The TRAVELER'S JOURNAL: November eighth, capturing views at one end of the earth.

Torres del Paine in southern Chile may be the planet's most beautiful national park. The 600,000 acres of rugged, wind-wild landscape lie at the very tip of South America, where the endless Andes finally flatten and the great Patagonian Pampas peters out.

A land of soaring vistas and tiny trees, Torre del Paine etches itself onto the memory the way its glaciers have ground soaring sculptures out of its granite peaks. Upland geese graze in its grasslands; ibises mate in the marshes; pink flamingos and black-necked swans dot its impossibly blue lakes; rheas race across the real estate; condors rule the skies.

The park's centerpiece is the Paine Massif, the enormous, erosion-sculpted batholith which popped out of the pampas ten million years ago. Its sheer, pink and grey granite walls are capped by several hundred feet of black slate. Las Torres, the granite needle peaks that protrude from the massif's eastern end, give the park its name. Along its fringes, great chunks of glaciers calve off to sail in southern seas.

Situated at a continental extremity, Torre del Paine hosts fewer visitors in a year than does Yosemite in a single summer week. A fine system of trails and huts loop around the park, but it's still easier to find absolute solitude than it is other hikers. The park has a number of campsites. Indoor accommodations consist of one superb hotel and several rustic inns. One stands on a tiny island reached by a narrow footbridge. Its view of the multi-hued massif may be the finest sight seen from the window of any hotel.

For Torre del Paine information contact Lan Chile airlines 800-995-4888 or the Embassey of Chile 202-785-1746. Hotel Salto Chico fax 800-858-0855. Hosteria Pehoe call 011-56-61-244506

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