All photos by Jim Reynolds Roads are few and far between in southern Chile but the views they offer are some of the most spectacular in the Andes. Perhaps the most impressive peaks in the Andes are located in Torres del Paine National Park, Chile. These rugged, glacially-carved towers exhibit a granodiorite base capped by black, marine shales with interbedded tuffs.
Glaciers still occupy some of the cirques around the towers.
The Patagonian Ice Sheet terminates just north of these peaks. A small glacier is still present in the cirque shown here. Recently, Chrysler Corporation released a series of advertisements that were filmed around these peaks. The black shales were deposited in a euxinic back-arc basin that developed in the early stages of the Andean Orogeny in southern Chile. Guanacos, the wild llama species, abound in the national park.