… That all said, I’m not sure I can continue with season 3. It’s too violent. Too sad. Too believable in an age where a potential leader of the Gilead theocracy is VP. ☹️
Patagonia National Park — announced January 2018 — combined the Jeinimeni National Reserve (400,000 acres), the Tamango National Reserve (20,660 acres), and the privately-owned Patagonia Park (200,000 acres).
The part donated by Americans had been a sheep ranch.
Conservacion Patagonica, the organization founded by Kristine and the late Doug Tompkins of The North Face bought the the huge property in 2004 and had been returning it to natural state.
The sheep were sold but Gauchos offered work in the new Park.
Fences and invasive species were removed. Cows are long gone.
They donated it to the Chilean government.
I visited as part of a 6 hour tour out of Cochrane. Watching large numbers of guanacos running free was the highlight.
The Park Headquarters built by the Tompkins is first class, even better than Pumalin.
It includes a wonderful museum and library of essential conservation information.
I learned a lot.
Patagonia National Park should evolve to be the second best hiking destination on the Carretera Austral after Cerro Castillo.
Right now you still need private transportation to get to trailheads. No convenient hiker shuttle yet exists. IF only I still had a bike. 🙄
Queulat is another of Chile’s newly announced Route of Parks (Ruta de los Parques) – a chain of 17 stretching 1500 miles.
Since I’d had a rest day in pretty Puyuhuapi town I felt I had to push on … despite the rain.
My bigger problem than H2O was my detached pannier rack. I’d fixed 🙄 it with a metal spacer, but didn’t have much confidence it would last the 218km to the next bike shop in Coyhaique.
Also, I had to attach my ugly load far to the left in order to keep it stable. Not good.
Though I got muddy, I actually like gravel road in the rain better than dry. The tires roll more smoothly. And there’s less dust.
Each year more of the Carretera Austral is getting paved.
I’d really been looking forward to getting to Quelat. And it is great. They are very used to rain here.
Next the very popular, short Alerce trail. This park protects the Alerce trees, the largest in South America. They grow to more than 70m with up to 5m trunk diameter. Charles Darwin reported finding a specimen 12.6 m in diameter.
They had been heavily logged before conservationists weighed in.
One is 3622 years old, the second oldest fully verified (by counting growth rings) age for any living tree species, after the bristlecone pine.
Weather was now excellent for riding. The only annoyance pesky horseflies.
My third hike of the day was Cascadas Escondidas trail. I’d actually planned to camp there as well, but it was too crowded.
Late in the day I pushed on to Lago Blanco campground.
I love sites which keep my tent under roof. If it does rain, no worries.
Fantastic as they are, these sites are not inexpensive. This one is C$32 / night. The Park guys didn’t collect this night, however. Perhaps I arrived later than they had made the rounds.
A beautiful, calm night. Superb morning.
Next morning I stopped at Volcano campground for the bathroom. Gorgeous. The best of about a dozen camps in this part of Pumalín, I’d say.
It’s alongside the Park airstrip.
I walked their excellent interpretive trail.
My only major hike of the day was Chaitén Volcano trail. Fantastic. And very popular.
I arrived back to the hostel in Chaitén about 3:30pm. Rene from Germany and Victoria from the States were just heading off to Amarillo Hotsprings about 30km away. I hopped aboard the shuttle van with them. A long soak is the best way to remove dust from nails and pores.
