous harrier, chimango caracara, magellanic horned owl, austral pygmy-owl, to name but a few.

[42] Hikers can opt for a day trip to see the towers, French Valley or Glacier Grey or a multi-day trek.

Attractions include the Cuernos (horns) - a group of 2000m high mountains, and the view of Pingo Lake from de Grey Glacier.