When the hikers left the campsite early Monday, it was drizzling, windy and just above freezing in Torres del Paine, a national park with towering granite peaks and glaciers in Chilean Patagonia. They had the most difficult stretch of their journey ahead.
But they had no idea they would be hit by a blizzard with hurricane-force winds of 120 miles an hour, unable to see more than 10 feet ahead. Within hours, more than two dozen were injured and five were missing.
The next day, the authorities confirmed that all five of the missing — tourists from Mexico, Britain and Germany — had died.
At a news conference on Thursday, Cristián Crisosto, the regional prosecutor for Magallanes, which includes the national park, said that he had opened an investigation and that the police were taking statements from park staff, from Vertice, the company that operates the campground, known as Los Perros, and from 69 people who were there on the day of the snowstorm.
Mr. Crisosto said all five had died of hypothermia, and 27 people were injured in the blizzard.
Álvaro Elizalde, the Chilean interior minister, said the government was working with consulates to return the bodies of Cristina Calvillo Tovar and Julián García Pimentel from Mexico, Victoria Bond from Britain and Nadine Lichey and Andreas Von Pein from Germany.
Chile’s National Forest Corporation said Wednesday that it deeply regretted the episode and was focused on relocating anyone who had been on the affected trail, the O Circuit, a challenging 85-mile loop that takes eight or nine days to complete. The five died on a stretch of the circuit known as the John Gardner Pass, the highest and most exposed section. The park authority said the circuit would be closed while it investigates.
In an interview with local media on Wednesday, Mauricio Ruiz, the regional director of the park service in Magallanes, said there were no rangers in the park on Monday because they left the previous day to vote in the country’s presidential election.
He described the region where the blizzard took place as “the most complex area of the mountain.” Rodrigo Illesca, the director of the park service, told the radio station ADN that he was not informed of the emergency until 6 p.m. on Monday.
Vertice, the company that operates the campground, said in a statement that it had contacted the authorities and provided logistical support to rescue teams. “We provided emotional support to everyone,” the company said.
Dozens of hikers who were on the trail and at the campground on the day of the snowstorm sharply criticized the lack of warning and the emergency response, which they said was severely delayed and insufficient.
“We want to make it clear that this was a terrible, avoidable tragedy. Nobody should have been allowed, let alone encouraged, to go up the pass that day, as we were by Vertice staff,” the group said in a statement shared by one of the hikers.
According to the group, the staff at the camp offered no safety guidance or help, even after dozens of hikers — forced to turn back because of the conditions — had returned to the campsite suffering from hypothermia, frostbite, abrasions and head injuries.
“They just were not seeming to grasp what had happened, like at all,” said Megan Wingfield, one of the surviving hikers.
Ms. Wingfield, 34, said she and her husband, both anesthesiologists and avid hikers from Colorado, had arrived at the Los Perros campsite on Sunday evening, planning to hike the John Gardner Pass the next day.
The hikers had no internet access at the site, she said, but asked the staff whether the rain and wind were typical for this time of year. She said the staff reassured her and others that the conditions were not unusual, and recommended hiking the pass between about 8 a.m. and noon.
Around 6:45 a.m. the next day, the couple left the campsite, Ms. Wingfield said, wearing warm layers, wind pants, raincoats, hiking boots and crampons, as well as gloves, hats and gaiters to keep their faces warm.
Within a few hours, she said, the wind was so strong that she and others in the group could barely stand. Then, less than 700 feet from the top of the pass, three young men heading in the opposite direction, their facial hair encased in icicles, warned them it was too treacherous to go on.
“We all sort of came to the conclusion, ‘OK, we’re not doing this,’” she said.
The group turned around. Between gusts, the hikers could see about 10 feet ahead, and otherwise only two or three. They were forced to backtrack down a steep rocky slope that had turned into an “ice rink,” she said.
Bodies slid in all directions. One man skidded nearly 50 feet, headfirst toward a pile of rocks, Ms. Wingfield said. “Thank God, his backpack hit the rocks before his head did,” she said. “He stood up and said, ‘Am I going to die today?’”
The ice, she said, was streaked with blood. People screamed as they slid into one another. When a man who was diabetic collapsed, Ms. Wingfield and her husband wrapped him in an emergency shelter, gave him a packet of applesauce and pleaded with him to keep going.
Around 11:30 a.m., Ms. Wingfield and her husband had returned to the camp with dozens of others, many bleeding and bruised, and nearly all with mild hypothermia, she said. There were doctors in the group who worked to treat the injured, she added, but the staff offered no assistance, refused to call for help and would not open a room where the group could stay warm.
Around 12:30 p.m., she said, the hikers organized a search-and-rescue effort for those who had not returned. Others were trying to determine who was missing and which authorities to call. A few recalled one of the hikers, who was later found dead, falling repeatedly.
Just after 3:30 p.m., another hiker, Arab Ginnett, posted for help on social media. “We are snowed in and people are still out on the pass,” she wrote.
“We need urgent help, climbers and rescuers are on the risk of dying based on our current situation,” she said.
Livia Albeck-Ripka is a Times reporter based in Los Angeles, covering breaking news, California and other subjects.
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