Ever since my trip to Chile with Bob Myers in 2018 / 2019, I've wanted to go back. In particular the Carretera Austral in Patagonia was definitely on my bucket list. The Carretera Austral is a road that runs through sparsely-inhabited Chilean Patagonia, from the city of Puerto Montt (where I finished my previous trip) along the Andes Mountains to (almost) the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, whose massive glaciers block further access.

Life is complicated. There was Covid, there were scheduling conflicts; in 2024, Nance and I embarked on a major house remodel that occupied a fair amount of my time. Bob Myers got sick, so I needed to find a different travel partner. (Bob sadly passed away in January.) I wanted to do the trip while I was still fit enough to enjoy it, and the clock was ticking away.

In May of 2025, I started to make concrete plans for the trip. By the end of May, the house remodel was sufficiently complete that we were able to move back into the house. I had earlier picked up the first edition of the Bradt guidebook Chile: The Carretera Austral and read it cover-to-cover, salivating over the descriptions of gorgeous mountains and glaciers; the second edition was published in 2022, and I'd ordered it from the UK in 2024. By May, I had read the book at least a couple of times, basically memorizing it. I checked out car rental prices and airfares. Airfares to Chile had dropped to shockingly cheap levels.

In July, I blocked out the vacation time, then posted a trip description on the WMC calendar. I had expected some nibbles, but I got no responses. In August, I decided that I would make the trip regardless of whether anyone from the WMC signed up, and I started the process of booking a car rental. Finally, in early September I got a couple of inquiries; they didn't turn into commitments, but I decided that I would send out a message on the WMC travel e-mail list with a list of trip highlights. That e-mail produced a few more nibbles, but no commitments. I finalized the car rental, booked my air travel and booked the big ferry crossing from Hornopirén to Caleta Gonzalo. By then I had pretty much resigned myself to traveling alone.

In October, though, Leslie Masters got in touch with me about the trip. Leslie had an Argentinean friend in Park City who had been to Patagonia and she was intrigued by the trip. In November, she committed to the trip. I started booking more accommodations, and since I was a bit worried about finding places to stay during high season, I went ahead and booked every night in advance. I used Airbnb and booking.com to find cabins and apartments that had at least two bedrooms. This worked pretty well.

Five weeks in Patagonia — pretty cool!

Like last time, I kept a travel diary, and I'll use it to organize most of the trip write-up. I've also written up some random observations that don't fit well into the travel diary narrative.

Day 0: Saturday, 12/13: departure

Unlike my flight in 2018, things were uneventful this time. I think it may take longer for the plane to drive the taxiways to the terminal at DFW than it does to fly there from SLC.

Day 1: Sunday, 12/14: Santiago

On the other hand, my arrival in Santiago was eventful. I got scammed at the airport when leaving the secure area.

A guy who spoke English said that he worked for the airport and wanted to help. He flashed an ID; not sure if it was real. I told him that I needed to get to the airport Holiday Inn. He said that because of the presidential election today, the connection to the hotel from the terminal was closed and I would have to take a taxi, but it would cost just one dollar.

The alarm bells should have gone off right then — oh well. He took me to a cab and I got in.

The cab drove in circles in the parking garage, then got out onto the access road, got onto the airport entrance and drove back to the parking garage. A new guy came up to my window. He said that the charge was indeed just $1, but I had to use a credit card to pay. He tried my card in two different scanners. He saw that I had other cards and insisted that we try them; I said no. I told him that I would pay cash. He took me back into the airport to a Redbank ATM, where I got CLP$200.000. He then tried to convince me that CLP$60.000 worked out to US$1. At this point it was obvious even to me that I was getting conned. I gave the guy a CLP$20.000 bill (~ US$20) and hoped that I would get to see my bags in the back of the taxi again. He did take me back to the taxi, and had the gall to ask for a tip. I gave him US$1.

As I walked to the hotel, my brain spun, tumbling through all the consequences of my stupidity. I hadn't slept on the flight, and the shock of the scam had finally started to penetrate through my fog. I was going to have to check my credit card online for bogus charges, and if they didn't happen today, I'd have to keep checking every day for the rest of the trip, so that I could dispute the charges immediately. I began to get anxious that the ATM had been rigged to steal my PIN.

At the hotel, a room was ready for me even though it was before 10 AM. I logged into the wifi and began checking my accounts. No charges; in fact, no scammy charges ever did show up. I was out US$21, and that was the extent of it. I still checked my credit card account every few days, but my anxiety fell off rapidly after the first day.

Leslie arrived on a different flight. I contacted her over WhatsApp and we met for lunch at the hotel bar. Leslie said that she'd seen some men working the same grift when she came out of the terminal, but she was next to another traveler who pointed out that the hotel was literally across the street.

The hotel sat directly across from the domestic terminal. Leslie had already checked out the terminal on her afternoon walks; when we met for dinner, she suggested that we could try one the restaurants. Dinner was fine; I think I had steak a lo pobre. I was more impressed by the three-story tower of luggage in the airport lobby.

go to the Santiago gallery

Day 2: Monday, 12/15: Puerto Montt

I managed to sleep through my alarm, so I was late meeting Leslie. I had developed a scheme for my three bags; my big blue duffel had shoulder straps, so it went on my back, while my laptop backpack hung the other direction over my torso and my small yellow duffel hung on a shoulder strap. I stumbled through the airport looking like an Apollo astronaut on a moonwalk, but not as light on my feet.

We checked some bags, then joined the stream of people headed for the security checkpoint. On the way we grabbed some breakfast at a cafe. At the gate, I managed to miss the call for our boarding zone, then scrambled to get us to the gate agent. We got on the plane, but while still at the gate, my name was paged on the plane's intercom. My stomach sank — I waved my hand and pushed my call button. A crew member came up to me with a piece of paper. It turned out that my PDI form had fallen out of my passport while I was showing the passport to the gate agent. Leslie donated a paper clip so that I wouldn't lose the form again (thanks again, Leslie). This was not shaping up to be one of my better days.

I had arranged to pick up the rental car at the SiXT office in town rather than at the airport, to save on the airport surcharge. That meant that we had to take a taxi to the office. We sat in the shade of a carport at the office for an hour and a half, waiting for the office to re-open after their siesta.

The office staff were helpful when we finally got their attention. Our rental car was a brand-new gray VW Atlas. I was a bit skeptical that it would perform well in Patagonia, but it did have on-demand 4WD (through the touchscreen) and GPS. I worried about its low-profile tires and its clearance, but in the end, it worked out okay. We managed to program the GPS to guide us to the hotel downtown.

In retrospect, my biggest annoyance with the car was how big it was — a Subaru would have been better. At the hotel, we discovered (not for the last time) that the car was so wide, it barely fit into the entrance to the parking garage. Leslie had to help me back up and adjust my position until I could clear the curb and pass the gate; I had to fold in the mirrors to keep them from being snapped off.

After Leslie and I got settled, we met up in the lobby and walked along the waterfront to the Costanera mall. The mall occupied multiple floors in two medium-rise buildings, and it was absolutely packed with people on a Monday night. I wanted to find maps of Patagonia that were better than the National Geographic maps that I had picked up at Barnes & Noble, which had obvious mistakes that made me annoyed. We tried a couple of bookstores, but I found nothing useful. After dinner, we went to the big Unimarc supermarket in the basement and filled up on ramen, breakfast goodies and wine, in case next few towns didn't have good supplies.

Day 3: Tuesday, 12/16: Puerto Montt to Río Puelo

The breakfast buffet at the hotel was on the 8th floor, with a fine view over Puerto Montt. After breakfast, we took a stroll along the waterfront observing the birds and the people. When the Puerto Montt museum opened, we stopped to check out the exhibits. The museum was fairly small, but it had some decent prehistory exhibits and some information on the history of Puerto Montt. Downstairs was an exhibit of contributions to the Eco Design competition, which was fun.

We packed up and set off in the car. We drove to Puerto Varas on Lago Llanquihue, then followed Ruta 225 along the lakeshore. The day was cool and gray. We went to the Salto del Petrohue, the falls on the Río Petrohue below Lago Todos Santos. The Osorno volcano created the lake by blocking the river with a lava flow, and the river now roars over a decent drop. When I visited in 2019, the waterfall overlook was teeming with tourists, but on this day, it was pretty quiet. After a stop at the falls, we hiked a little nature trail. The forest was very, very wet.

Afterward, we drove over to the lake. There were a few breaks in the clouds, but we still couldn't see Volcán Tronador at the top of the lake. For that matter, Osorno was blanketed by clouds too. I thought it was fun to see the tiny car ferry arrive with vehicles from the other side of the lake.

Shortly after we had started down the V-69 road toward the ocean, I was startled to see a chilla on the side of the road. Leslie took a wonderful portrait of it. I think it was panhandling for munchies from tourists, and because it was pretty cute, I'm sure it got plenty.

The road was nicely paved down to the Reloncaví estuary and along the shore to Cochamó. It's still narrow and twisty. The section going south to Río Puelo was in the process of being paved, and we had to navigate through some road construction. I took a photo looking up the Cochamó valley but the peaks were lost in the mist.

Pavement resumed outside of Río Puelo. It was a little tricky getting to the Airbnb, but fortunately I had good directions. The Shambala cabin was fun — there was a loft up some steep stairs, a small kitchen, and forest all around. It was walking distance to the Río Puelo Chico, a tributary of the Río Puelo that merges just above the mouth of the main river.

go to the Puerto Montt to Río Puelo gallery

Day 4: Wednesday, 12/17: the Río Puelo valley

I had read an interesting description in the guidebook of the drive up the Río Puelo valley, so I wanted to try it even though the weather wasn't perfect. The adventure required us to take a car ferry across Lago Tagua Tagua; we managed to catch the 11 AM crossing, paying the fare on the ferry. The wind thrashed the lake and the rain and clouds looked ominous.

At the other end of the lake, the sun was out. It was a bit spotty, but there were actual patches of blue sky. I began to think that we might actually see some scenery. There was still mist on some of the peaks, but others were poking out and putting on a show.

We followed a well-built dirt road up the valley. At the Río Manso, a substantial tributary of the Río Puelo, there was a very impressive concrete bridge. I had to wonder how the materials for that bridge were transported across the lake. The valley above the bridge must have been extremely isolated before the bridge was built.

We came to a one-lane bridge over the Río Negro, a mountain stream full of boulders with headwaters in the clouds. (It became a running joke over the rest of the trip that every other stream seemed to be named Río Blanco or Río Negro.) I pulled over to get a photo of the narrow bridge, and as I was walking over to the bridge, I was startled to see that the steel bridge was not the original one. There was a 2-lane concrete bridge nestled among car-sized boulders in the streambed.

I was looking forward to the scenery around the bridge over the Río Puelo at Primer Corral, and it didn't disappoint. The river was clear and very, very deep in the gorge. We could see the old bridge a hundred meters or so downstream at the mouth of the gorge. I had hoped to be able to cross the old bridge, but when we walked down a trail on the south side of the gorge, it was pretty obvious why this wasn't going to work out. A 5-meter section of the bridge deck had broken loose and was dangling above the water.

A massive trench was blasted and excavated through a ridge to help the road reach Segundo Corral. There were road works at the end, plus a sign warning that the road was closed. At the place where we turned around, we stopped to snap photos of a red-eyed bird, which turned out to be a southern lapwing.

Back at Lago Tagua Tagua, the rain and wind were still pretty wild, although there were more hints of sun than before. On the drive back, we stopped to get a look at the Cascada La Luna spilling over a big gray cliff. It took me a minute to realize that condors were enjoying the breezes along the cliffs.

go to the Río Puelo valley gallery

Day 5: Thursday, 12/18: Hornopirén and the Río Blanco trail

After another stroll to the river shore in the morning, we hit the road. The road was mostly gravel and the view over the fjord was mostly of salmon farms. We ran across (but not over) a very casual herd of goats. There were local buses and dump trucks and plenty of red pick-up trucks. The Reloncaví road was wider and better built than I expected, but I was still happy to reach pavement at the junction with the Carretera. In fact the Carretera was paved from the drop-off for the Puerto Montt car ferry to the pier for the Caleta Gonzalo car ferry in Hornopirén. The scenery was green, green, green. Coming into Hornopirén, we could see some massive peaks with snow.

Hornopirén was a small town with some fine small-town charm. There were tiny supermercados scattered all over the village. I was a bit surprised by the number of vacation cabins; I think Hornopirén has become an important overnight stop for people getting on and off the car ferry. The folks at our cabin were friendly. The bedrooms were upstairs and the bathroom was downstairs, an inconvenient arrangement that we encountered multiple times on the trip.

After we got settled, we drove around the bay to do the hike up the Río Blanco to the scenic waterfall. We discovered (and also not for the last time) that although our destination was in a park, we had to cross quite a bit of private property to reach it, and the property owners charged us for the privilege. The fee wasn't too bad here — CLP$2500.

The valley was hemmed in by some tremendous granite peaks, with patches of snow and streamers of cloud. The hike was mostly on a rough dirt road. Just past the park boundary were some cabins that the rangers use, and we found a amiable ranger there. His English was better than our Spanish, but not by a lot; it was fun to chat with him. After the cabins, the route turned into a muddy track that dropped into a ravine and cut through thick forest, with occasional boardwalks and stairs.

At the end of the trail there was a viewing platform that was crowded with (mostly Chilean) tourists. The waterfall was appropriately gorgeous. Oddly, the waterfall was on a side stream that plunged over cliffs into the Río Blanco; the river itself was squeezed into a tiny gorge, but it didn't have a waterfall of its own. The water was an opaque aquamarine color, very glacial.

On the way down, we encountered a van with a raft navigating the very rough road. The Río Blanco was full of big boulders and was pretty much a solid string of rapids; it looked like it would be a cold and bumpy ride. We visited the road bridge over the Río Blanco on our way out, which had some excellent views.

Back at the cabin, we made the acquaintance of Mandarino the cat, who probably got his name because of a coat whose hue resembled a mandarin orange. A Christmas marching band passed by a block away, playing drums and a glockenspiel, apparently a holiday tradition.

go to the Hornopirén and Río Blanco trail gallery

Day 6: Friday, 12/19: the ferry over Fiordo Comau

We only had to drive a few blocks to the ferry, but we still got up at 6:30. We had empanadas for breakfast, then headed down to the waterfront.

We got to the ferry dock at 7:45, and I found a great place to park on the east access road. A concessionaire told us that the Somarco ferry office didn't open until 8:30. We wandered around for a while, before a woman took pity on us and let us know that cars were supposed to park on the west access road — the east access road was for box trucks and semis.

Unsurprisingly, there were already lots of cars parked on the west access road. Some of them looked like they'd spent the night. We had some fun visiting with the neighborhood cats and dogs. There was one marmalade cat who decided to climb up one of the cars and then down the windshield and off the front. That very sociable cat followed Leslie on a stroll down an alley.

The ferry started loading at 9:10. We were caught a bit off guard when the traffic started to move; I got in the car and started driving, and poor Leslie had to run to catch up with me at the pier. We parked on the lowest level: a flap opened up in the deck, and we drove down a ramp into the dungeon. Cars were carefully (carfully?) lined up along the sides of the main deck, with buses and semis packed into the middle for stability and headroom.

As we got under way, the weather was cloudy but not raining. The clouds hung around 1500 meters. I could see glimpses of snow on the slopes around the cloud line, as well as sinuous vertical strips on the mountainsides where landslides had ripped away the thick wet forest. I spotted a seal in the Hornopirén harbor.

The ferry swung around to the east, then bent south along the straight and narrow fjord. The water was pretty flat, protected from the violent Pacific by Chiloé Island. We passed plenty of salmon farms, with tiny settlements tucked away on the east side in valleys that were walled in by mammoth granite crags.

It was easy to see why the coastal road stopped at Cholgo: cliffs and landslides make construction hard, and then comes Fiordo Quintupeu, a deep slash in the eastern shore. The government at various times has had plans to install a bridge here and connect the northern Carretera to Caleta Gonzalo, but having seen the terrain myself, I think it would cost billions to build the tunnels and bridges, and keeping the road open would cost many millions more per year. It's extremely scenic but the traffic can't justify it.

As we chugged along, the weather got wetter and cooler. The biggest mountain yet appeared out of the gloom near the hamlet of Huinay. The waterfalls and landslides had been spectacular all along the fjord, but they were simply amazing in this stretch.

Soon after, we docked at Leptepú. A paved road ran over the narrow part of the isthmus of Huequi to Fiordo Largo, and we made quick work of it. We passed several bicyclists who were enduring the drizzle, but they had the last laugh when we reached the line of cars waiting for the next ferry segment and they cruised to the dock. There was only one small ferryboat to cross the fjord to Caleta Gonzalo, and we were far enough back in line that we had to wait an hour or so for the second crossing.

The second ferry ride was pretty wet, and the weather got wetter on the road. The first 40 km or so of the road was potholed dirt; slippery in the rain, with boulders and debris on the shoulders. There were some spots where it was obvious that a stream had washed out the road and the road had been recently re-bladed. We got occasional views out through the jungle and the fog. The last 22 km into Chaitén were paved, which was a big relief for me.

We picked up gas at the Copec station on the west side of town. We didn't have much trouble finding the cabin. It turned out that the host wasn't on site; fortunately a Brazilian family was staying in the other unit and they showed us how to operate the door lock and gave us a laminated card with Wifi info.

After we got settled, we walked to the carnicería (butcher shop) across the street. There was a cute fuzzy cat playing with a 7-year-old girl. We picked up some meat and sausages to add to soup for dinner. We also stopped at a very mini minimercado and picked up veggies and bread. The veggies in Chaitén (and in other small towns) would never pass muster in a supermarket in the States, but they were just fine in spite of being ugly. It continued to rain into the night.

go to the Fiordo Comau gallery

Day 7: Saturday, 12/20: a rainy day in Chaitén

In the morning it was raining hard, gray and windy and pouring down. Wikipedia says that Chaitén gets an average of 3,619.3 mm = 142.48 in = 11 ft 10.48 in of rain per year. December is one of the drier months, with on average just 245.6 mm = 9.67 in of rain. Don't forget your rain gear when you visit.

As a consequence, we were pretty lazy about getting up. Leslie made scrambled eggs using country eggs that she had bought at the carnicería across the street.

After a while, the rain diminished and we decided to go for a walk around town. We walked in the general direction of the museum, which sat next to the Río Blanco north of the Carretera. The sidewalks in Chaitén were beat up. Street corners usually had puddles that we had to leap over. Dogs hung out in the street regardless of the weather. There were a number of quaint old buildings in this area that appeared to have survived the May 2008 disaster. There was an interesting A-frame church that was decked out with Christmas decorations.

The museum concentrated on the story of the 2008 catastrophe (Spanish, with photos). The docent spoke reasonable English and was great to talk with. After visiting the museum, we walked over to the adjacent riverbank and saw where the lahar had gushed down the channel into the town.

We stopped at Frutería Colchagüino (the Colchaguan's fruit stand) on our stroll back to the cabin. It had a better selection of fruit and veggies than the supermercados near the cabin, although that's not saying a lot. While we were in the store, the rain cranked up dramatically; we killed time under the awning waiting for it to peter out again, which it did after 20 minutes or so.

After we got back to the cabaña, the rain again pounded down. I put a load of laundry into the washing machine.

We still needed to shop for a few items, so when the rain quieted down, we walked over to the Edon supermarket. It was probably the biggest in Chaitén. It was closed for siesta when we got there. We waited, and while we waited, the rain came down brutally. Fortunately the store opened 10 minutes later, and we picked up food for later in the trip.

It continued to rain buckets, so it was an easy decision to drive to dinner. We went to El Volcán. It's a tiny operation and it gets busy, but they were able to seat us. I ordered the chupe de centolla (Spanish, with photos) and Leslie had the salmon. I received an enormous amount of crab — picked crab was layered over the chupe. It was absolutely delicious.

go to the Chaitén gallery

Day 8: Sunday, 12/21: Volcán Chaitén

The rain decreased through the morning. We went to La Panera bakery, a block away, and got bread and pastries. They had very nice chocolate-dipped alfajor cookies; for the rest of the trip, I had a vigilant eye for these treats at every panadería, and I was often rewarded. They also had chocolate chip cookies with dulce de leche filling.

I had wanted to take the trail up to the rim of the Volcán Chaitén caldera, but I was worried about the weather. Around 11, we decided to drive to the trailhead and see what happened. When we got to the volcano trailhead, it was misty but not actively raining. We figured that this weather was about as good as we could expect, so we put on boots and rain gear and started up the trail.

The trail gained 600 m in 2.2 km (1970 ft in 1.4 mi). Because of the steepness and the erosion from the constant rain, the trail was mostly made up of steps. The treads were cut from split logs of trees that were chopped down to build the trail. Leslie was much faster than me; I just kept my head down and tried to keep a steady pace, which was difficult on the uneven steps and slippery mud.

The forest was thick and wet and overhanging. As we gained elevation, we began to see more dead trees left over from the recent eruption. The last 150 meters were much less jungly, and even steeper. We got a little break with the weather, and although mist hung around the lava dome and the peaks on the rim of the caldera, we could see out to the ocean.

When we got to the rim, we took a hard left to walk over to the overlook. There were some impressively contorted dead trees. The dome in the crater was steep and pink and crumbly; we thought that we could see fumaroles on it, but it was a bit hard to tell since it was also poking up into the mist. There were green lakes in the trench between the dome and the caldera wall.

On the way down, the view got better and better, as the clouds retreated. Because of the awkward steps and footing, the hike down took almost as long as the hike up.

After we got down, we decided to check out trails further north. I had wanted to get to the Alerce trail, but when we got back on the road, we became stuck behind some trucks that were puttering along at 14 kph. Rather than waste time in that traffic, I pulled off abruptly at the trailhead for Lago Negro.

It was only 800 m to the lake from the parking lot, but it was engagingly spooky. Thick forest spread over the trail, which mostly followed a stream. There was a viewing platform built over the marsh at the end of the trail. The lake was gray with rain at first, but then some shafts of sunlight broke through. The slaty lake contrasted with the intense green of the rainforest. On the hike back, Leslie spotted gas bubbling up from a fumarole in the stream. We heard lots of bird calls, but the birds were mostly invisible in the forest.

go to the Volcán Chaitén gallery

Day 9: Monday, 12/22: Futaleufú

Another rainy morning. We packed and then left by 9:30.

On our way out of Chaitén, we turned off the Carretera and drove around the south end of town, the section that was disconnected from the main part of town by the Río Blanco's new course. There was a big levee next to the river; I'm not sure that it will help if there's another lahar. Most of the streets were unpaved. We saw several derelict buildings that looked like they must predate the lahar. It felt a bit depressing to me to see the run-down structures in the rain.

It continued to be cloudy and rainy on the drive up the Yelcho River valley. On the plus side, there were a gazillion impressive waterfalls on the mountainsides. The constant rain became more significant to me when we came over a rise and saw the countryside that was smashed by the Villa Santa Lucia slide. A storm dumped 122 mm / almost 5 inches of rain on a cliff and a glacier above the Río Burritos, and the saturated slope gave way. It must have been moving very fast; it sloshed up slopes on the opposite side of the valley. The Río Burritos flows through a gap on the south end of the valley, and the mud went through that gap like water out of a hose. Villa Santa Lucia sat on a plain at the bottom of the gorge. Half of the town was wiped out; 21 people died and one person was never found.

I wondered whether our weather might be better if we drove east to Futaleufú. We had plenty of time, so I turned off on Ruta 235. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was surprised that the route was unpaved for 15 km, then paved for 15 km or so, then unpaved for 20 km and paved for the last 25 km. Lago Yelcho was fairly placid in the rain. We got glimpses of snow on the peaks through the clouds. The first paved section started just after leaving Lago Yelcho and ran until the junction between the Futaleufú road and the Palena road. The road up the Futaleufú valley was bumpy gravel. We passed a road grader doing maintenance; we speculated that the road was actually safer as gravel because drivers would be tempted to go too fast on pavement.

We pulled over at the one-lane road bridge over the river. It was fun to see yellow rafts and assorted kayaks zip by on the rapids.

Futaleufú the town is smaller than I expected for such a well-known boating destination. I was also surprised that the town wasn't actually on the Río Futaleufú; it's on a tributary, the Río Espolón. We got out of the car and started to walk around the plaza, and of course there was a (brief) downpour; that's Patagonia weather. After admiring the Christmas decorations in the plaza de armas (parade ground, central square) and the visitor center, we drove northeast out of town to check out the top of the Río Futaleufu gorge. A side road crossed the river on a bridge. I shot lots of photos from the bridge — it was a very pretty spot, and we caught a bit of a break from the rain.

In an effort to get more views of the river, I followed the dirt road downstream on the east side. It was a well-maintained but narrow track above a gorge. There was no place to turn out for photos, and since the road was blasted out of a cliff, it would be difficult to get out of the way or turn around if we met oncoming traffic. I kept hoping for a good view down to the river, but the forest screened it pretty thoroughly. We eventually stopped at a fundo (farm) and returned the way we came. Based on web searches, it appears that if we'd gone another 1.4 km, we would have reached a trail to a viewpoint up the gorge. C'est la vie.

On the drive back, the rain began coming down again, and it was still raining when we reached the Carretera. The clouds occasionally lifted just enough to show ice and snow on the peaks above us. The drive into La Junta took longer than I thought it would. We checked into our cabin and discovered that the only heat was from a standard iron Patagonian wood stove. We actually needed the heat because it was chilly; fortunately we got some help from the manager. The bad news is that we didn't have many matches or much kindling, so we had to ask for help again when we had to start the fire the next day.

go to the Futaleufú gallery

Day 10: Tuesday, 12/23: Puerto Raúl Marín Balmaceda

The weather in the morning was once again very wet. I saw a forecast that said that there would be sun in the islands, so I suggested that we should drive west to Puerto Raúl Marín Balmaceda. Google Maps suggested that it would take 3 hours to get there; it's a 75 km drive on dirt with a ferry crossing.

It rained buckets on the first part of the drive. We encountered the normal herds of sheep, goats and cows on the road. The further west we drove, the less civilization we saw, until we were deep into rainforest. I had to reduce speed due to plenty of potholes and blind corners, but occasionally there were straight stretches where I could make time. The Palena River was impressive, when we could see it through the rain.

We stopped at the Puente Cascada (Waterfall Bridge) so I could take photos. I found it tough to become jaded by waterfalls in Patagonia, in spite of the fact that spectacular examples were around every corner.

The rain and clouds gradually diminished as we traveled west. We reached the car ferry crossing at 12:45. Unbeknownst to me, the last ferry before the afternoon siesta was at 13:00 — purely by serendipity, we made it there on time. The ferry dog was fun; Leslie had a little trouble getting him to pause long enough for her to take a picture. Unlike previous car ferries, this ferry didn't have ramps at both ends, so when we reached the far side, we had to back up off the boat and all the way up the loading ramp.

Puerto Raúl Marín Balmaceda was a fine small town. Given its remote location, it was pretty clean and tidy. I wondered how it had changed after the completion of the road in 2009; it clearly was getting a decent amount of tourist attention these days. We stopped at the tourist office but the staff were at siesta.

The guidebook mentioned a trail in the forest at the south end of town, and we decided to check it out. The Arrayanes trail ran through dripping, overgrown rainforest over to the Palena river and then north up the riverbank. The weather developed some blue-colored breaks in the clouds, and when the trail brought us to the sandy shoreline, we got a view that actually didn't have much rain in it (in the same way that spam, egg, sausage and spam doesn't have that much spam in it).

We got back in time to catch the first post-siesta ferry at 15:30; more excellent scheduling. There was one other vehicle waiting. A boy played on the shore with the ferry dog.

The weather hole followed us as we drove eastward. When we got back to the Carretera, we caught glimpses of snow-capped peaks. I suggested that we drive east across the Carretera on the Lago Verde road to Lago Rosselot, in the hope that the nicer weather and the nicer views would continue. They did.

We followed the weather hole to the junction with the road to Lago Claro Solar (Clear Sunlight Lake). The hole seemed to be headed to the lake, so we turned off and drove through pretty countryside with views of some spectacular peaks poking through the mists. We were only a few kilometers from the lake when we reached a wooden bridge that was so narrow and precarious, I chickened out and stopped. We walked out on the bridge and took photos. A tracked excavator on the other side was working on the revetment above the river. The excavator clearly didn't get there by driving over the bridge; we wondered how it managed to cross the river. (I realized later that another road to the north comes over to the lake and the bridge from the Carretera.)

A couple of pickup trucks drove over the bridge while we were there, including a VW Amarok. The Amarok is about the same size as our VW Atlas; the driver folded in their mirrors and slipped through.

After we got back to the cabin, the rain returned and was heavy most of the night.

go to the Puerto Raúl Marín Balmaceda gallery

Day 11: Wednesday, 12/24: La Junta to Coyhaique

Christmas Eve was a big day — we made a long jump, driving all the way from La Junta to Coyhaique, 278 km. We had heavy rain overnight and into the morning as a parting gift from La Junta. We picked up gas and headed south on the Carretera.

We took a little side trip through Puyuhuapi in the rain. There were some interesting buildings; I was tempted to take some photos but I didn't feel like getting out and getting wet again. After Puyuhuapi, the weather began to clear up a bit, and we got views out over the fjord. I decided to skip the turn-off for the Colgante Glacier trailhead given the clouds and light rain. The Carretera had sections of dirt road along the Queulat fjord and the Río Queulat valley. I struggled to get glimpses of peaks through the mist.

At the top of the valley, the road turned south and climbed the wall on steep dirt switchbacks. Potholes, rocks and mud: I was astonished to see a bicyclist taking a selfie with her kit in the rain, about halfway up.

At the top of the hill, the road entered a hanging valley, and the pavement started again. The scenery was delightful; cliffs and snow and waterfalls all over. I pulled over a few times to take photos. At one pull-out, Leslie made the acquaintance of a man from Seattle who was biking the Carretera. He had taken the smart(er) approach and had come up from the south on the pavement; still excruciatingly steep, but without the abundant mud and rocks. Leslie helped him get a photo of himself at the Carretera sign.

The peaks continued to be spectacular as we drove down to the Río Cisnes. We skipped the side trip to Puerto Cisnes and continued south up the valley. The slopes were very green, and river was roaring. The Carretera eventually climbs a couple of switchbacks and leaves the Río Cisnes valley for its tributary, the Río Travieso. The weather got better as we got closer to the source of the Río Travieso, the Laguna de las Torres (the Lake of the Towers). Here we got a full view of the most spectacular summit yet: Cerro Picacho. The name is a bit redundant (Peak Mountain?), but it's appropriate for a granite horn that scratches the sky. It's perfect from every angle; I took too many pictures of it, but I couldn't resist. The peak was also notable for its huge granite cliff that hovers over the Carretera at its closest approach.

The valley walls became steep and bare and rocky as we approached Villa Mañihuales. The town was founded in 1962, and the area was promptly clear-cut and settled for agriculture. In 1966, a huge landslide buried part of the town and sent tons of mud downstream to Puerto Aysén, making its harbor unusable for shipping. We didn't see any signs of that disaster, but we saw something better: a conical “Christmas tree” covered in crocheted fabric patches, which Leslie calls “granny squares”.

At the junction with the Puerto Aysén road, most of the Carretera traffic turns west toward Puerto Aysén. I went left on the Carretera instead, because I could see a spectacular peak in that direction. (The name of the peak on the map is Cerro Emperador Guillermo; it was apparently named by a German explorer in 1897 for Kaiser Wilhelm II. Yes, that Kaiser.) At this point, the true Carretera becomes a gravel road and wanders east through a sleepy valley with fine mountain scenery. I was surprised and a little dismayed to see so many tree farms in this area. Around Villa Ortega we drove through fields of (exotic) purple lupines. They were a pretty contrast to the green tree farms and the distant snowy peaks.

Our Airbnb in Coyhaique was an apartment on the 8th floor of one of the few tall buildings. As you might expect, it had a fantastic view. One bit of bad news: it was a real challenge maneuvering our enormous vehicle into its stall in the parking garage. I backed it in, with many forward and backward lurches of a foot or two. I couldn't have done it without Leslie's urgent directions — Leslie was (rightly) very worried that I might crunch a fender.

After we got settled, we went for a stroll. We walked down the street and encountered a little Christmas Eve street fair. The pentagonal Plaza de Armas was humming with activity — parents and kids, teenagers, bicycles, dogs, street preachers, little trailers selling trinkets.

go to the La Junta to Coyhaique gallery

Day 12: Thursday, 12/25: Reserva Nacional Coyhaique

We celebrated Christmas by going for a hike in the Reserva Nacional Coyhaique. It was just north of the town on the south slopes of Cerro Cinchao. The reserve was established to conserve an area that had been trashed by clear-cutting the native forest. Many exotic conifer trees had been planted to stop the terrible erosion. It was now a mixed forest, where lenga and coihue are recovering. Note that some of the lenga was transplanted; there is now an effort to grow native trees.

We did the loop trail counterclockwise; it took us around 3 hours. Parts of the hike were in dense and gloomy pine forest, while other parts were in recovering or planted native forest. The cloudy weather didn't help with the gloominess.

There are several small lakes, and we saw waterfowl at some of them. We saw a carpintero negro (“black carpenter”) woodpecker. I was able to recognize rayaditos (small white-bellied birds) from the pictures on plaques along the trail. There were lots of unfamiliar flowers; I took photos and looked them up later with Google Lens.

After returning to Coyhaique (and spending 15 minutes parking our mammoth vehicle again), we went for a walk around the neighborhood. Unlike Christmas Eve, Christmas Day was dead, dead, dead. The traffic was almost gone; so were the pedestrians. Almost all of the shops were closed. We did find a little activity in a park near the Shepherd Monument on General Baquedano Avenue. Parents were shepherding their kids who were playing with their new bicycles and remote-controlled cars.

go to the Reserva Nacional Coyhaique gallery

Day 13: Friday, 12/26: Lago La Paloma

This was a long day of driving and sightseeing, but there were a lot of good sights.

The weather report indicated rain. From our 8th-floor eyrie, I could see clouds to the north but not to the south, so after much dithering, I eventually decided that we ought to explore the lakes to our southwest.

We drove south to Villa Frei on a very nice paved road, then followed a good quality dirt road to Lago Elizalde. Lago Elizalde was long and narrow with substantial mountains on both sides. It was also somewhat wiggly, and I had a hard time finding the view that I wanted out toward its west end. The wind whipped up whitecaps across its longest reach, and mist draped the peaks, for a very moody scene.

The road climbed up to some rock shelves above the lake and continued west paralleling the south shore. After some ups and downs, the road turned south into the valley of the Estero Boca de León (the Lion's Mouth). There were scattered farms in the valley, some of them defunct; the farms had dogs, cows, horses, chickens, sheep. At one farm, a dog climbed on the roof of a shed to get a look at us. The road cut through Parque Nacional Cerro Castillo, and I hunted for views of the peaks, but they were lost in the mist.

At the south end of the valley, the road crossed a summit and dropped abruptly into the valley of the Río La Paloma (the Dove River). We drove over the bridge and then took a left onto a less wonderful dirt road that switchbacked up a hill. That let us see down the valley, and it showed that the river is pretty substantial, but the far end of the valley was hidden by rain. Curiously, we had a little hole in the clouds above us.

I was reluctant to drive downstream into the rain, but I did want to check out the bridge that we'd crossed. I parked and we walked out onto it. Looking straight down, I could see the river running through a gorge that was incredibly only about 6 meters wide. Downstream from the bridge, the gorge opened up a bit, with a pretty waterfall entering from the side, and thick greenery clinging to the cliffs. I was impressed at how much water must be going through that tiny gorge.

Just after we returned to pavement, there was a sign for Lago Paloma and Lago Monreal. I decided to take that turn. The weather improved, and we had more sun than clouds. There were impressive volcanic crags on the surrounding ridges that kept getting crazier. We passed a farm that had a wonderful waterfall as a backdrop, then started descending toward Lago Paloma.

Lago Paloma was stunning. There were nearly-sheer walls falling to the water line with big snow-clad peaks in the distance. We parked on the beach and stepped out into a gale, which was producing whitecaps and a bit of surf on the beach. I loved how blue the water was and how massive the cliffs were.

We were greeted on the beach by three dogs. One was a large puppy that had some beagle in it; we could see its ribs — very skinny. We wondered how they survived during the off season. Maybe they get some food occasionally from the farm up the road? Leslie gave them some bread.

We drove back up the road past the farm and took the side road to Lago Monreal. There were billboards from a developer advertising leisure lots, which I felt was odd and somewhat disappointing. The road climbed along a cliff band with even more fantastic views of Lago Paloma.

Eventually we came out near Lago Monreal, where there were indeed multiple lots with vacation homes, some of them quite substantial. Lago Monreal was much more subdued (okay, boring) than Lago Paloma. On a whim, I drove up to the saddle at the far end of the lake to see whether we'd get better views. The views weren't that exciting, but when we got there, I realized that we could continue out on this road in the direction of El Blanco to reach the Carretera.

Once we were back on the Carretera, I thought that it'd be fun to make yet another detour, this time to the Fraile ski resort. The views from the road were lovely. On the other hand, there wasn't much to see at the ski resort, which was quite small. The wind was frigid and the sky was gray. The only other person we saw was a guy replacing the baits in the rodent traps around the lodge.

Back in Coyhaique, we had dinner at Mamma Gaucha's pizzeria. The artichoke dip that the guidebook recommended was indeed awesome. The pizza was very good (although their idea of New York crust and mine are somewhat different). We got a table at the window, which furnished us with some fine people-watching.

go to the Lago La Paloma gallery

Day 14: Saturday, 12/27: Reserva Nacional Río Simpson

I figured that it would be fun to spend a day going down and back to Puerto Aysén, since we'd missed it on the trip over from La Junta.

After a brief stop at the Cascada Velo de Novia (Bridal Veil Falls), we dropped in at the the Conaf-operated Reserva Nacional Río Simpson trailhead. The procedure for paying the entrance fee was very complex — it was entirely on line, and it involved filling out several forms and then navigating to a payment processor website. I managed to complete the process but Leslie failed, after trying 5 times. Her credit card companies insisted on texting her to verify the purchase, but none of the texts came through in spite of her phone being on the park wifi. (In retrospect, I should have just paid for both of us.) When we explained the problem to a park ranger, he just waved us through.

The trail ran along the north bank of the Río Simpson, passing through pretty rainforest. I got some very nice photos of birds and flowers. A hiker in a group in front of us was good at coaxing chucaos out of the bush. I took advantage of the hiker's talent.

One highlight of the hike was a fun swing bridge across a stream. There was a monumental coihue tree, with its own viewing deck. The river took a big drop with interesting rapids, and the park had built a mirador (viewing platform) next to the drop. We were getting used to “miradors” that didn't actually provide a view of what they advertised, and indeed, this mirador didn't have a view of the river, in this case due to a thicket of colihue. The sky was mostly gray but occasionally the sun put in an appearance.

After the hike, we continued down the river to Puerto Aysén. The road was very twisty in the Río Simpson valley, but there were some straight stretches as we got into the Aysén valley, allowing us to pass slow vehicles (and other vehicles to pass us). The peaks around the road looked like they might be high, but the tops were lost in mist.

The town of Puerto Aysén was larger than I expected. I was hoping for some nice old buildings or some fun new architecture, but I was disappointed. It's a bit annoying to get around the town in a car, because of the many one-way streets.

We drove out the Dr Steffens road and crossed the Río Los Palos on a funky bridge. The Río Los Palos is a tributary of the Río Aysén that enters near the latter's mouth. We then drove out to Bahía Acantilada (Cliff Bay), a beach out on the Fiordo Aysén. We were vexed to discover that it was a private beach, and we turned around rather than pay a fee for the day. The slopes next to the road were indeed very cliffy, and had some nice waterfalls.

I made a point to visit the big suspension bridge over the Río Aysén in the middle of town, but there was road construction and a long wait that made the experience something of an anticlimax. Too bad.

go to the Reserva Nacional Río Simpson gallery

Day 15: Sunday, 12/28: Coyhaique to Cerro Castillo

I was a bit sad to leave our Coyhaique apartment with its awesome view, but I had no regrets about leaving its parking garage behind. We headed south on the Carretera in spectacular weather. The country south of Coyhaique reminded me a bit of parts of Wyoming: rolling terrain with flat-topped buttes and plateaus, green hills with patchy forest, and very, very windy. The Carretera bent away from the road to the Balmaceda airport and climbed southward through foothills before entering a mountain valley. Tree farms alternated with sections of native forest. The ridges were made of colorful volcanic tuff or craggy gray volcanic lava. We caught glimpses of snow high on the ridges.

We stopped briefly at the trailhead for the Cerro Castillo backcountry trek at Las Horquetas (the Forks). There was a big sign about the hike, and a visitor center appeared to be under construction. In spite of the wind, the tábanos (horseflies) were annoying.

The Carretera climbed gently up a valley with wildly corrugated crags on both sides. It crossed a pass and dropped abruptly into the valley on the far side. The views were amazing from this slope — big jagged peaks with glaciers, a wide river opaque with glacial runoff, patches of green forests perched on ice-carved benches. The Carretera switchbacked down hairpin curves to a junction. I turned left on the paved X-95 road to Puerto Ibáñez.

The road followed granite benches past lakes and small farms, with volcanic peaks on the left. We stopped at a mirador that was actually worthy of the name, with a view down to Puerto Ibáñez and its harbor. We could see at least three different shades of water in the bay, from two tributaries and the lake.

The town turned out to be pretty small and a bit shabby; I wasn't too surprised, given its remote location. There was a park at the waterfront; we parked and strolled around. We could see the lake ferry at its dock. The big white letters announcing Puerto Ibáñez at the park were an amusing match with a reproduction of an Easter Island moai.

I was anticipating some great scenery on the backroad to Cerro Castillo from Puerto Ibáñez, and it was mostly even better than I'd hoped. We turned off on the dirt X-723 road and went west, where we picked up the Río Ibáñez. The river was pretty substantial, so it was a fun surprise when after a couple of bends, we reached the incredible Río Ibáñez waterfall. The river squeezed through a tiny gorge and roared down a chute, passing under the road bridge. The air was full of spray and noise. A mirador was under construction on an island in the falls, and we had to work around it to get the best views.

After the falls, we turned south on the X-735 road. I was hoping to get a view across Lago Carrera by driving out to the Levicán Peninsula. In the end, we didn't get that view — the road ends in another enclosed bay rather than on a broad lakeshore. There were still some nice views of Bahía Ibáñez and various mountains, including some enticing previews of Cerro Castillo in the distance.

We returned to the X-723 road and turned west up the Río Claro gorge. The lower gorge was just wide enough for the road and the stream, while the upper part cut multiple insane slots into the granite. I pulled over, hoping to peer into one of the slots, but the thick vegetation blocked the view. Fortunately we at least got some entertainment when we were visited by a friendly dog from a nearby cabin. The guidebook warned about a steep hill on the road; there was a new-looking paved section just after the road crossed to the north side of the river, and I suspect that it's where the worst climb used to be. (It was not the only steep section of road, though.)

The rural scenery was charming. We passed a sprinkling of lakes, and some pretty green fundos backed by granite cliffs. Even better, the road swung around to point at Cerro Castillo; it was shockingly gorgeous, and got better and better as we got closer. The road managed to completely avoid the largest lake in the area, Lago Lapperent, but it was hard to complain.

The X-723 road eventually joined with the (newly paved) Carretera Austral. To get to our cabaña, we had to turn back to the east and cross a bridge where the Río Ibáñez again squeezed into a tiny channel, just before the very small town of Villa Cerro Castillo.

The cabañas weren't very difficult to find, fortunately. They were wisely constructed to have amazing views of Cerro Castillo. On top of that, they had very friendly dogs. What more could you want?

go to the Coyhaique to Cerro Castillo gallery

Day 16: Monday, 12/29: Lago Duff

There are a couple of well-known and well-maintained hiking trails outside of Villa Cerro Castillo: Laguna Cerro Castillo and Lago Duff. They have about the same elevation gain, 1200 m, but the Lago Duff trail is longer and a little gentler, so I elected to try that one first. I think Leslie was just happy to hike a decent trail that wasn't soaking wet.

The dirt road to the trailheads followed the north bank of the Río Ibáñez. It was in okay shape except for one short, nasty hill; people with 2WD vehicles had to pay to park at a dirt lot, then hike down the hill and along the flats to the trailheads. Our 4WD vehicle handled the hill like a champ.

The Conaf cabin at the trailhead furnished the usual Starlink Wifi and required the usual electronic payment. We were on the trail by 10. I stopped to shed my fleece pants, and had my first real encounter with the pestilence known as sandburs. Fleece attracts sandburs like a magnet.

The first kilometer was pretty flat, crossing pastureland with irrigation channels. There were multiple stiles to cross. The trail climbed through a lovely lenga forest with very little undergrowth; it looked quite manicured and park-like. There were occasional views down into a serious gorge. The trail stayed fairly high on the east slope of the valley. After roughly 2 km, we reached the park boundary and another stile. We noticed little red signs marking each kilometer of the trail, and we kept an eye peeled for them.

It took longer than I expected to reach the junction with the Laguna Cerro Castillo connector trail. The junction was followed immediately by the Porteadores camping area. I was surprised at the number of trekkers who were still camped there when we passed through in the middle of the day.

We continued up the trail in the forest, Leslie forging ahead while I slogged in the rear. We occasionally passed over bridges at ravines, and that gave us views uphill in the direction of Cerro Castillo; the summit was mostly lost in the mist, but we could see crags and talus fields. We had sun and wind along the trail, but the heights mostly stayed in the fog. I kept checking for a clear view of the big black tower on the ridge on the opposite side of the valley, but it was frustratingly elusive.

We finally got really nice unobstructed views near the Neozelandes campground. I was half expecting the official trail to end at the campground, but the trail markers continued (inverted yellow triangles on posts). It helped that there was a hand-carved “Duff” sign next to the stream where the trail became vague. We followed the sketchy trail, first through forest and then on exposed moraine boulders. I found the rock-hopping on the moraine to be pretty awkward. The wind made it hard for me to keep my balance. Leslie got far ahead of me in this section; it wasn't all that steep, but I took it pretty slowly.

After a lot of up and down over rockpiles, the lake suddenly came into view. The wind was vicious and there were horizontal raindrops. Other hikers were huddling in the shelter of boulders. I put on my down jacket and then added a rain jacket on top of it. The scenery was fine, but we didn't stay very long.

go to the Lago Duff gallery

Day 17: Tuesday, 12/30: Cerro Castillo

Leslie was eager to do the Laguna Cerro Castillo hike on Tuesday, and I realized that I was actually feeling pretty good the next morning after a decently hard hike. We drove down the same dirt road to a different trailhead, and we were on the trail by a little after 10.

The trail started out with a climb and got steeper. I was slow, as before, but I cranked it out; Leslie ended up far in front of me. The forest and the flowers were very pretty. The view of the Río Ibáñez valley opened up nicely as we got higher. We could see blue sky in every direction except directly above us — the peak generated its own weather.

We didn't reach the park boundary until the 5 km mark, more than two-thirds of the way up the trail. A gardaparque (ranger) was present at this spot. There were a handful of benches and a bathroom; the benches had a wonderful view of the valley. I synced up with Leslie here and took a short break.

The park boundary was roughly at treeline. The trail switchbacked steeply up a slope, then cut to the left across scree and rock outcrops. I found the talus to be more walkable than the previous day. The trail gradually worked around the side of a hump to a saddle, and all of a sudden I was hit with the view. It was “estupendo”, as I was told by another hiker.

In spite of the mist on the peaks, the view was still amazing. Glaciers, waterfalls, milky-blue water — hard to beat. The sun came and went, although the summit crag stayed hidden. The viewpoint wasn't crowded, but there were still dozens of people.

On the way down, I tripped and fell from the trail. I was hiking fast and not paying as much attention as I should have been. I stumbled, recovered my balance, lost it again, then did a header off of the trail. I ended up face down in a thicket of branches. Somehow I still had my sunglasses on. Leslie and a couple of other concerned hikers were trying to help, but there wasn't really a lot that they could do. I managed to get my feet under me and pulled myself onto the trail. I was basically unhurt but I was acutely embarrassed; the extent of my injuries was a scrape under my left eye and a nasty scratch on my right knee.

Back at the cabin we were entertained again by a fuzzy dog. I suspect that the dog got a lot of attention from visitors, but he/she radiated a good mood in return. I got a fine portrait of Leslie and the dog. We sat on the porch and enjoyed the view of the trail that we'd just hiked.

go to the Cerro Castillo gallery

Day 18: Wednesday, 12/31: end of the pavement

It was New Year's Eve, and once again, it was time to leave. Of course, Cerro Castillo was cloudless as we left; you can't win 'em all.

On the way out of Villa Cerro Castillo, we stopped at the Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the Hands) and the Villa Cerro Castillo school museum. Both are accessed from a little park site tucked away from the Carretera on the south bank of the Río Ibáñez. There is a single visitor center for both places.

The “cueva” is an alcove in a lava wall which has some nice rock art based on hand prints. We walked up the up the trail to the cave with a docent. He appeared to be about 19; he had some English but not a lot. Fortunately there were plenty of explanatory signs about birds, plants, geology and archaeology along the trail, some with English translations. The hand prints come in both positive and negative forms; the negatives were made by blowing pigment powder on a hand to make an outline. There were both left and right hand prints. There is no figurative art here, although the museum has a depiction of a guanaco in similar ochre color.

The birds along the trail were fun. We saw a couple of Chilean flickers on a rock on the way up. On the way down, Leslie heard a familiar bird cackle and spotted a couple of austral parakeets on a branch. They were larger than I expected, and very colorful. I tried to get photos but it was difficult with the shade and the intervening branches. The birds were very green, and groomed each other as we watched.

The school museum was in an original school building that had been nicely fixed up. The exhibits and the stories that went with them were very nice too. This area was extremely isolated for a long time; the Carretera seems to have brought in a lot of civilization (and money).

The road south from Villa Cerro Castillo is now paved for several kilometers, with several kilometers more under construction. I could see an icy slope at the head of the Río Ibáñez valley which may have been Volcán Hudson. A lahar from the volcano would be pretty ugly for the valley; I hope they don't get one any time soon. The road finally turned to dirt about halfway up the valley, and I couldn't resist taking a picture of the sign that announces the “fin pavimento”. It took me a little while to get used to driving a dirt road with fairly heavy traffic.

The scenery was very fine over the pass and down to Bahía Murta on Lago Carrera. I decided that we had plenty of time to drive over to Puerto Sánchez, on a road that the guidebook said was even more scenic. The guidebook wasn't kidding: the road rose high above the lake to get above some big cliffs, and there was a section that had been blasted out of a near-vertical granite wall above a plunging gorge. We stopped to scope it out and enjoy the views of the mountains to the west.

Puerto Sánchez itself is quite sleepy. On the plus side, it does have the nice view over the lake that we missed at Puerto Ibáñez. There were funky old mine buildings on the outskirts.

We didn't have any trouble finding our Airbnb in Puerto Río Tranquilo. The town earned its name that evening — I didn't hear any New Year's celebrations.

go to the end of the pavement gallery

Day 19: Thursday, 1/1: the Marble Caves

The San Rafael Glacier trip doesn't run on New Year's Day, so we booked a trip to the famous Cuevas de Mármol (Marble Caves) on Lago General Carrera instead.

We took the “full” tour: a clockwise loop starting at Puerto Río Tranquilo, then heading northeast to Puerto Sánchez and southwest to the Catedral de Mármol (Marble Cathedral). The marble is only found in a few places on the lake. It's part of the “Paleozoic metamorphic basement” rock layers exposed at the west end of the lake. The modern lake has eroded the marble into bizarre shapes with interesting patterns.

We put on life jackets and piled into the boats, which were docked at the mouth of the Tranquilo river (more like a creek). After a lecture from the guide, we took off across the windy waters to Isla Los Arrayanes, which is less than a kilometer offshore from Puerto Sánchez. I got the impression that the island is privately owned. We visited the wrecks of two boats in a bay on the island. The boats are left over from the era of mining at Puerto Sánchez — the boats transported ore and materials across the lake to Chile Chico. The mines apparently produced lead, zinc and silver, and the ore was exhausted in the 1980s.

Soon after, we got our first views of the marble erosion, on the coast of the island. The lake water has dissolved the marble and created caves and columns. At least one cave was large enough to fit our boat. The lake level was fairly high at this time of year, so we had to watch our heads. The water is an eerie green when backlit.

We motored across the lake to the Cathedral. It's on the mainland coast near Bahía Mansa. The kayakers start from Bahía Mansa because it's much closer to the Cathedral area than either Puerto Río Tranquilo or Puerto Sánchez. It was a bit of a zoo; it gets visits from both the kayakers and the short version of the boat tour. The scenery was still fine. We did the obligatory dip into the Cathedral. It was tight enough for the boat that it reminded me of navigating the VW into parking garages. Everybody gets photos of the bizarre Capilla de Mármol (Marble Chapel), which grows out of the blue water like a mushroom; I wasn't an exception. I liked the striped patterns in the rock on its sides.

After the boat trip, we took a stroll along the waterfront in the afternoon. We found a cemetery on the south side of town where the graves were covered by tiny buildings, complete with corrugated tin or shake roofs and glass windows.

go to the marble caves gallery

Day 20: Friday, 1/2: San Rafael Glacier

It was a big day. I set my alarm for 5:30; we showed up at Destino Patagonia (the tour operator, a block away) one minute before deadline.

We had decided to drive ourselves to the dock rather than catching a van ride with the tour company, so that we could take our time on the return drive. I wanted to follow the van, so we had to wait for the last passenger who was booked on the van; when they didn't show up after ten or fifteen minutes, the van drove over to their accommodation, but came up empty. After that hitch, we were finally under way. The van driver obviously knew that there isn't much or any traffic going east from Bahía Exploradores (Explorers Bay) in the morning; he zipped along, and I had to work to keep him in sight. There were all kinds of obstacles and distractions: misty weather, cattle on the road, potholes, rocks, bridges. The notorious 5 ton bridge over the Río Exploradores was narrow but we squeezed our mammoth vehicle across it without any damage.

At the pier, we discovered that the boat that Destino Patagonia normally uses for glacier tours was having trouble, so we needed to kill an hour or so while they scrounged up replacements. Carolina, our guide, took us on a nature walk along the bank of the river down to a fundo in the forest. The older couple who owned it lived in a tiny cabin with a classic Patagonian wood stove. There was a huge woodpile outside under plastic sheeting. Carolina had a special relationship with these folks — she grew up in Melinka, at the north end of the Islas Guaitecas, which is just as soggy and isolated. I looked it up: Melinka gets 3138 mm = 123.5 in of rain annually.

The husband showed off their excellent garden. I noticed flowers, potatoes, onions, chives, cilantro, lettuce, garlic, and beans, and I'm sure I missed a bunch of stuff. There were two greenhouses. The couple sells produce to the salmoneros (salmon farmers) in exchange for salmon; there were some very nice-looking salmon hanging from ropes between trees in front of the house.

We found the wife in the tiny kitchen kneading dough. We watched as she cut the dough into diamonds and punched holes in the diamonds, then fried the dough pieces in a pot on the wood stove. Carolina helped with the frying, and Leslie volunteered to catch the hot sopaipillas in a bowl. We all got to sample the sopaipillas with jam — they were wonderful. The couple spends the winter in Puerto Aysén; their two sons live in Santiago and elsewhere in Chile, but they normally come back to the fundo for at least part of the summer. Many years ago, the couple had moved to Santiago to find work, and the wife worked for some time as a maid, but the money and the city living weren't that great, so they moved back to Patagonia.

We made our way back to the pier around 11. Our group had to split up because we couldn't all fit onto one of the two available boats, which were smaller than the original boat. Our boat, La Resistencia, had twin Yamaha 150 HP outboards. We set off down the river and zigzagged through the delta out onto the Estero Elefantes (Elephants Estuary). Out on the fjord, the water wasn't particularly rough, so we went pretty quickly. I went outside onto the poop deck; it's very noisy there, but the view was pretty good. The scenery was still misty but we could see hints of mountains and ice. The boat had to twist and turn to work around multiple moraines that extended into the fjord; the currents looked complicated.

Eventually we came out into the Laguna San Rafael, the huge melt pool at the bottom of the glacier (13 km = 8 mi across). The boat slowed down as it navigated between icebergs. It was difficult to get a sense of the scale of the glacier, even when we approached the snout. Google Maps says that it's 1.3 km = 0.8 mi across. We hung out and watched big slabs calve off into the bay, with the thunder from the splashes delayed by the distance from the ice. The ice was intensely blue in places. I was fascinated by the blue and white tiger stripes on both the glacier front and some of the icebergs. We were served glasses of calafate liqueur with glacier ice; it was very tasty. (Leslie liked the liqueur so much that she hunted for it in grocery stores for the rest of the trip. It was La Baqueana brand, in a blue bottle.)

On the way out of the Laguna San Rafael, we came across a seal lounging on an iceberg. After checking Google, I think it was probably a leopard seal. Leopard seals are normally found around Antarctica, but a population has apparently become established in Patagonia.

The weather improved as we headed back to port. There was even occasional sunshine on the water. I was able to make out glaciers coming down from the ice field in some of the valleys on the east side of the fjord.

At the 5-ton bridge, I wasn't as brave as the van driver — I tucked in my side mirrors. As we drove east, the scenery and the weather got better and better. I was wondering if it would be possible to hike a bit of the Exploradores Glacier trail, but a sign informed us that the trailhead closes at 1 PM. I stopped frequently to take photos of the impossibly gorgeous cascades and waterfalls. The granite crags were spectacular too. We didn't get back to Puerto Río Tranquilo until 8 PM.

go to the San Rafael Glacier gallery

Day 21: Saturday, 1/3: the road to Chile Chico

Chile Chico is a detour away from the Carretera, but the guidebook's descriptions of the scenery sounded fun, so we booked a couple of nights there.

Our first stop was the suspension bridge over the outlet of Lago General Carrera. Although the lake widens to the east toward Argentina, it actually empties to the southwest via the Río Baker. The one-lane orange bridge was pretty cool, and the mountains and the lake made a wonderful backdrop. We stayed here for a while, drinking in the views. The water flowed through a short channel into Lago Bertrand, making ripples and whorls under the bridge. I was captivated by the distant towers of the Sierra de Avellanos (Hazel Mountains) across the lake, north of Puerto Sánchez. The mountains above Lago Bertrand, starting with Cerro Nyades, were also fascinating. (While putting this web page together, it took me multiple days to track down the names of these peaks; I hope I got most of them right.)

Leslie took pity on some bicyclists who were begging for water on the side of the road on the hill after the bridge. It turned out that they were from Colombia and had biked all the way to Patagonia from their home country. It was a very warm day and they had underestimated how much water they would need; Leslie gave them plenty of water and some food too for good measure.

We stopped briefly at the Terra Luna resort a little way east of Puerto Guadal. It was a pretty fancy place; we weren't planning to stay there, but they offer helicopter tours and Leslie's friend Cata had recommended a pilot named Philippe. We asked whether there was availability that day for a flight, but apparently Philippe was piloting a flight out of town, returning that night. We decided to book a tour for Monday instead, on our way back from Chile Chico.

The road along the south side of the lake was preposterously gorgeous. It was also very twisty and had lots of blind curves, so driving it was an adventure. The road went up and down in elevation to avoid big cliffs by the lake. It was blasted out of the granite bedrock in a number of locations. There were amazing mountains on both sides of the lake which run almost all of the way to the Argentine border. Unsurprisingly, I stopped repeatedly to take photos.

I was happy when we reached pavement as we approached Chile Chico. The town was a bit bigger and more well-off than I expected. It was also warmer than I expected — we arrived during a heat wave, with temperatures in the low 30s (about 90 degrees F). We were greeted at the Airbnb by Tomy the dog and and a friend of the owner, who was looking after the units while the owner was out of town. No A/C; we opened windows to get ventilation.

We took a stroll along the waterfront. The town had built a concrete promenade by the lake; we enjoyed the breeze and the view. There were plenty of people enjoying the water, in spite of the fact that it was frigid (I checked). We then walked into town looking for restaurants and grocery stores. Leslie managed to find La Baqueana maqui liqueur. We eventually settled on take-out pizza for dinner. At Austral Pizza, the pies were made by an authentic grandma with a hairnet.

It was bound to happen eventually: we had a bad experience at the Airbnb unit. There was loud dance music at the party venue next door that lasted all night long. The noise was unavoidable because we had to keep the windows open due to the heat. I had a pillow clamped over my head until the racket finally shut down at 5:30 AM.

go to the road to Chile Chico gallery

Day 22: Sunday, 1/4: Parque Patagonia Sector Jeinimeni

On Sunday, Leslie was boiling mad about the party music. I couldn't blame her. Either the party organizer knew that there were visitors in the cabins, in which case they were exceedingly rude, or there was a horrendous mis-communication, in which case someone was exceedingly incompetent. (I tend to follow Hanlon's Razor in situations like this.)

We left late to go hiking in Parque Patagonia Sector Jeinimeni. We took the X-753 road south along the Río Jeinimeni, which forms the border between Chile and Argentina. The first section of the road ran high on a plateau past the airport, but it dropped in steep switchbacks to the valley floor about 4 km before the turn-off for Valle Lunar (Moon Valley). There was a gate and a small ranger station here. After paying for entry to the park, I drove the steep and bumpy road to the trailhead.

There was a 6 km loop hike from the trailhead. I voted to do the hike counter-clockwise so that we'd have a breeze on the way up, and so that we'd get our first view of the Valle Lunar at the best overlook. It turned out that counter-clockwise was also the steepest way to do the hike. Oh well.

The Valle Lunar would not have looked out-of-place in Utah or Nevada. (In fact it made me think of parts of Meadow Valley Wash in southern Nevada.) There were grotesquely carved cliffs and hoodoos galore. The rock in the area was volcanic tuff that generally made for gentle, crumbly slopes, but at Valle Lunar it was more resistant, eroding into buff, gray, red and brown pinnacles. The trail was steep enough that the park had reinforced it with wooden steps, and we passed other hikers who were suffering on these stairs in the hot weather.

The next stop on the hike was the Cueva de las Manos, which (you guessed it) was a rock art site featuring hand prints. This site was older than the one near Cerro Castillo and it had a few pictographs of animals as well. We were grateful for the shade in the cave. Leslie was much better than I was at spotting the pictographs, some of which were in unusual places.

From the cave, it was a short uphill hike to a saddle, where there were a few shadeless benches from which we could enjoy the view. The trail on the other side wandered through a garden of hoodoos. We admired the birds in this section, and debated whether the grazing animals in the distance were cows or guanacos (I thought they were cows). The trail eventually took us to the Piedra Clavada (the Nailed Rock). It was a tall hoodoo that stood apart from the others. It really did look a bit like a giant hammer had pounded it into the landscape.

Lower down there was another rock art site with handprints, and then we had a hot slog on gravel back to the car. There were plenty of the nasty sandbur weeds along the trail.

It was getting a bit late in the day, but I still wanted to drive to Lago Jeinimeni at the end of the road. It was 27 km on dirt from Valle Lunar. The landscape was mostly treeless until just a few km before the ranger station at the lake, and the road was in good condition, so I was able to drive pretty fast. The valley was really lovely but I was in such a hurry that I only stopped once for a photo, at the Río de las Nieves (River of the Snows). There were occasional fundos with sheep and cattle; these places must be really isolated in the winter.

At the park boundary before the lake, the road quality dropped abruptly, becoming ruts, roots and rocks. Fortunately it was only 3 km from there to the park offices. We visited the offices, then strolled over to the lake. There were several people fishing, and some folks were even swimming. The mountains around the lake were craggy and colorful, this time making me think of Idaho. There were caiquénes (geese) at the lake puttering around on the shore. There were tree farms around the foot of the lake; Leslie asked a ranger and he said that they were being phased out in favor of native forest, which was great.

On the drive back, we noticed some folks stopped near a pond. We wondered what they were looking at. It turned out that in addition to the sheep and the geese on the shore, there were a handful of flamingos in the water. Appropriately, the map said that the pond was named Laguna Los Flamencos (Flamingo Lake).

go to the Parque Patagonia Sector Jeinimeni gallery

Day 23: Monday, 1/5: the northern ice field by air

A very busy day of sightseeing: we went by car, on foot and by air. We took the (very) scenic route from Chile Chico to Cochrane.

It took us 2.5 hours to drive from Chile Chico to Puerto Guadal. The drive is still spectacular but we were in a hurry and we only stopped once. We managed to reach Terra Luna before 10. Philippe arrived fairly shortly afterward, flying in on his chopper. We filled out online release forms and paid for the northern ice field tour. We were on the helicopter and in the air by 10:30.

I've spent several days since I returned trying to work out exactly where our tour went. I hope the photo labels are correct. I took a gazillion pictures. The guidebook was spot on — the helicopter tour is very pricey but it's worth every penny. We got a 90 minute flight including four stops. Leslie and I switched positions in the front and rear seats at each stop. One bit of bad news: the audio didn't work in the headset in the rear seat. Other than that, the flight was amazing.

We did a clockwise loop, visiting glacial valleys on the east side of the ice field as well as setting down right on top. We started by flying to the outlet of Lago Carrera, then over Lago Bertrand to Lago Plomo (Lead Lake), which is separated from Lago Bertrand by a moraine. We flew across Lago Plomo and up the Río Soler valley. Just past the fork with the Río Cacho, we turned south (left) into a side valley and flew over the Cordón Soler range to the valley of the Río Nef.

We landed near the outlet from the Nef Glacier meltpond. We could see the broad front of the glacier on the other side of the lake. Chunks of blue ice bobbed in the water. We took off again and flew up the glacier. It was obvious that the glacier had once been much thicker here; the soil was scraped off of the valley walls up to substantial elevations. Philippe showed us some moulins (drainage holes) in the ice that whose waters were so blue that they resembled windshield wiper fluid. In other places, the parallel crevasses looked like some enormous tracked vehicle had run over the ice. The walls of the valley became vertical granite cliffs half-buried in ice.

The valley curved to the north, then after a steep climb, it ended somewhat suddenly at the ice field. The whiteness of the ice was blinding. We landed on the ice field for another photo op. Leslie and I discovered that the snow was disconcertingly soft on top of the ice. We could make out the high point of the ice field, Monte San Valentín, off to the north, somewhat hard to spot among the other high peaks. It's the highest mountain in Chilean Patagonia at 4058 m / 13314 ft.

We took off and swung eastward, where the ground dropped off dramatically. We followed a blue glacier steeply down toward green Lago Leones (Lions Lake). We turned north and landed on a granite ridge between two glaciers. Way above us to the northwest was Cerro Cuerno de Plata (Silver Horn Peak, 3725 m / 12221 ft). A slab juts out to the east from the peak, looking like a sheet cake with white frosting; it's called Escudo de Plata (Silver Shield). The scenery was mind-boggling, and I never would have gotten here without a helicopter.

We then flew down Lago Leones and along the Río Leones to the Río Meliquina; we turned south and followed this tributary up to Lago Meliquina. A big glacier drains into the top of the lake, and the milky blue water spills over a braided cascade at the outlet. We landed on a knob with a view west to the lake. Actually, the views were incredible in every direction.

We went west down the valley of the Río El Canal (the Trough River). The river incises a couple of narrow channels in the bedrock on its way down to Lago Carrera. We swooped over the lake and back to Terra Luna. It was only noon, but the trip was so packed, it felt like we'd been out all day.

And we still had to drive to Cochrane. We hit the road, passing through Puerto Guadal, then returning to the Carretera at Cruce El Maitén. We only got a few glimpses of Lago Bertrand from the road. I was surprised to pick up pavement again at Puerto Bertrand, a small town at the south end of the lake. We drove into the town to check it out; in spite of its small size, it did seem to have a rustic tourist scene. As we headed south again, we spotted a sign for the “nacimiento” (source) of the Río Baker, so of course I had to stop for it. We hopped over deadfall on a faint use trail, and there it was: the flat blue waters of Lago Bertrand narrowed to a channel and turned into rapids.

The pavement continued for a while as we resumed our drive south, I'm happy to say. It wasn't very far to our next stop: the trailhead to the confluence of the Baker and Nef rivers. The trail was a bit longer than I expected, and I was thinking that maybe I should have put on shoes instead of sandals. But I forgot about all of that when we reached the end, where a loud roar announced the Río Baker falls.

I found the falls to be mesmerizing. Leslie had to encourage me to leave, but not before I took lots of photos. The Río Nef is the same greenish-brown color as Lago Nef, and it enters the Río Baker just below the falls, providing a striking contrast with the blue of the Baker.

Just a few kilometers' drive from the trailhead, we reached a spot where traffic was backed up due to road paving. Rather than wait for the flagger, I decided to take the back route to Cochrane on Ruta X-890, on the south side of the river. We stopped at the steel bridge over the Baker and enjoyed the views upstream into the gorge. The guidebook said that the road was not in great shape, but we found it to be well-maintained; in fact, we had a close encounter with a road grader coming around a blind curve.

The climax of this side road was the car ferry back across the Baker, the “Balsa Baker” (Baker Raft). You summon the ferry by striking a gong made from a chunk of steel girder, which hangs on a chain at the landing. The ferry is powered by the river. Three chains attach to a thick cable that's strung between the banks, and adjusting the chains creates an angle against the current that lets the ferry glide across the river. Of course there was a ferry dog, black and furry. A bizarre pick-up truck came across as we waited. I'd never seen anything like it before; when I got back from the trip, I used Google Lens to identify it as an Ulyanovsk UAZ-3303 Golovastik aka Tadpole 4WD truck, manufactured by Ulyanovsky Avtomobilny Zavod (the Ulyanovsk Automobile Plant) in (guess where?) Ulyanovsk, on the Volga River. It's a mid-engine truck from a line originally developed for the Soviet Army.

But that wasn't the only automotive surprise at the ferry. When we arrived on the other side, we found that the next vehicle that was waiting to cross was a Toyota pick-up that had been modified into a flat-bed truck. A horse was in the bed. I had to smile, after having seen the “no cows” signs at the landings.

We didn't have much trouble locating the Airbnb in Cochrane. We were greeted by the very friendly cats who appeared to live under an old car next to the back unit. I desperately needed to do laundry; the host recommended Juanita's lavandería, not far from the Copec station. I went there twice and left frustrated, before I realized on my third visit that the store was actually open. They kept the door locked, and they let you in when you rang the doorbell.

go to the northern ice field by air gallery

Day 24: Tuesday, 1/6: Parque Patagonia Sector Chacabuco

We set off late because I needed to buy socks. I somehow managed to put all of my socks into the laundry. Supermercado Melero opened at 10. They have everything! Including socks. It was a blast to wander around the store and check out all of their stuff, from groceries to hardware to furniture. (We also went to Supermercado Rojita because they carry better baked goods.)

We drove north to Parque Patagonia Sector Chacabuco. Parts of the road were paved but with potholes; that included the section from the Carretera to the park HQ. We saw our first guanacos here, hanging out in the meadows above and below the HQ. The HQ area is very pleasant (and fairly busy with tourists). We checked on the trail conditions and looked at the merchandise for sale.

I drove us far to the east on a dusty road to Casa de Piedra to hike up to the Aviles valley. Leslie wanted to see guanacos up close, and for some reason, I thought that we'd see more guanacos in a wilder section of the park. It was already 2 PM when we got to the trailhead and the loop hike was 10 miles round trip, so the hike was already in doubt. The trail started at a pleasant refugio (mountain hut), but then it headed out onto the Río Chacabuco flood plain. It was a half-hour slog to the Río Aviles footbridge across flat and desert-like terrain; the trail on the other side headed semi-vertically up the mountain. That was disappointing, but worse was that this area is named the Valle Guanaco and there were no guanacos. We made it to the footbridge and turned around.

We drove back to the park HQ and a little bit beyond to the Chacabuco Bridge trailhead. The trail ran through dry grass and reeds, and hopped over a couple of low ridges. There were loads of guanacos (of course). We even saw a very young guanaco, who was being guarded by relatives. The older males took positions on the hilltops as sentries. We didn't go all of the way to the bridge but we did get some fine guanaco pictures.

I was curious about Lago Cochrane, the big lake that occupies a valley above the town of Cochrane. After picking up my laundry, I drove us east to the X-899 road. The road had lots of steep ups and downs and sharp curves; it climbed into the foothills on the south side of the lake, albeit not very systematically. We stopped at a gravel pit with a great view of Lago Cochrane. I was impressed at the deep blue water and the multitude of islands.

When we got back to the main road, I turned east again, looking for the outlet of the lake. I drove the X-893 up to the park office (which was closed). I thought that the lake here was the outlet of Lago Cochrane, but I checked a map later and that turned out not to be the case; Lago Cochrane empties into a stream that flows into this lake. It was still very pleasant.

That evening we worked on submitting our salvoconducto paperwork so that we could enter Argentina through the Chacabuco valley.

go to the Parque Patagonia Sector Chacabuco gallery

Day 25: Wednesday, 1/7: Monte San Lorenzo

I wanted to visit Monte San Lorenzo and the Río del Salto (Waterfall River) and its tributaries, south of Cochrane near the Argentine border. The day was a bit gray but not rainy. We drove south from Cochrane on the Carretera on pavement that was mostly fine but with occasional nasty potholes. I turned east on the X-901 road, and followed it through the foothills on the east side of Lago Esmaralda, passing a number of tree farms. When the road reached the Río del Salto, it followed the east bank. We could see jagged peaks ahead in the direction of Monte San Lorenzo.

The river forked, and the road stayed with the east fork, the Río Tranquilo. The river wasn't tranquil at all where the road crossed it. The river dropped into a chute just above the bridge, roared under the bridge and down a gorge. There were actually two bridges: a modern bridge made from steel girders, and an old wood-floored suspension bridge. The old bridge was blocked off; it looked a bit flimsy and I'm happy that we didn't have to drive over it. The chute and the gorge were pretty cool, and I took a lot of pictures there.

The road swung south to Lago Confluencia, where there was a junction. We took the south branch. The road wandered along the east shore of the lake, then dropped down into the valley of the south fork. It was an impressive U-shaped glacial canyon, and the milky river ran through stretches of rapids. We saw a couple of canoeists putting in higher up.

The road turned a corner and suddenly we got a view of Monte San Lorenzo (3706 m, 12159 ft) and the towers that surround it. The road then climbed a couple of switchbacks to a mirador overlooking the melt pond of Glaciar Calluqueo. The glacier no longer made it all of the way to the lake; we could see that it used to be much bigger. Monte San Lorenzo played hide-and-seek in the clouds, but it eventually peeked out.

The online OpenStreetMap topo map for Chile showed a hiking trail on the south side of the lake. We parked and hunted for it, and eventually found a track in the right place that dropped down into a ravine. The well-named Río Pedregoso (Stony River) ran in the ravine. We met a couple on the trail; the (Australian) man said that there was no way to cross without getting wet, and he was right. The water looked frigid and probably thigh deep. We reluctantly turned around.

We drove back down to the road intersection and turned to continue up the east fork on the X-903 road. The road was in pretty good shape, but we had to dodge multiple dump trucks and a road grader. The road passed the “agroturismo” turn-off for the Monte San Lorenzo climb. The views in here were spectacular. The road worked its way down to the floodplain of the Río Tranquilo; it eventually crossed the river and climbed a huge bank to reach Lago Brown.

Lago Brown was larger than I expected. The Argentina border followed the ridge on the back side of the lake. The road was obviously newly improved here. I saw a sign for Lago Cochrane 24 km, border 34 km; I don't think the road went all of the way yet but the government was clearly working on it. Based on the Google Maps satellite view, there didn't seem to be a matching road on the Argentine side, but if by some miracle the countries could agree to put in a border crossing, it looked like it would be a very pretty area to visit.

Back on the Carretera, I drove us south to the Río del Salto bridges. The river divided into two branches just upstream from the bridges; both branches went over sizable waterfalls and dropped into precipitous gorges before recombining below. Unfortunately there were no developed trails here, which was disappointing because the falls are incredible.

We drove back to town and picked up food for breakfast. I decided that we still had time to drive down the X-892 road to see the lower falls of the Río del Salto. They were 14 km from the Carretera and just above the Río Baker. At the Salto river, there was a swing bridge with a 1.5 tonne weight limit; I wasn't brave enough to drive across it. We stopped there and hiked the use trail on the west bank. The falls were tall, twisty, massive and loud. The mist drifted everywhere. There were other people visiting the falls; it was a pity that there was no developed trail here, but the use trail did climb very steeply to a couple of viewpoints. I noticed some Austral parakeets in the trees; maybe they were enjoying the mist?

go to the Monte San Lorenzo gallery

Day 26: Thursday, 1/8: the road to Villa O'Higgins

On this day, we drove from Cochrane all the way to the town at the south end of the Carretera, Villa O'Higgins. The day started out cloudy and we had sprinkles periodically. The sprinkles turned into rain as we got closer to the junction with the Caleta Tortel road.

We were treated to a unique sight on this stretch of the Carretera. We saw a family of chillas, a mother with two kits, crossing the road in front of us. I had to hit the brakes pretty hard. One kit was slow, and mom (and we) had to wait for it.

The lower Río Baker was broad and pale green; steep mountain walls on either side rose into the mist. The Carretera proper turns away from the Baker part way down this valley, and climbs steeply on switchbacks into a gorge. The gorge was mysterious in the rain. We eventually got stuck behind a car from Argentina that drove slowly but refused to let others pass; I decided that the driver probably did this because they were concerned about their ferry chances. The ferries between Puerto Yungay and Río Bravo over the Fiordo Mitchell only run once an hour.

That driver was right to be concerned. We arrived before 11 but we were too far back in the line to make that ferry crossing. We waited an hour in off-and-on light rain. We killed time wandering around the ferry area, checking out the terminal building and the other vehicles.

We were grateful when the noon ferry finally showed up. The ferry dog did a good job of making sure that all of the vehicles left promptly, chasing each one and barking at it. This ferry was bigger than the earlier one, and we managed to get a place on it. We did have to back up onto the ferry, but I'd had to do this maneuver once earlier, so I wasn't that surprised. I felt sorry for the folks with big trailers.

The weather had cleared up a bit by the time the ferry got to Río Bravo. In the lower part of the Río Bravo valley, the road has some straight stretches where you can drive fast, but eventually it climbs the south side of a gorge and gets quite high up. It's pretty twisty, with plenty of blind curves. The road descends to the river again before climbing a shallow summit into the long, broad, swampy valley of the Río Colorado. The road hugs the mountain front on the west side, while on the east side there's a series of lakes.

When we got to Lago Cisnes, the largest of the lakes along the Carretera in this section, the sun had started to peek out. I found the scenery to be utterly charming. There were lovely waterfalls on the west, descending from hanging valleys that held small glaciers. There were little fundos scattered along the highway, hacked out of the rainforest.

The Río Mayer bridge was fun — it was another place where a big river squeezes into a relatively narrow space. The water is a milky gray-green; the mountains in the background to the east had impressive red and white stripes.

We had a little bit of trouble finding our rental. We parked on the sidewalk and wandered around until a woman came by and noticed us; she realized that we were her renters, and she let us into the unit. The apartment was an addition onto a home that was on a postage-stamp property. It came with some fun cats: a long-haired black kitty who liked pets, with a calico frenemy who was less approachable, plus a marmalade cat who traveled mainly by rooftop.

A fellow passenger on the ferry had told Leslie about a classic Patagonian lamb barbecue that he was booked for in Villa O'Higgins. I was eager to find it, but that turned out to be a bust. We went out to dinner at a restaurant that was walking distance from our apartment; the food was adequate, and beat my expectations for Villa O'Higgins (except for the lack of lamb).

go to the road to Villa O'Higgins gallery

Day 27: Friday, 1/9: Río Mosco

For our first day in Villa O'Higgins, I proposed that we hike the Río Mosco trail and get a view of the glacier. The Glaciar Mosco descends from an ice field on the Sierra de Sangra (Bleeding Range) on the east side of town. Thirty years ago, the glacier went almost a mile further down the canyon than it does now. Hiking and scrambling all of the way to the current glacier looked awfully difficult, but I figured that the view from the Refugio Puesto Rivera (Rivera Post Shelter, a cabin) might be nice. The weather was partly cloudy and pleasant. We stopped at the ranger station to check in, then crossed the lawn and started up.

I suggested that we start by hiking up to the Mirador La Bandera (Flag Viewpoint) then contouring into the Río Mosco valley on the Sendero Cóndores (Condor Trail) connector. It turned out that this route is basically straight up. There were wooden stairways in the lower section; after a while it was just a semi-vertical slog. The trail seemed relentless.

The view over the valley from the mirador was fantastic when we got there. The town was laid out at our feet and it looked tiny. There was an impressive sweep of scenery from the Río Mayer on the north / right down to the milky waters of Lago O'Higgins on the south / left. O'Higgins is a huge lake, but we could only see the northeast arm.

From the lofty heights of the condors, the trail drops; at first gently, then steeply. It was less of a contour than an irregular diagonal downward. After a while, the trail entered a meadowy area where there was a fire a long time ago; it had lots of flowers and some nice views. Then we reached the “new” Río Mosco trail, which was pretty disappointing. The trail was gouged out of the hill by some sort of tracked vehicle. It was horribly eroded; no accommodation was made for drainage. It went up steeply, then descended steeply in short switchbacks.

We slipped and slid down the massive ruts until the track ended abruptly and the old trail resumed. The terrain was steep but wet; fortunately there were sections of boardwalk, and a few constructed bridges. Parts of the trail were soggy and eroded, other parts were fine. The exposed roots in the tread were treacherous. The trail went up and down across side drainages on north side of the river. I didn't really notice that the trail went down much more than up.

Eventually we reached trail marker #9, where we got something of a view. The two glaciers (formerly one conjoined glacier) were still far away. The trail dropped off steeply here to the cabin; we both decided that this was a good place to turn around. I kept looking for an unobstructed view of the Glaciar Mosco. The best spot turned out to be uncomfortably close to the head of a big, steep landslide that fell most of the way to the river. Between the trees we could make out the narrow gorge where the glacier formerly ended in the 1940s.

On the way back, I realized just how much elevation we'd lost. In spite of going upstream, the trail had mostly lost elevation from the junction with the Condor trail. I huffed and puffed trying to keep up with Leslie. The slippery gravel and deep ruts on the “new” trail were no fun to climb. They were even less fun when we realized that the crappy trail surface continued steeply down from the junction with the Condor trail.

We came across a couple plodding up the eroded switchbacks. I offered to give them our collection of tábanos (horseflies), but they declined politely.

We finally reached what we thought was the bottom, only to learn that the trail continued for another 2 km through farm property with forest and horses (and horse poop). The trail gradually climbed (ouch) to reach the first mirador on the trail, and we descended the wooden stairs to the base. A long day.

go to the Río Mosco gallery

Day 28: Saturday, 1/10: the road to Lago Christie

The weather in the morning was alternately sunny and wet. Rather than go hiking (still sore, plus wanting to be dry), we drove around.

First we took the narrow road out to Bahía Bahamondes on Lago O'Higgins, the official end of the Carretera. It's one lane for long stretches, but buses and vans drive it. There were better views of the Glaciar Mosco across the bay than the glimpses that we'd managed to get on our hike. The lake water is opaque and gray-green.

When we arrived at the sign that announces the end of the road, there was a family there taking selfies and group photos; the sign is perhaps the most touristy spot around Villa O'Higgins. We waited and got our own photos. I was still a bit disappointed that we couldn't score a boat trip from here to visit the glaciers that feed the lake; next time.

We went back to the other side of town and took the spectacular X-905 road out to Lago Christie. The road has endless vistas of rugged mountains with glaciers as it climbs the Río Mayer valley. We stopped on the way to visit the shrine to Padre Ronchi near Laguna La Clara. It was very well cared for, and the location is lovely, in a lenga forest just above the road.

At the north end of the lake, the road bent east toward the Argentine border and ran up a pretty valley along the Río Mayer. The road crossed to the north side of the river on a new-looking steel bridge, but the old suspension bridge was still there. I was comfortable walking on the old bridge, but there's no way I would have ever driven over it.

After this point, the road took us out into a broad valley. The mountains to the east were all in Argentina; the river flows into Chile at a pedestrian-only border crossing. (If there had been a road crossing here, we would have taken it to Ruta 40; too bad.) We came upon twin road graders working on the X-905; they left rocks on the shoulders and dirt piles on the road that I had to avoid or straddle.

Just before the airfield at the border post, we turned northwest on the X-911 road to Lago Christie. We stopped at the Río Pérez waterfall. It was bigger than it looked in the photos I'd seen, and produced lots of spray.

I had a scare at Lago Christie. I pulled off the road at a mirador for the lake, and when I crossed the debris left by the graders, I hit a sizable rock with the car. I was very worried that I might have damaged something, but there were no obvious new scratches on the side of the car, and the car wasn't leaking any fluids. The car did make a scraping noise from one of the wheels. I drove slowly back to Villa O'Higgins, listening for more problems, but the car worked fine. We passed the graders near the junction with the Carretera. Once in town, I couldn't hear the noise any more. I hoped that the noise had been caused by just some dirt caught in a wheel. As it happens, I didn't hear the noise again.

go to the road to Lago Christie gallery

Day 29: Sunday, 1/11: Caleta Tortel

It was time to head back north to Cochrane. We got an early start, so that we could claim a good spot on the car ferry. The day started out with rain. I tried to make time, but the driving was tricky, with the wet road surface combined with the many twists and turns and humps. The road climbed steeply to get above the Río Bravo; we felt sorry for the bicyclists that we passed.

We arrived at the ferry terminal at 9:50; we were number 14 in line. The first ferry arrived at 11 AM. It was the larger Padre Ronchi ferry, but the public bus from Villa O'Higgins to Cochrane got to move up in the line and there wasn't room for us. Instead we caught the noon ferry, the Pitipulli, a much smaller ship. Our enormous vehicle was one of the last to be loaded; I think the ferry people were concerned about having enough room for us.

The weather improved as we put-putted across the fjord. There was a fun ferry dog. The water in the fjord is opaque with glacial flour. An interesting glacier is perched above Puerto Yungay; the mist made it hard for me to get a good shot of it.

We made a speedy drive to the intersection with the Caleta Tortel road. We passed a number of other cars from the ferry on the way. The final gorge is very narrow and steep. We turned west at the junction to go downstream to Tortel. The Río Baker was wide and green with silt; it twisted and turned between steep glacial walls. Dozens of waterfalls peeked out of the thick greenery. There were little fundos on both sides of the river; the fundos on the north side are accessed using boats.

As the guidebook had promised, Tortel was a busy tourist destination. We somehow found a parking place and somehow squeezed our monster into it. There were almost as many dogs and cats as tourists. One dog volunteered as our tour guide and led us down a very long flight of wooden stairs to the boardwalk on the bay.

We strolled west and south along the boardwalk. Cabins, restaurants and tourist stores alternated with homes. Some of the homes were pretty sad-looking — the tourist boom has produced only spotty wealth and investment. Salmon farming out in the bay looked like it might be a steadier source of income. It did appear to me that the government had invested in repairing the coastal boardwalk, and in water treatment, which is good.

The weather continued to improve on our drive to Cochrane. The clouds lifted and starting just outside of Tortel the mountains to the north were wonderful. There is a spectacular peak just east of the bridge at Río de los Ñadis; you can see it from a very long distance on the Carretera. I spent some hours after getting home using Google to try to figure out what that peak's name is, but I'm still not sure (Cerros Barrancos?). Other awesome peaks across the Río Baker were jagged and clad in ice. I was really happy that we got to see them, after our misty drive going south.

go to the Caleta Tortel gallery

Day 30: Monday, 1/12: into Argentina

My plan for getting us back to Puerto Montt was to cross the border into Argentina and drive the paved Ruta 40 north to Villa La Angostura, then cross the Andes back into Chile. I decided that we should enter Argentina through Parque Patagonia Sector Chacabuco, taking a long dirt road through the park to a lonely border post. This route appealed to me both because of the mountain scenery and because it put us onto Ruta 40 near the turn-off for El Cañadón del Río Pinturas (the Canyon of the River of Paintings), a famous rock art site. (Yes, with another Cueva de las Manos.)

On the way out of Cochrane, we picked up gas and empanadas. There was some road work, re-sealing the paved part of the Carretera near Parque Patagonia, but it wasn't a big delay. We drove east past the Casa Piedra trailhead and into the upper part of the Río Chacabuco valley. The landscape quickly became drier, looking reminiscent of southern Idaho or Nevada. There were craggy peaks to the north, and there were some oddly stacked gravel benches along the valley bottom, looking a bit like cut-up outwash deposits. I pulled over to look at a steel track that went up a steep slope on the south side of the valley; neither Leslie nor I could figure out what it was for.

The Chilean border post was very picturesque. A spiky peak rose above it to the north, while plains and plateaus stretched to the east. The waiting room was busy, but we basically sailed right through because we had done our “salvoconducto” paperwork online in advance. It was a much longer drive to the actual border than I had anticipated, but the landscape was appealingly desolate.

The Argentine border post was smaller and somewhat decrepit. Horses grazed at a spring or well out front. Instead of computers, the police wrote an entry by hand in a logbook; the only technology they used was a cell phone. But we sailed through again, which was a relief to me.

In spite of the relatively fast border crossing, we were running a bit late. I was hoping to make time on the road to Ruta 40. It turned out that I had been spoiled by the excellent quality of the dirt roads in Chile — it took 3 hours to drive the next 88 km. Rocks, washboard, potholes, twists and humps: the road was terrible, and it set a theme for the next couple of days. On the plus side, we did see guanacos and ñandus (rheas). Parque Patagonia allegedly has ñandus, but we only saw them when we got to Argentina.

When we finally reached Ruta 40, I turned south / right to go to the road to the Cueva de las Manos. When we got to the turn-off, I realized that it was another 47 km on dirt to the park. Given the condition of the dirt road that we had just driven, I figured that we were looking at 3 hours of driving, and that didn't count the time to hike to the rock art. It was already 4 PM and we still had another 218 km to drive to our next stop. I made the decision to bail; Leslie was very disappointed. I committed a major miscalculation — If I'd realized just how bad the Argentine roads were, I would have left Cochrane much earlier.

We headed north to Río Mayo. It was on this stretch of road that I learned about “zonas de baches” (pothole zones). Driving is much slower when you have to slalom to avoid potholes. The province of Santa Cruz evidently ran out of money to make road repairs, so instead they put up signs warning drivers about the road damage. The road conditions got a bit better around the town of Perito Moreno, where we picked up gas.

We pulled into Río Mayo around 7:30 PM. I thought that the town seemed to be struggling a bit; most of the streets were dirt. Our lodging was unique. It was on the south side of town, next to a bare hillside. I believe that the owner, Tito, a carpenter, built it himself. The house was very fun, if a bit rustic. After getting settled, we walked a block over to Autoservicio La Esquina, which was amusingly neither autoservicio (self-serve) nor at la esquina (the corner). I was grateful that the store was still open. I bought sausages, cheese and a malbec; back at the house, I fried up the sausages, then fried up onion and garlic and added beans. I added cheese at the very end; it was salty but very nice. The Ö-61 Malbec was fine too. A pleasant way to end a long day.

go to the Argentina border gallery

Day 31: Tuesday, 1/13: Arreglen Sus Carreteras

It was 411 km from Río Mayo to Esquel, our next stop. I thought that this stretch would be boring but straightforward — unfortunately, I was quite wrong. Ruta 40 in Chubut Province is a disaster.

We already knew we were in big trouble when we came across a road sign that warned “calzada muy deteriorado” (badly deteriorated roadway), and the sign had been edited with spray paint to read “calzada completamente abandonado” (roadway completely abandoned). At this point, the paved road was undrivable without 4x4 high clearance, and even that vehicle would probably top out at 15 - 30 km/h. An annotation on another sign urged “hijos de puta, arreglen sus carreteras” (sons of whores, fix your roads).

We followed “desvío” (detour) signs that led away from the pavement. It turned out that rather than repairing the road surface, the province bladed a new dirt road next to the bad paved road. The dirt road was two lanes of dusty washboard; semi trucks passed us going in the opposite direction with centimeters to spare. It wasn't always clear which road was worse. I occasionally switched over to the paved section, but the holes were so deep and so frequent that I usually ended up back on the dirt. I found an article online (in Spanish) explaining that all public works projects had been suspended by the Milei government, and their plan was to privatize all roads and add tolls. I'm a bit skeptical that the plan will work out, to say the least.

The drive wasn't a complete bust. We did get a few close-up views of ñandus scurrying away into the weeds. The landscape is flat, flat, flat for a long while; we could see the occasional lonely guanaco, usually far off in the distance.

When we arrived in Esquel around 3 PM, the sky was full of smoke from a huge wildfire just north in Epuyén. I wondered what our stay in Esquel was going to be like.

go to the Arreglen Sus Carreteras gallery

Day 32: Wednesday, 1/14: Gorsedd Y Cwmwl

One reason why I wanted to go to Esquel was to check out Parque Nacional Los Alerces, a park near the Chilean border that celebrates the now-endangered alerce trees. These trees are in the cypress family in spite of their name, which literally means “larch”. They are apparently the tallest native trees in South America, growing to over 200 feet tall. They were heavily logged, and are now found mainly in forest reserves and parks.

The wildfire was at the north end of the park, so it was an easy decision to head over to the south end of the park instead. The weather was interesting — clouds to the west, sun to the east. We drove southwest to Trevelin, a town founded by Welsh immigrants, then continued west to the park entrance.

We decided to hike to Laguna del Toro, a glacial lake on a plateau above the park entrance. The cliffy mountain above the trail is named “Gorsedd Y Cwmwl” (Throne of the Cloud) in Welsh, and very appropriately it was hidden in mist for most of the day. I took lots of flower photos, since the flowers were all new to me and they looked fun. It appeared to me that the original forest had been cut and replaced with exotic pines at some point; the pines had in turn been cut as well, and the area had been replanted with alerces. The alerces were mostly pretty young, and were randomly mixed in with pines.

The weather turned cold and wet as we approached the lake, after having been fairly warm on the way up. The wind and drizzle were not appealing, so we had lunch and headed back down. The views on the descent were pretty grand, though. We could see the rugged upper valley of the Río Futaleufú, which has been drowned by a reservoir. The reservoir is named Amutui Quimey, which means “lost beauty” in Mapuche. The reservoir was built to provide hydroelectric power for an aluminum smelter 500+ km to the east on the coast.

After the hike, we drove over to the dam. The road climbs to the top of the dam in tight switchbacks. I got out of the car to shoot a photo and found that the wind was blasting across the reservoir, with whitecaps and surf and horizontal rain. We checked out the infrastructure for the hydroelectric plant, including the mysterious cylinder of the “chimenea de equilibrio” (surge tank) which manages the water pressure in the tunnels that carry water from the reservoir down to the dynamos. We stopped at the bridge over the Río Futaleufú gorge, admiring the same river that we'd seen over three weeks earlier in Chile.

go to the Gorsedd Y Cwmwl gallery

Day 33: Thursday, 1/15: Lago Futalaufquen

I wanted to check out the scenery at the Esquel ski area Cerro La Hoya (Pit Mountain, if I can trust Google Translate here). I drove us up the steep and twisty road to the resort. I was a bit surprised at how treeless and desolate the landscape was — there were patches of native trees on some of the south-facing slopes, but everywhere else was barren. The biggest building at the parking lot was the Refugio Militar General Pacheco, a ski lodge for the Argentine military. There was a guanaco in the parking lot, and it kept an eye on us as it proceeded to contour up the slope behind the lodge.

We drove back down the hill to Esquel. Next stop was the station for La Trochita, also know as the Old Patagonian Express. The narrow-gauge railway used to run between Esquel and the town of Ingeniero Jacobacci to the northwest, a distance of 400 km. Currently the only service is a tourist run from Esquel up the valley to the village of Nahuel Pan and back. The train wasn't running when we visited, and the museum was closed for cleaning; too bad.

We then went into town and walked around, looking for empanadas for lunch. We didn't have a lot of luck with the empanadas; the first shop that we tried was closed. We did find a nice ice cream shop, Heladería Serenata — I had the ricotta and passionfruit flavor (it was wonderful). One of the counter staff told us that there were good empanadas at a pizza place down the street. We found it; I didn't write the name down, but based on Google Maps, it appears to be Fitzroya Económica. The empanadas were great. We also picked up nice alfajores and chipas at Panificadora Esquel.

There was still plenty of the day left for exploring, so we decided to make a visit to Lago Futalaufquen. (My Mapuche-Spanish dictionary translates Futalaufquen as “Lago Grande”; Futaleufú is “Río Grande”. Yes, “Lago Futalaufquen” is redundant.) A wildfire had been scorching the mountains on the north side of the lake and the road around that side of the lake was closed, but the smoke had dissipated, so it seemed like a reasonable time to visit.

The lake is part of Parque Nacional Los Alerces. There is a bit of development around the lake, including a resort area at its south end, but by and large it was pleasantly wild. We could see evidence of older forest fires in the Cordón Situación to the west. After checking in at the park entrance, we drove up the east-side road. We stopped at a pretty waterfall, then drove up to the road closure. I had sort of hoped that with the increasing containment of the fire, the park might have opened more of the road, but I was disappointed. We stopped at a couple of stony beaches on our return to the south end of the lake. The wind whipped down the lake and produced whitecaps.

We then drove up the west side road. At the end of the road, there was an interesting older resort. The park was created in 1937, and the Hostería Futalaufquen was built in 1944. The main building is quite fun, with a stone and log facade; there are also a handful of cabins. I was looking for a shortcut to the west-side trail here, but the undergrowth (and the sandburs) were pretty nasty and I decided to go back down the road to the official trailhead.

Based on the signage, it looked like we would have time to do a shorter trail, the Sendero Cinco Saltos (Five Waterfalls Trail). The first part of the trail is on an old maintenance road that runs through exotic forest, then heads into some nice native forest. At a fork, the waterfall trail cut left up the hill while the Lago Krugger trail continued around the lake. We went up and up and up. The display of flowers was remarkable, as was the view east over the lake. When we reached the mirador at the end of the trail, no waterfalls were visible, to our surprise. We followed a faint path through the bushes and before long we picked up the original trail, which was clearly being rebuilt. The trail cut across a slope and descended to the waterfalls. A fine way to wrap up the day.

go to the Lago Futalaufquen gallery

Day 34: Friday, 1/16: Butch Cassidy's ranch

Another travel day: Esquel to Villa La Angostura. There was less smoke in the air, which was nice. We had plenty of time, so I turned off Ruta 40 at Ruta Provincial 15 and we drove west and southwest down a long valley to Cholila. The upper part of the valley was very dry and desolate, and the road was dusty washboard. The scenery got greener as we approached Cholila, and we got a nice view of Lago Carlos Pellegrini just outside of Cholila. If the road on the east side of Lago Futalafquen had been open, we could have driven it to Cholila; too bad.

We were looking for the Butch Cassidy cabins. Butch and Sundance had famously settled in Argentina, and they bought a ranch outside Cholila, where they lived from 1901 to 1905. We were hindered in our visit by the fact that we had no idea where the ranch was — not even which direction it was from Cholila. We eventually figured out the general location, 9.5 km north of Cholila on paved RP 71, but I managed to drive past the turn-off. It was very poorly marked; the turn is a couple hundred meters north of a cafe, and it's 90 meters up a side road to a gated driveway on the right. The buildings are on private property, but visitors are allowed to stroll around for free. Someone did a decent amount of work to restore most of the buildings, but they did not add much in the way of furnishings or decorations.

We took RP 71 back to RN 40 and kept heading north. There were some hazards beyond the usual potholes. The high winds were creating problems for bicyclists and motorcyclists. The wildfire around Epuyén appeared to be mostly out, but the wind blew the ash around, making the air seem smoky.

The city of El Bolsón was more built-up than I expected. It might have been nice to spend a night there; the mountains around the town looked interesting. I made a wrong turn in the middle of town and had to work my way back to Ruta 40.

The road quality improved the closer we got to Bariloche, and so did the scenery. Alas I made another wrong turn at a traffic circle just outside of Bariloche and ended up making a U-turn to avoid going into the city. The traffic around Bariloche was pretty heavy, but it thinned out when we crossed the border into Neuquén Province. There was surf on the beach at the east end of Lago Nahuel Huapi. (My Mapuche dictionary translates “Nahuel Huapi” as “isla del tigre” (Tiger Island)).

Villa La Angostura is a resort town that was jammed on a warm Friday afternoon in the summer. Leslie's Argentine friend had urged us to try Patagonian lamb parrilla (barbecue) in Argentina, and this town was our last chance. I tried to book a reservation at La Cavalleriza, but they don't open until 20:30 (and they didn't reply until 20:10). I didn't want to wait that long; fortunately Los Pioneros had some lamb ready for foreign tourists like us who don't go out for dinner at 9 PM. It was finger-lickin' good, and way more than what Leslie could eat. Walking back to the Airbnb, I was still impressed at the crowds. Half of Buenos Aires seemed to be on the sidewalks.

go to the Butch Cassidy ranch gallery

Day 35: Saturday, 1/17: the road to Puerto Varas

It was time to cross back into Chile. We set off north from Villa La Angostura through forest, vacation homes and resorts. There was plenty of traffic. At the north end of Lago Nahuel Huapi, we turned west onto Ruta 231. Before long, we reached Argentine customs. We were handed a sheet of paper with printed steps; we parked and went inside the customs building to get our papers stamped. I was happy that I remembered to bring the rental car agreement, because it had to be stamped as well.

The stretch between Argentine customs and Chilean customs was much longer than I had expected. (Google Maps says that it's nearly 40 km.) The scenery in this section was awesome, with big cliffs and crags. The road was twisty and potholed. We saw some folks stopped at a trailhead; do hikers here have to worry about old minefields? After crossing the border, we drove through dead forest that had been scorched by the eruption of the Cordón Caulle volcano in 2011.

Chilean customs was much busier than Argentine customs, with long lines and long wait times. Their processing was almost all online, in contrast to Argentina, but it was complicated enough that I don't think it saved any time.

After that, we continued west to Lago Puyehue, which is named for the tiny “puye” fish, known in New Zealand as whitebait. We were now in the Chilean Lakes district, and the roads worked their way around multiple large lakes. We stopped at a beach on the west end of long Lago Rupanco, where we could see the snowy peak of Volcán Osorno across the water. I took the backroad around the east end of enormous Lago Llanquihue, where the views of both the volcano and the lake got better and better.

We had a bit of difficulty checking into our Airbnb apartment in Puerto Varas: a big festival with music and food was going on at a park just down the street, and there was no place to park on the street.

go to the road to Puerto Varas gallery

Day 36: Sunday, 1/18: Puerto Varas

Our last day in Chile. In the morning I idly killed time on the computer, but Leslie helped me to realize that we should take advantage of the time that we had left.

I roused myself and we took a walk through town. Avenida Vicente Pérez Rosales on the waterfront was closed; someone was talking through a loudspeaker, perhaps doing some campaigning. We bought empanadas at a little food and trinket fair. Leslie exchanged her Chilean cash. I took photos of a couple of restaurants that I'd been to in 2019 with Bob Myers. Restaurant Donde El Gordito was where I first had crab chupe (Spanish Wikipedia), which I liked so much, I've made it myself at home. We walked north along the waterfront and then hiked up the hill back to our apartment.

We checked out around 12:15 and headed to the airport, which is southwest of Puerto Montt. The GPS navigation in the car didn't like my toll-free route — bizarrely, a tiny section of the road was missing from the map, and the GPS refused to route us through the gap. We had nice weather for the flight to Santiago, with some great views east to the Andes.

We had a bit of time to kill in the Santiago airport, so we grabbed some dinner — I had my last strip steak a lo pobre (steak with fries and sunny-side-up eggs), plus a couple of pisco sours. I bought barrel-aged pisco in the duty-free area, and while I did that, I managed to lose Leslie. Fortunately we hooked up again and were able to say goodbye; our departures were in different terminals.

What a great trip. Another destination to knock off of my bucket list.

go to the Puerto Varas gallery

Random observations

Geography

Waterfalls:

There are ridiculously gorgeous waterfalls everywhere in Patagonia. My obsession with waterfalls got to be kind of a joke with Leslie. The Río Petrohue and Río Baker falls were probably the biggest that we saw, but even small waterfalls could be very fun.

Lakes:

The lakes in Patagonia are pretty cool too. The Los Lagos and Aysén regions of Chile were covered with ice in the last ice age, and parts are still covered with ice. Wherever the ice has retreated, there are lakes. The lakes often have interesting colors, due to glacial flour; even the bigger lakes are affected.

Glaciers:

Speaking of ice: we saw plenty of glaciers and icefields. In this age of glacial retreat, it was fun to see one of the remaining tidewater glaciers. We were lucky to book a helicopter flight over the Northern Patagonian Ice Field, and I'm a bit bummed that we didn't get to visit the southern ice field.

Volcanoes:

There are plenty of volcanoes, more of them in the north than in the south. Many of them were hidden in mist when we passed. However, we did get to hike up Volcán Chaitén.

Rocks:

A lot of the geology along the crest of the Andes in Patagonia appeared to be lava layered over granite. The granite produces domes and slabs, while the lava produces spires and crags. Occasionally the volcanics came in the form of layer cake plateaus, particularly in Argentina. I didn't spot that much sedimentary rock, with the major exception of the Marble Caves on Lago Carrera. (Here's a nice high-level geological map of Patagonia that I found on the web.)

Time:

I can't leave geography behind without remarking on the odd time zone situation in Patagonia. Continental Chile north of Aysén is UTC-4 but uses DST, making it UTC-3 in the summer. South of Aysén, it's DST / UTC-3 all year. It used to be just Magallanes that was DST all year, but Aysén joined in 2025. Going by longitude, you would expect Chile to be UTC-5. Meanwhile, Argentina was originally UTC-4 with DST, but switched to year-round DST / UTC-3, after briefly experimenting with DST / UTC-2. By longitude, it ought to be UTC-4 or even UTC-5. What this means in practice is that Patagonia is effectively regular or double DST all year, so the sun comes up late and goes down very late in the summer. If you're a tourist who isn't used to dining at 9:30 PM, this can be very confusing.

Animals

Birds:

I thought that the funniest birds were the southern lapwings. They seemed to be completely imperturbable, the complete opposite of (say) quail. Nothing seemed to faze them.

Another amusing bird species was the chimango. They are in the same family as falcons and caracaras, but they like to hang out with gulls and pigeons, and they sometimes reminded me of coyotes because of how they seemed to be blunt about wanting your food. Of course there were plenty of actual gulls.

Chucaos are ubiquitous small busy birds that pop in and out of the brush along trails in wetter parts of Patagonia. Cometocinos are about the same size but have gold coloring on their front and back.

Pitíos / flickers are medium size birds that we saw only a couple of times. Cachañas / austral parakeets are much larger than pet parakeets, and are very colorful and social. Another medium size bird we saw was the bandurria (black-faced ibis), which also shows up further north; I didn't take any photos of them on this visit.

We saw a few larger birds as well. We caught a glimpse of a handful of flamingos near the Argentina border. Ñandus (rheas) are big birds similar to ostriches, but they tend to scurry away like chickens when you meet them. We saw a few condors soaring near waterfalls. It was fun to see a group of caiquénes (ashy-headed geese) and their goslings on our way down from Cerro Castillo.

Mammals:

We didn't see very many non-domesticated mammals. We did see chillas a couple of times, which was fun. The guanacos were much harder to find that I expected after seeing them near Torres del Paine on a previous trip. We saw a big fat seal when we visited the San Rafael Glacier. And there were small, dead armadillos along the roads in Argentine Patagonia, but I didn't take photos of them.

Bugs:

Although I didn't get any pictures of them, I don't want to leave out one of the most common types of animals, the tábanos (horseflies). They are big, somewhat slow-moving and annoying. I still wonder whether tábanos are large because their size helps them to manage their flight in the Patagonian gales. They are fairly easy to kill, but they are so abundant that killing them rapidly becomes tiresome. Another notable type of bug was earwigs, which were also annoying, but at least they didn't take chunks of meat out of us. A Google search reveals that there are native earwigs in southern South America but we may have been seeing exotic European earwigs.

Domestic animals:

We met plenty of dogs, mostly friendly. Dogs have a different status in Chile and Argentina (and probably other South American countries) than they do in the States. They are treated more like we treat cats — they roam free most of the time, but many of them have regular homes or at least regular caretakers who feed them. We sometimes saw dogs in remote locations where it wasn't obvious that anyone was taking care of them.

There were plenty of cats, on streets, on sidewalks, in our rooms. (While we were in line to board the car ferry in Hornopirén, we saw the marmalade cat jump onto the back of a waiting car, then walk across the roof and down the hood before jumping off. I got the impression that this was one of the cat's favorite games.)

Of the remaining domestic animals, I found the goats to be the most amusing. I would drive around a bend and have to brake as a herd of them meandered erratically onto the road. There were plenty of cows, sheep and chickens too.

Plants

Sandburs:

The most obnoxious weed we encountered in Patagonia was the sandbur. I don't know which exact species of Cenchrus is the one that afflicts Argentina and eastern Chile in Patagonia — I've guessed that it's Cenchrus longispinus, but it could easily be Cenchrus echinatus, which is native to both North and South America. The spines on the seed pods are brutally sharp, and they cling to shoes (especially shoelaces), socks, pants, shirt sleeves, basically everything. Synthetic fleece clothing is a magnet for it. I think the spines are barbed; I got spine fragments embedded in fingertips on both hands. After some experimentation, I found that the most effective way (maybe better phrased: least ineffective way) to remove the burs is to run a comb along and parallel to the surface of the clothing they're stuck to. Sandburs are found in parts of the States but I don't remember ever dealing with burs that were this ghastly before.

Wildflowers:

On a more positive note, we saw lots of pretty wildflowers. The chilcos / tree fuchsias are native, and they're quite common in wetter locations. The taique / Chilean holly is a bit less common and also likes wet locations.

It was fun to see yellow evening primrose that looked similar to flowers in the American west. Other flowers, like mutisia, were very unfamiliar; it took me a while to realize that this plant is a climbing vine. The amancay is a gorgeous native flower in the lily family that we saw in Argentina. I liked the burst of color from the quinchamalí along the trail.

We also saw lots of exotic foxglove, rose and lupine. In the area around Chaitén, foxglove was everywhere along the side of the road, while further south around Coyhaique, lupines formed vast colorful carpets.

Shrubs:

Nalca, sometimes called Chilean rhubarb, are common shrubs in the lower-elevation rainforest. They have enormous leaves which are used by native peoples to wrap food for steaming, similar to how banana leaves are used in other parts of the world. The leaf stems are edible like rhubarb stems, although the plant is not actually related to rhubarb.

We saw calafate shrubs, but I didn't take photos on this visit. Calafate are a kind of barberry, with pleasant sweet fruit and prickly leaves; I've seen it mainly in drier locations, near the forest at the edge of the steppe. We were served a very nice calafate liqueur on our trip to the San Rafael Glacier.

Bamboo:

Not only does Patagonia have bamboo, but we saw it at fairly high elevations. It's called colihue, and it can grow quite tall (20+ feet), although we more often encountered it in head-high thickets in forest. Unlike most bamboo, the stems of colihue are solid rather than hollow.

Trees:

Chile, like New Zealand, has vast forests composed mostly of “southern beech” (Nothofagus, false beech) broadleaf trees. We did a number of hikes under the shelter of lenga trees, which often have very little undergrowth and create park-like scenery. Lengas are deciduous, but we were too early in the year to see them turn red. Coihue trees tend to be bigger and sturdier than lengas, and we often saw them mixed in with lengas. Coihues (also spelled coigüe) are evergreen, like the Nothofagus trees that I've seen in New Zealand.

Mature alerce trees are even sturdier than coihues, but we didn't see any big ones on this trip. Alerces are apparently the largest trees in South America when full grown, but their wood was so valuable, they were massacred by settlers and mainly survive in a few national parks. We only saw young plantings of alerces. Alerces are in the cypress family and they remind me of incense-cedars in California and kawaka in New Zealand.

We saw canelo trees in wetter parts of Patagonia. They have pretty white flowers. Fuinque trees also seem to like wet areas; they have really unusual and fun flowers. We saw shrubby notro trees in a couple of locations, and they also have very odd flowers.

Chile also has evergreen podocarp trees like the mañio macho. These trees have needle-like leaves and tend to grow in wet places. They strongly resemble New Zealand tōtara trees — the Wikipedia article says that when they're planted together, they are very hard to tell apart. Both trees are conifers in the Podocarpus genus; they are related to araucarian trees like the monkey puzzle tree and the New Zealand kauri tree. The monkey puzzle trees are native to a section of the Andes that's north of Patagonia but they are commonly planted as ornamentals in Chile and Argentina.

Arrayán / luma trees can be recognized by their bark, which looks like bare wood. The arrayán is a member of the myrtle family. We tended to see arrayanes in wetter locations, but they are famously found Parque Nacional Los Arrayanes on a peninsula in Lago Nahuel Huapi near Villa La Angostura. (Alas, we didn't visit the park when we were in Villa La Angostura.)

I should mention that even in Patagonia, there are massive tree farms similar to the ones that I saw further north in Chile. Wide swaths of native forest were clear-cut and replaced with pines and Douglas-firs. I guess that's another similarity to New Zealand.

Weather

Rain:

It's a fairly consistent rule that the western edge of Chilean Patagonia is wet and the eastern edge is dry. The wettest place that we stayed in Chile was coastal Chaitén at 3619.3 mm (142.48 in) annual rainfall, while the driest was Chile Chico on the Argentine border with just 295.7 mm (11.64 in). We had pretty soggy conditions going south from Puerto Montt (1565.6 mm, 61.64 in) until we got close to Coyhaique. From Coyhaique (1023.1 mm, 40.28 in) to Cochrane (1023.1 mm, 28.13 in), the weather was generally drier but the mountains were often misty. An exception was the excursion to the coast to see the San Rafael Glacier, where we had plenty of rain and mist. The Carretera swings back toward the coast south of Cochrane; we had rain at Puerto Yungay and Caleta Tortel. Villa O'Higgins seemed like it should be wet given its thick forest, but it apparently gets 887 mm (34.9 in) of annual precip, which isn't super wet by Patagonian standards.

The parts of Argentine Patagonia that we passed through were mostly dry and steppe- or desert-like. There were wetter spots near the Chilean border in places like Parque Nacional Los Alerces and the area south and west of Lago Nahuel Huapi.

Temperature:

We were in Patagonia in early summer. We had to wear sweaters (and rain jackets) more often than not. Near the coast it could get downright cold, and we made use of the Patagonian wood stoves that were in almost every unit that we stayed in. The mean daily maximum temperature in Chaitén in December is 16.5° C (61.7° F). We caught Chile Chico in a heat wave — their mean daily high in January is 21.6° C (70.9° F) but it was over 30° C (86° F) for us. (I got the precip and temperature numbers from Wikipedia.)

Wind:

It's true what people say about the wind in Patagonia. It blows basically all the time. Sometimes it's a breeze and sometimes it's a gale, but it's always there. It goes from west to east. It can make cool days feel very, very cold.

Transportation

Vehicles:

When I communicated with the car rental company, I kept insisting on a Patagonia-rated rental car. My ideal vehicle would have been a 5-year-old 4WD pickup truck. But rental companies are certain that you want luxury rather than off-pavement capabilities, so they gave us a brand-new VW Atlas with low-profile tires. I worried about the tires, but we never got a flat and the ride wasn't awful. The car had a donut spare, but that's standard; we rented a kit with a run-flat inflater. I was also concerned about the clearance, but it was fine (except for one memorable incident). The VW did have 4WD, which you had to engage via the touchscreen, and which annoyingly turned off when you turned the car off. We had some trouble with all of the fancy features, and both of us were confused by the climate controls, again driven from the touchscreen. The vehicle was extra-wide, which frequently made parking awkward. A Subaru probably would have been a better choice; it certainly would have been easier to park. In spite of the issues, the car did work out for us. The roads in Chile were in better shape than I expected. We spent a lot of time in the car and it was reasonably comfortable.

We took a number of car ferries on the trip. The Carretera has some gaps that are covered by car ferries; the biggest gap (and the biggest ferry) runs over the Fiordo Comau between Hornopirén and Caleta Leptepú. (This ferry must be booked in advance.) Some car ferries were quite small. Many car ferries were free of charge, because they were essential services for locals. Some car ferries were drive-through, but other ferries required us to back up to get on or off. All of the smaller ferries carried a dedicated ferry dog. Some of the dogs involved themselves in getting vehicles on and off the ferry, but most of them were just having a good time.

It became clear early on in the trip that a disproportionate number of pick-up trucks in Patagonia are red. This eventually became another running joke between Leslie and me: we'd remark on pickup trucks that were not red. My theory (which is based on very little) is that the color of the red pick-up trucks is a tribute to Saint Sebastian's vermilion cloak. San Sebastián is the patron saint of truckers in Patagonia, and there are a number of shrines to him along the Carretera.

Roads:

Chile has been hard at work improving the Carretera as well as various side roads, but it still has a long way to go. I would say that the road conditions in Chile were better than I expected, both on paved sections (pavimento) and dirt / gravel sections (ripio). Apart from the inevitable washboard, the dirt roads were generally free of big ruts or big rocks. We saw active paving work in multiple places, including the fin de pavimento 13 km south of Villa Cerro Castillo, so I expect that the roads will continue to improve.

Ruta 40 in Argentina was theoretically paved, in contrast to much of the southern Carretera. But there were long sections of Ruta 40 that were undrivable due to lack of maintenance. I was appalled at some of the conditions. The road quality got better as we got further north toward Bariloche, fortunately.

Dirt road driving techniques came in handy in many places on the Carretera. Always take into account how far you can see, particularly on the many blind corners and the abrupt steep hills. You never know who (or what) is around the next corner. I got used to the road dust and the washboard, but your mileage may vary.

Tourism

Language:

I downloaded Google Translate Spanish to my phone before leaving the States, and it was a really good decision. On my previous trip, I struggled to make myself understood in my broken Spanish, but with Google Translate, language problems were much easier to navigate.

Insurance:

I checked my medical insurance and my car insurance before I even bought airline tickets. Neither one covered any claims in Chile or Argentina. I bought trip insurance as well as various policies to cover emergencies and evacuations. Unlike previous trips, I didn't end up using the extra insurance, but I was glad to have it.

Tours:

I normally try to stay as far away as possible from organized tours. I enjoy planning my own excursions, and I dislike being jammed together with other random tourists and lectured to. On this trip, I overcame my resistance, with some encouragement from Leslie, and I'm glad that I did.

For me, the most amazing tour was our helicopter ride around the Northern Patagonian Ice Field. I felt that it was quite pricey, but how many times am I going to get an opportunity like that? The scenery was off the charts.

Our boat trip to the San Rafael Glacier was more fun than I expected. I really enjoyed our visit to the tiny fundo in the forest. The boat that we ended up on did not feel crowded, and it was so much fun to see the ice close up. I was also bowled over by the incredible mountain scenery on the drive back along the Río Exploradores valley.

The boat trip to the Marble Caves on Lago Carrera felt pretty touristy, but the caves really are spectacular. The views over the lake were pretty nice too.

There was one tourist activity that I really wanted to go on and failed to organize: the boat trip on Lago O'Higgins to see the glaciers that feed the lake from the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. I texted the tour company while I was in Patagonia but they didn't have any tours on our dates in Villa O'Higgins. In retrospect, I should have also checked for flight tours over the ice field; too late now.

Culture:

I have to admit that I had some difficulty with a couple of customs, in both Chile and Argentina: the afternoon siesta, and the late dinnertime. I failed on a number of occasions to take these schedules into account, and I ended up disappointed. Argentines in particular like to take dinner as late or later than Spaniards; some restaurants don't open until 8:30 PM and natives go to dinner at an hour when I'm headed to bed.

Patagonia has its share of rural poverty. I always hope when I travel that I'm contributing to the local economy in some way, but I still winced when we passed a fundo (farm) far from civilization with skinny cows and dogs.

Other tourists:

I decided fairly early on that bike tourers on the Carretera were all masochists. Their lungs must be brown from the dust that they breathe, and their arms must ache from the terrible washboard. It can't be much fun to camp in a ditch in the rain with semi trucks roaring by. I'm skeptical that the satisfaction of checking the Carretera off of a bicycling life list is worth the aggravation.

I'm not sure that it's a lot better for motorcycle tourers, but we sure saw a lot of them on the Carretera. Many of them seemed to be from Argentina, and they had patches on their jackets showing the names of their clubs.

Paperwork:

The biggest rule for tourists in Chile: never lose your PDI receipt. You'd think that I would have learned that lesson on my previous trip to Chile — when Bob lost his form coming through the airport, we had to go to a police office to replace it. On this trip, I managed to lose my PDI form while boarding a flight, but I got it back. PDI stands for Policía de Investigaciones de Chile; it's a bit like the American FBI, but it also deals with immigration, like the American CBP. Among other things, the PDI receipt is used to make sure that you aren't leaving Chile with pending court or law enforcement actions against you.

Not all border crossings have PDI offices. We left Chile at the Paso Roballo crossing, which is run by the carabineros (regular police force). Because of the absence of the PDI, the carabineros require you to sign up in advance for a particular exit day, and you have to fill out an online form called a “salvoconducto”. We saw a number of tourists waiting in the lobby of the police outpost on the border; I hope they hadn't failed to apply for the salvoconducto. Leslie and I had all of our paperwork in order and we basically sailed through the process. I should also note that when you cross the border in a rental car, you will need to get a form stamped to show ownership of the vehicle; the form comes in the packet you get from the rental company, and you'll have problems if you can't produce it at the border.

This is a good place to mention that we had some issues with the online registrations required by Conaf, the government bureau that administers parks and reserves. The web pages were cruelly complex and tedious, and frequently we ended up having to go back to the beginning when something went wrong near the end.

Food and Drink

Markets:

In cities and bigger towns in Chile, we were able to find the American-style supermarket chains Unimarc and Líder. (Líder is a subsidiary of Walmart, and their logo is derived from Walmart's.) I remembered from my previous trips that there are a couple of confusing differences from American supermarkets. In the produce sections, there are automated checkstands where you are expected to weigh, bag and tag any loose fruit and vegetables. Sometimes you need to do this with bread as well. Also, and more importantly, supermarkets don't provide grocery bags, not even paper ones. Make sure you have bags of your own when you arrive at checkout, or be prepared to stuff all of your pockets.

The next level down from the the big American-ish supermarkets are the supermercados. In Patagonia, we found them in most towns that we stayed in. They ranged in size from medium-sized grocery stores to tiny holes in the wall. At the lower end, they overlapped with minimercados. Note that in Argentina, grocery stores are typically called almacenes.

It was at an Unimarc in the basement of a shopping center in Puerto Varas where we discovered that we could buy caramelized onions in jars. I don't know whether this is a Chilean thing; we didn't find the onions in Argentina. It's amazing to me how I was able to perk up ramen or packaged rice dishes with caramelized onions. They were even great just with bread.

Panaderías:

These are bakeries; in Patagonia, they were usually pretty small. We spent a lot of time hunting for the best ones. We enjoyed the empanadas, baked and fried; they made great breakfasts and sometimes sufficed for dinners. Panaderías also produce the popular pan amasado, Chilean leavened bread rolls. I was really addicted to Patagonian alfajores and looked for them wherever I could find them. The sandwich cookies varied in size and composition, but the filling was always dulce de leche (usually called manjar in Chile) and the filled cookie was always at least half-dipped in dark chocolate.

Drinking:

Most of Chilean Patagonia is too cold for growing wine grapes. There are a handful of wineries in Chile Chico; I didn't try any of their wines. However, minimercados and botillerías (bottle shops) often had decent selections of wine. The turnover of wine in small shops apparently can be slow — I managed to find a fantastic 10-year-old bottle of a Loma Larga red at a botillería in Chaitén. Patagonia is better known for its beer, but I'm not a beer drinker so I can't comment on the quality. Pisco (Chilean brandy) is made in the north of the country, but it's widespread in Patagonia, as is the pisco sour cocktail. I found some nice wood-aged sipping pisco early in the trip; it was very good but it was so strong that I was worried that I wouldn't finish the bottle, even diluting it with cold mountain water. On our boat trip to the San Rafael Glacier, we were treated to some La Baqueana calafate liqueur over glacier ice. Leslie liked it a lot (as did I) and we checked for it in grocery stores. We had a hard time finding the calafate flavor, but La Baqueana makes other liqueurs flavored with native plants; we tried the maqui flavor and liked it.

Lodging

We booked ahead with Airbnb and Booking.com and we were able to find units with multiple bedrooms in every town that we stayed in. We communicated with the owners / managers using Airbnb's chat feature and WhatsApp. This generally worked well, with the help of Google Translate. We decided ahead of time not to bring camping gear, which might have reduced our lodging costs, but with the frequently terrible weather in Patagonia, this turned out to be a wise choice.

We had wifi available in every unit all the way to Villa O'Higgins. God bless Starlink.

None of the septic or sewage systems were set up to handle toilet paper. We had to dispose of TP separately; most bathrooms had a small waste can with a lid for used TP.

Virtually all of the units had tiny shower stalls. Some of them were so small that it was hard to avoid bumping the faucet handles. Most units had on-demand hot water, which only comes on if the water is flowing at a sufficient rate.

A number of units had bedrooms upstairs but just one bathroom, located downstairs. This can be awkward if you need to pee in the middle of the night. I brought my honey jar that I use for camping and consequently I didn't make a face plant on the stairs in the dark.

Heating was generally supplied through classic Patagonian wood stoves. I never became proficient in lighting them, but fortunately the managers were available to help confused tourists like me.

Most units had gas / propane stoves for cooking. Sometimes we only received a handful of matches to light the stoves; we ended up buying matches ourselves. The stoves could be cranky and we sometimes had a lot of trouble getting them lit.

Some units had washing machines, and they were convenient when we found them. Dryers were much less common (nonexistent?). We got creative with drying racks. In Cochrane, I had to use a lavandería / laundry service because I ran out of clean clothes and our unit lacked a washer.

For Labor Day, I planned a trip to Capitol Reef to explore Deep Creek and Paradise Flats, two remote areas at the far western end of the park. The hikes were contingent on being able to camp just outside the park near Mud Spring on the Great Western Trail. I saw what appeared to be a salt lick on the Google satellite view, so I was confident that the road was good enough to handle stock trailers.

A big storm rolled through the area on Friday morning, and the road was muddy when Hong and I arrived in the early afternoon. I started driving up the GWT in my stock Toyota 4Runner. After a couple of miles, the road crosses Holt Draw, and by that point, the road was too rocky for my vehicle. Clearly no stock trailers have been up that road in a while, probably in decades. Rats.

That was my second failure in Capitol Reef this year; not a good record. We ran into Dennis and Matt in Dennis's pickup as we came down the GWT, and they told us that they'd found a good camping spot, so we went there and set up camp in the mud. With Dennis's help, I contacted the other participants on the trip to let them know about the situation. Some folks dropped out — we ended up with a group of 8.

It was time to improvise. I checked with the participants, and I realized that almost none of them had done my favorite hike in the park, lower Spring Canyon. It's a fairly long day hike through a canyon that cuts deep into the Navajo sandstone. It was at lower elevation, so more of the mud would have dried out than at high elevation. We piled into a few vehicles, left a shuttle vehicle at the Chimney Rock trailhead, and headed downstream along the Fremont River.

The hike starts with a ford of the Fremont River. Fortunately the rain on Friday hadn't raised the water level significantly, and we crossed without trouble. Almost immediately after starting up the canyon, we encountered a desert bighorn, which seemed promising.

The canyon was just as deep and scenic as I remembered. I had also correctly remembered the big tower that rises above the narrowest section. The colors, the staining and the massive walls are fantastic. The day was a bit warm — it probably reached the low 80s, and I went through all of my water. We took advantage of the shade from alcoves and cottonwoods. There was a little water in the middle of the canyon; the water level had clearly been higher on Friday, and we had no difficulty staying dry.

My tent had dried out when we got back to camp. Good times.

go to the Lower Spring Canyon photo gallery

On Sunday, we tackled the Ant Hill, a cone-shaped summit that we could see from camp. Dennis and Matt had found a route that comes up from the Velvet Ridge road to the south; Richie had checked out the trail above Red Canyon to the west. We decided to link up the routes, starting from the south and coming out on the west.

The trail on the south is marked on the map, but it's a bit sketchy on the ground. We actually did pretty well staying on it, contouring up the west side of a prominence, working through various layers. We stopped at a big rock with numerous cowboyglyphs. The trail eventually reached a plateau and petered out.

We decided to cross the plateau and angle up the west side of the Ant Hill. We became intimately acquainted with the prolific “jumping cactus” that was everywhere on the plateau. The cactus breaks off and attaches to your shoe, then climbs your legs by jumping between them as you stride, until it stabs your flesh. We scrambled up through a sandstone layer, then slogged up to the summit on a loose slope covered with volcanic rocks.

The top has great views, but we had to search for them through the trees. Hells Hole on Thousand Lake Mountain looks pretty interesting; we could see a road that appeared to go straight up the hillside through the cliffs. We could see many prominences in Capitol Reef to the east.

We went down the north slope. That was much easier going than the west slope, since it was covered with forest and floored with pine duff. At the bottom of the slope we reached the trail in the East Fork of Red Canyon. This trail was much easier to follow than the trail that we'd followed going up the Ant Hill. The ponderosa pine forest and hoodoos were gorgeous.

It was still a long way down to the cars. The trail hooked through several draws above Red Canyon, staying above the gorge. Richie had heard from Matt about the Curry Pizza location in Bicknell, and although Matt said that they were closed on Sundays, Richie never gave up hope that they might be open on Labor Day weekend. Richie's dream came true — when we got to the parking lot at 5:30, Richie called and found that Curry Pizza was open until 6. We zoomed into Bicknell and ordered 4 pizzas to go.

The pizza was great and it was fun to eat it at the campsite above Torrey. Thanks, Richie!

go to the Ant Hill photo gallery

Hong and I made a quick visit to Fish Cove on Monday morning. Fish Cove is a rock art site in Teasdale with many impressive pictographs. I had been warned that they had been extensively vandalized, but it was still pretty depressing to see the damage. Still, it's a very pleasant site, with pretty ponderosas against sandstone cliffs.

Hong and I got back home without incident. I still want to visit Deep Creek and Paradise Flats!

Many thanks to the group for putting up with the change in plans and being so much fun: Jake Anderson, Hong Duong, John Gould, Dennis Goreham, Matt Goreham, Jim Kucera and Richie Schwarz.

go to the Fish Cove photo gallery

Hong asked me to organize a WMC hike to Lone Peak, since she'd never been there before. I was happy to do it — I'd been to the top a couple of times, and it's a spectacularly beautiful hike. (Well, I almost summited those times; I couldn't make myself cross the knife-edge!)

Seven people showed up for the hike. I was very slow, and Hong and I only made it to the cirque. I bonked badly in the heat on the new switchbacks on Jacob's Ladder. The weather was a bit iffy too, with thunder audible and showers visible to the west. In spite of that, half the group summited. It's still a gorgeous spot. Hong and I will try again next year!

Many thanks to our fine group: Greg Clark, Eve Kovacs, Mike Nelson, Thomas Fu, Charles Thomasset, Julie Jalalpour and Hong Duong.

go to the Lone Peak photo gallery

Way back in 1993, I was on a backpack to the Chamberlain Lakes area of the White Clouds. The White Clouds are the range that's east across the Sawtooth Valley from the Sawtooths; they're taller than the Sawtooths, less visited and just as spectacular. As a day hike from Chamberlain Lakes, we circumnavigated Castle Peak, descending through Four Lakes Basin and climbing over Castle Divide on the return. I thought that this area was incredibly pretty and I schemed off and on for the next 30 years to get back there, but until now, none of those plans panned out.

I put together a car camp to explore the east side of the White Clouds. Some of the destinations are too far away from trailheads to do as day hikes, but Big Boulder Basin was within reach, although it would be a long day. There is a little BLM campground on the East Fork Salmon River, just a couple of miles south of the Big Boulder Creek road, and if we could grab campsites there midweek, then we'd be all set. In fact, none of the 3 campsites were occupied when we arrived on Wednesday afternoon, August 6th, so we grabbed all them.

My calculations showed about 18 mi r/t to the Big Boulder Lakes, with 19.5 mi r/t if we went to the highest lake. I figured that we could go as far as we wanted and with luck we'd see some good stuff. As it happens, the round trip was about 16 miles; it was still a long day.

We had no trouble following the trail as far as the head of Walker Lake. We hiked through thick woods with a fair amount of beetle kill, crossing Big Boulder Creek a few times on constructed log bridges. People take horses as far as Walker Lake, and the trail was moderately busy.

The trail climbs fairly high up the north side of the creek in order to get around a deep gorge. We got great views down into the gorge and up toward the surrounding peaks. The peaks got even more interesting as we approached Walker Lake.

Above Walker Lake, the trails are unmaintained and somewhat confusing. We found cairns and followed them up the hill, but it became apparent fairly quickly that the faint track we were following was not the well-used route to the Big Boulder Lakes. We went cross-country through some boggy ground and we were able to pick up the main trail. This trail took us higher but faded in yet more boggy terrain, and it took some searching to find the continuation of the trail on dry ground at the foot of a rocky ridge.

Once we were back on the trail, it was steep but straightforward to reach the main ridgeline. From there, we dropped down to Hook Lake, then followed a faint trail around the north side of the lake and down to the stream that runs from Sapphire Lake down to Cove Lake.

This area earns its reputation — it is unbelievably gorgeous. I can't do it justice in words; check out the photos.

go to the Big Boulder Lakes photo gallery

For Friday, I picked a shorter, easier hike: Railroad Ridge. A narrow, bumpy road ascends from the Jim Creek fork of Big Boulder Creek to the ridgeline to the north. We parked at a switchback and hiked the road, passing pretty flowers and gnarled, dead trees. The road reaches a bare ridge and switchbacks again, heading west to a 10425 ft bump.

The view from the bump is amazing. You see down to Crater Lake, and across to the magnificent Chinese Wall. The colorful, twisted strata are photogenic.

We followed an old track down into Jim Creek on the return. The Livingston Mine was once very substantial, and there are still many structures.

go to the Railroad Ridge photo gallery

After we got back to camp, I decided to scout the hike that I intended to do on Saturday. With Hong and Greg, I drove up the East Fork Salmon River road, expecting to check out the West Pass Creek trailhead. I was surprised to discover a large new gate across the road a few miles before the end, with a “no trespassing” sign. In the distance we could see a palatial residence. Apparently this property is owned by Mike Boren, an extremely wealthy (and litigious) financier from Boise. He bought a piece of private property on the road and built a gate to block public access to the road easement.

It turns out that Boren is Trump's nominee to run the Forest Service. I don't think that the West Pass Creek trailhead is going to be accessible any time soon.

We worked out an alternative hike. The guidebook said that the Ocalkens Lakes trail wasn't in great shape, but the area looked promising, so we gave it a shot.

The trail starts at the Slate Creek hot springs at the end of the Slate Creek road on the north side of the White Clouds. We passed a substantial old mine, then went left at a fork with the Hoodoo Lake trail. The supposedly-abandoned Ocalkens Lakes trail was in much better shape than I expected, and it featured lots of ripe raspberries. The crags on both sides of the creek were very scenic. We crossed several avalanche paths; at least one path sloshed across the valley from its source and up to the level of the trail on the other side.

The upper lake sits below spectacular Calkens Peak. The view up the canyon toward D O Lee Peak is grand. The lower lake was hiding in the forest to the east of the trail, but we managed to spot it by climbing a knob. I was mesmerized by the view of the back of the Chinese Wall.

Another really fine day and a fitting end to the trip. Many thanks to the participants for the fun times: Greg, Simon, Jim, Hong and Kimberly!

go to the Ocalkens Lakes photo gallery

I was surprised and pleased that I could assemble a group of 14 WMCers to visit an out-of-the-way spot in the Uintas, Big Elk Lake. It's a great destination on a warm day — most of the hike is over 10,000 ft.

We carpooled up to the Upper Setting trailhead, then set off on the very straightforward trail. The trail winds down through forest and meadows, passing various lakes and occasional cliffy outcrops of quartzite that show glacial striations. The meadows were full of flowers and the lakes were full of water, which is good news given how dry our summer has been. The trail has been improved substantially since my previous visit — most of the deadfall has been removed, the trail tread looks much better and there is a little actual signage.

I was impressed enough by the flowers that I took many photos of them. I especially liked the pink monkeyflowers and the yellow columbines.

Many thanks to the participants for making it such an enjoyable trip: Yi Qu, Gretchen Siegler, Jim Kucera, Kianoush Sadre Bazzaz, Leslie Woods, Hong Duong, Chris Hartnett, Jennifer Arce, Beth Blattenberger, Mitchell Dutt, Diana Yang, Dave Beardsley and Patti Beardsley.

go to the Big Elk Lake photo gallery

A couple of years ago, I was vacationing in Ketchum with my wife and looking for a hike with some real exercise in it. I'd been to the Hyndman Peak trailhead before, but I hadn't actually been very far up the trail. Toby the dog and I piled into my 4Runner and we went exploring.

We made it to the base of the cirque below Hyndman Peak. The trail was suitably steep and the views were fantastic. The bad news was that Toby was working so hard, he went lame on the way down and it took hours for us to get back to the car. Poor dog — that's when I realized that he was now old enough that I could no longer take him on hikes like that.

But I was looking for hikes to put on the WMC calendar this summer and I felt that I needed to challenge myself after a year where I was sick at a low level all summer. I decided that I would go all the way up Hyndman Peak — all 5000 feet of elevation gain to the summit at 12,009 feet.

Hong and I left Salt Lake Thursday morning at 9 AM and made it to the NFS Federal Gulch campground a bit after 2 PM. Jim beat us by half an hour or so; together, we managed to grab all 3 (sic) campsites. Leslie and Deirdre arrived a couple of hours later. The campground was free — no running water and the campfire pits were closed, but there were picnic tables and a pit toilet. Jim saw a large wasp nest fall out of an aspen near my tent while he was walking over to chat with us; the nest looked like a volleyball in the grass. The wasps weren't happy but they didn't bother us.

I had been to the lovely head of the East Fork Wood River a few times, and it was my obvious choice for a hike on Friday morning, since the trailhead is just a few miles up the East Fork road from the Federal Gulch campground. Those few miles are pretty rough, and the trailhead parking can accommodate 3 vehicles at best, so we carpooled in my 4Runner.

On my previous trips, in July, the trail was covered by snow in at least a couple of places, but in August, the trail was clear and easier to follow. There is still plenty of debris from avalanches, and some of the dead trunks are spectacularly contorted. The August flowers weren't quite as good as the July flowers but they were still pretty nice. We crossed the stream on a log jam and continued on the trail into the upper basin. We got a fine view of (what I call) the Fang, a horn that divides the upper cirques. The trail started making switchbacks, crossing a slope with sculptured whitebark pines and metamorphic crags, heading for Johnstone Pass at 10,000 ft. The pass is at the top of a very steep couloir that avalanches so often that the chute is bare dirt. We crossed the chute and started up steep and loose switchbacks on the far side. The trail got more and more obnoxious, until at a hundred feet below the pass, it finally gave up all pretenses and just went straight up the couloir. We decided that we'd had enough, and we stopped for an early lunch.

The view from the trail was great. The peaks have big bold stripes of red, black, gray and white. The bright green of the valley bottom made a fine contrast. We could see what looked like goat tracks going across the couloir from the rocky jumble on the other side.

On the way down, we encountered a father and four kids (ages 15 to 22; three girls and a boy) going up the trail. They all had massive packs — they were going to cross the pass and camp for a week at a lake on the other side. They'd done it before and it seemed like it wasn't a big deal. I was impressed.

Michele and Barb arrived at camp while we were hiking, bringing the group size to 7 for Hyndman on Saturday.

go to the East Fork Wood River photo gallery

We got up bright and early on the big day. Michele and I drove the carpool vehicles to the trailhead in Hyndman Creek, about 10 miles away on dirt roads. We arrived just before 8 AM and set off not much later.

The first 3 mi of the trail only rise about 1,000 ft, leaving the remaining 4,000 ft of elevation gain for the last 3.5 mi. The walk is pleasant in this initial section, passing through aspen forest and meadows on an old road grade. The stream from the Hyndman cirque comes down from a hanging valley on the north (left) side, and the trail charges steeply up the slope for 600 ft before easing up. After passing through forest and meadows, the trail climbs steeply again, reaching a fantastic gorge where the creek leaves the Hyndman cirque.

We took a break here and admired the scenery. There are 3 big peaks surrounding the cirque — the pyramid of Hyndman to the north (left), the breadloaf-like block of Old Hyndman, and the triangular vertical face of Cobb Peak to the east (right). The lower part of the cirque has patches of forest, which petered out as got higher. We all thought that Sundance Lake looked like a great place to hang out, but we kept climbing. I was puffing pretty hard as we went up a series of shelves, finally coming out below the saddle between Hyndman and Old Hyndman, where we took another break. I really had to psych myself up to tackle the last section to the summit.

As we sat on rocks trying to spot the route to the top, we saw a couple of people and a dog coming down. The dog was clearly having a great time, zooming up and down the rockpile like it was a groomed playground. The dog was just a speck from afar, and he was bigger than I expected when he finally showed up. His owner was a shirtless young man with a deep tan, who told us that the dog was an English Cream Retriever. (Michele immediately dubbed this guy “Half Naked Man”, and the name stuck.) H. N. M. told us that his dad was still coming down. We asked him how long it took to get to the top, and he estimated that it was about an hour and a half. Leslie decided to wait for us in the cirque, and the rest of us sucked it up and headed for the saddle.

From the saddle to the summit was about 1,200 ft of elevation gain in 0.7 mi, all of it on big chunks of rock. The pile was sometimes stable and sometimes not; sometimes we could see routes where other people had traversed and climbed, and sometimes these faded out and we were on our own. The north side of the ridge was an intimidating cliff, probably 2,000 ft tall at the summit; we tried to stay away from it. I usually enjoy class 3 scrambling like this, but it was steep and seemed endless, and I was having to stop repeatedly to suck down air.

But I did eventually make it to the top, and so did everyone else (mostly ahead of me!). The time estimate by H. N. M. was spot on. The view was jaw-dropping and 360 degrees. We were on the high point of the Pioneer Range, and we could see for miles. Borah Peak was 30-odd miles to the northeast. Bald Mountain, a ski resort in Ketchum, was visible in the opposite direction. In the foreground were several amazing peaks in the Pioneers. Old Hyndman loomed to the east, and looked very difficult. Cobb Peak still had some snow patches. We could see lakes in hanging basins above the Wildhorse Creek cirque.

The descent to the saddle was only a little bit faster than the ascent. Route-finding was difficult until we finally got close to the saddle; on the way down into the cirque, we were able to pick up fragments of trail tread. We met Leslie at Sundance Lake; she had explored the cirque, checking out the small but pretty lake below Cobb Peak. She said that H. N. M.'s dad had persuaded her to go up to the saddle too.

We were all pretty tired on the way down. It was a bit of a surprise to me when we were overtaken by a trail runner. I asked her where she'd been, and she said that she'd taken a fun class 4 route to the top of Cobb Peak and had looped down a different way. Yikes. She was wearing trail running shoes and a vest that looked like it could hold maybe a liter of water; no extra clothing or other gear.

We got back to the trailhead ten hours and fifteen minutes after we started, which Michele (?) said was exactly the standard round trip time that she'd read about, so we did pretty well. We were back at camp before 7, which gave me time to cook my somewhat elaborate Korean recipe (“cheese buldak”). People were amazed that I had enough energy to cook a recipe from scratch; I was kind of amazed too. I slept really well that night!

Well, except for the curious incident of the dog in the night time. A dog came out of the woods around 2 AM and started barking at Michele and Barb's tent. Since no one else was camped at the campground and we were a few miles away from the nearest ranch, I was wondering whether the dog had been abandoned in the woods. It occurred to me in the morning that the dog might have been a sheepdog that was protecting its flock from the alien invaders (us), but we never saw any sheep and we never actually saw the dog. It remains a mystery.

go to the Hyndman Peak photo gallery

On Sunday, people still felt like hiking. Jim went up Grays Peak from Federal Gulch, while Michele and Barb drove south and went up Wedge Butte, east of SH 75. Deirdre, Leslie, Hong and I went up the Federal Gulch trail a little ways with Jim, then turned off onto the Timber Draw trail. The lower part of the trail went through meadowy avalanche terrain, but then it started working up pleasant, forested switchbacks. Eventually it went west and gave us a nice view up the East Fork Canyon. We could even see a couple of bumps sticking up above the ridge on the opposite side of the East Fork valley, which may have been Hyndman and Cobb. There were wild raspberries to sample on the way down. I thought that this was a great hike to wrap up a great trip.

go to the Timber Draw photo gallery

Back in March, I was trying to think of fun places to go when I realized that I hadn't hiked Little Death Hollow in Escalante since 1991. I looked into it and found that there is a nice (but long) loop hike down Little Death Hollow and back up Wolverine Canyon. I had never been in Wolverine Canyon and it sounded fun, plus I discovered that there is a Wolverine Petrified Wood Natural Area near the Wolverine trailhead that we could check out on the day after the big hike. I put the trip on the WMC calendar for May 11-12.

Getting down to Escalante on Friday May 10th was quite an adventure. I picked up Hong in SLC, and we drove I-15 south to Scipio. The weather had been threatening on our way there, and the skies opened up just as we reached the freeway exit. Sleet came down so hard and fast that my wipers had a hard time keeping up at full speed. The streets were covered in inches of slush. I put my 4Runner in 4WD.

The sleet and rain gradually petered out as we continued south to the Sevier Valley, but we hit it again as we went up into the mountains. We had showers from Koosharem Reservoir up to the Fish Lake area, and it was apparent that we'd just missed a big hail or sleet storm. (Christa and Leslie got caught in that event.) There was also moderate snow when we drove over Boulder Mountain. Altogether it was a very stormy day.

None of this was very encouraging for our trip, but the skies cleared as we headed out of Boulder on the Burr Trail, and when we met the other participants at the Wolverine trailhead, conditions were dry and we could see some blue sky. I hoped fervently that a storm had not sent a flash flood through Little Death Hollow or Wolverine earlier, but there was nothing I could do about it.

I had worked out that we could save a bit of distance on the loop hike by shuttling from the Wolverine trailhead to the Little Death Hollow trailhead. The route is still 16.5 mi, so I told folks that we needed to leave camp at 7 AM to do the shuttle. The morning was cool and pleasant, with sun and some scattered clouds — very good conditions for a long day hike. We managed to fit everyone and their gear into my 4Runner and Stanley's big pickup, and we were soon on the trail in Little Death Hollow.

The cow trails that I vaguely remembered have been improved by human traffic, but we still managed to get off track somehow; we almost missed the petroglyph panel that various guidebooks had mentioned. The panel is pecked into the side of a huge boulder, and it's somewhat buried in sediment — easy to miss. It's a good landmark if you spot it, because that's when the walls start closing in.

The Wingate Sandstone walls are distinctively and consistently orange, with elegant patterns of staining. The canyon makes bold twists and turns, almost doubling back at times. The cliffrose was in bloom, and I couldn't get enough of its spicy aroma. The next landmark is a large arch, and it was much further downstream than I expected, on the south side.

Below the arch, the canyon very gradually gets narrower. The walls are pockmarked with tafoni. There are chunks of petrified wood in the streambed. Eventually the canyon becomes a true slot. We had to wade through some puddles in the slot; none were more than knee deep, and it was possible to stem across some of them. One awkward spot involved squeezing between the wall and a big chockstone, then wading across an opaque pool on slippery mud.

The narrows at this point were really fine, but I was a bit worried that we would reach deeper water and be forced to swim or turn around. Somewhat magically, though, the most difficult section was dry. I had remembered a huge chockstone that was best passed by wriggling underneath it. The hole under it was pretty much exactly as small as I remembered it from 1991. This time I made a mistake, though — I decided to go through the hole feet first and I found that I couldn't push off hard enough with my hands to make progress. Stanley had to grab my feet and haul me the rest of the way through. I was jealous of Hong and Leslie!

We took a break for lunch at a wide spot. Both Greg and I had Gore-Tex / waterproof footwear; we found that this feature isn't great for wading, because your shoes / boots fill up with water and stay filled up for quite a while. I wrung out my socks, and found that the foam lining in my shoes needed wringing too. I hoped that my wet feet wouldn't lead to blisters (they didn't).

There was flowing water at the junction with Horse Canyon, but fortunately I didn't see any poison ivy. (I've had some interesting experiences with PI in other parts of the Escalante.) We could see faint evidence of a road in the canyon bottom as we headed upstream to the old cabin; at the cabin, we could see recent use of the road, and a bit further up we passed a vehicle on its way down. I was a bit surprised that folks would (or could) drive that far.

The junction with Wolverine Canyon was pretty obvious. The canyon is quite lovely, and the afternoon light really made the orange walls glow. There was lots of tafoni and lots of staining. The canyon is shorter than Little Death Hollow and not as narrow, but the scenery is striking. I was especially taken with some huge alcoves that appeared just before the canyon opened up.

There was even more petrified wood in Wolverine than in Little Death Hollow. We saw some really nice examples as we got closer to the Wolverine trailhead. We spotted a big log off to the south of the trail and strolled over to check it out. Not only was the fossil wood gorgeous, with black and red patterns, but we also saw some beautiful golden mariposa lilies scattered around the site. Further up the trail we saw some great hedgehog cactus in bloom too.

We got back to the trailhead a little bit after 4, so we made excellent time. After fetching the shuttle vehicles, we kicked back and relaxed in the shade of a juniper tree.

go to the Little Death Hollow photo gallery

On Sunday, everyone was game for a short hike to check out the petrified wood. I'd read about the fine petrified wood on the north side of Wolverine Canyon just below the trailhead; a little investigation with Google satellite view turned up some obvious big logs in the next drainage to the north. I realized that we could make a loop out of it, going down Wolverine and coming back up the other drainage, circling a craggy butte.

We walked down the Wolverine trail and then down the main drainage. We could see chunks of petrified wood on the slope to the north, and we went over to check them out. There were some huge logs here. I took a photo of one, but then I realized that you wouldn't really be able to tell how big it was in a photo, so I had Greg and Leslie stand next to it for scale. I was intrigued by the pockets of crystals inside some of the logs — had they formed in actual hollows of the original tree?

As we went around the west end of the butte, the landscape was especially bizarre. There were several sandstone blocks balanced on top of pillars, looking like toadstools. We walked into a draw where multiple logs crossed the wash, including one that bridged the wash. It was pretty solid — three of us stood on it and it didn't shake. Some of the logs were quite long, well over 50 ft.

The loop around the east end of the butte was pretty straightforward; we picked up a fenceline that took us right back to the trailhead. We continued to see lots of wood chunks and cool hoodoos.

Thanks to Greg, Leslie, Jim, Christa, Hong and Stanley for making it a great trip!

go to the Wolverine Petrified Wood photo gallery

I had fun last year hiking in the San Rafael Swell. I realized when re-reading Steve Allen's original Canyoneering book for ideas that I had never done any hikes in the Moroni Slopes area. A number of the hikes looked pretty technical, but I spotted one that didn't sound too bad — Horse Heaven Canyon. It was “only” class 4; I actually hiked once with Allen and I had managed to do some routes that he deemed to be class 4.

I put the trip on the calendar for April 20-21. The weather was stormy on the way down, but it was fine when I reached the campsite and met Greg. We got to see a very fine sunset over the Wasatch Plateau and Thousand Lake Mountain.

The first hour and 20 minutes or so of the hike are in a relatively wide, open draw, with grass and sagebrush and cow pies.

This scenery ends quite abruptly at a massive pour-off. We stopped there and enjoyed the view down into the gorge. Allen's book describes a tortuous route around the right side of the pour-off to get down into the canyon. I had scouted the route using Google satellite view and luckily I had gotten most of it right. We climbed the loose slope to the right of the pour-off up to a cliff band, then walked a precarious desert bighorn trail along the edge of a cliff to reach an open area that drains to a notch. There were a few cairns, but they weren't particularly obvious, and we still had to do a fair amount of route finding.

After dropping through the notch, we cut right above a pile of huge boulders, then cut left to cross a draw. This section was annoying because of piles of ball-bearing-like concretions that were scattered over the slabs. After crossing the draw, we continued left on a cliff band until we found a way down through it on loose, slidy crap. We then followed a faint use trail (with cairns) that descended steeply to the right, which took us down to the bottom of the draw.

I wanted to hike back up to the pour-off. This turned out to be fun and pretty straightforward. There were stretches of narrows with minor obstacles, and lots of lovely peach-colored slickrock. The pour-off is pretty impressive from the bottom, and it looked to me like a lot of water comes over the top in big storms. That waterfall would make a great video, but I wouldn't want to be down there to shoot it.

Going downcanyon, we passed through a pleasant section of narrows and came out into a wider gorge. We took a fairly long detour to the right to get around one pour-off. The next pour-off was not far below this one. We again went around on the right, coming up through a side crack with some steep friction climbing. The crux was a steeply inclined slab with a substantial drop below it. Greg and I decided that this was above our pay grade, and we turned around.

We had lunch in the narrow section below the first pour-off, then headed back out. The climb back up to the notch didn't seem too bad to me, since we'd already found the route, but I tripped once on the final exposed ledge and that gave me the willies. Both Greg and I admired the bighorn track on the opposite side of the gorge, which followed a long narrow ledge right over a big vertical drop.

The hike back to camp was a bit of a slog. The wind came up when we got back and we set up chairs and tables between our vehicles to shield ourselves from the blast.

go to the Horse Heaven Canyon photo gallery

The next morning, both of us had feet that were too sore to do a big hike. Instead, we drove over to the Segers Hole overlook, just a few miles away from camp. The overlook is a spectacular place to see the San Rafael Reef from one of the high points of the Moroni Slopes. The morning light was very nice too.

We also had good views down into Cable Canyon. We spotted a bighorn in the uppermost section. We could see Factory Butte and the Henry Mountains in the distance.

I stopped on the way back to I-70 to admire the volcanic intrusions at West Cedar Mountain, and the bizarre landscapes in the Mussentuchit badlands. I should have taken more photos — too bad.

go to the Segers Hole photo gallery

I thought that my feet might hold up for a short hike like the Rochester Indian Rock art site. I'd never been there before and I'd heard that it was pretty cool. The site is on Muddy Creek on the west side of the Swell, not far from the hamlet of Moore.

As it turns out, the Rochester panels are indeed really, really cool. They include many things that I don't see regularly depicted in rock art — dogs, bears, birds, spiders, dragon-like critters, trees and a big rainbow.

I ran into Steve and Teri on the trail. They'd signed up for the trip but bowed out after realizing that Teri's knees wouldn't handle the long hike. Utah is a small world.

go to the Rochester Panel photo gallery

Back in January, I'd started planning my WMC camping trips for the spring, and it looked like we were going to have a dry year, after a whopper of a wet year. I had long been interested in visiting Grand Canyon - Parashant National Monument, and this seemed like the perfect time. I wanted to go to the Grand Wash Cliffs and hike some amazing-looking canyons that punch deep, narrow gorges through the cliffs. My goal was to camp at the Grand Gulch Mine, 80 mi from the nearest pavement.

But then the rains came. Parashant is a long way from anywhere, and it would be really bad to get stuck out there if it rained or snowed and the roads turned into mush, or got blocked by flooding.

When people signed up for the trip, I warned them that I would take the group to Gold Butte National Monument next door in Nevada in the event of bad weather. I allocated 5 days for the trip, leaving Thursday March 28th and returning Monday April 1st. As the dates approached, the forecast didn't look very promising — rain would arrive some time on Saturday.

I decided that I'd head down a day early and check out the road to the Grand Gulch Mine. If the road looked drivable by (say) Subarus and it looked like it would be okay if it got wet, then I would meet people in St George on Thursday and lead them into Parashant. If not okay, then Gold Butte.

It took me 3 hours to drive from the end of the pavement at the Utah-Arizona line out to the mine. The road is bladed and maintained to within 3 mi of the mine, and when that section is dry, it's clearly just fine for Subarus and similar vehicles. Even the notorious road section in upper Pigeon Creek was in pretty good shape.

There were two bits of bad news, though. The less important bit was that the last 3 miles of the road to the mine are fairly rugged, and would probably destroy a Subaru. It was slow going in my stock 4Runner. If that were the only problem, then we could just camp a few miles short of the mine and shuttle to the mine to start hikes. (We wouldn't have this lovely new toilet at camp, though.)

But the worse news was that it was really obvious that the road turns to soup when it's wet. It had been wet recently, as attested by the deep ruts and wet potholes at the high points of the drive. On the drive back to St George, I convinced myself that Parashant just wasn't going to work out given the wet forecast. After 10 hours of driving, I stumbled into a motel room and crashed for the night.

go to the Grand Gulch Mine photo gallery

I met the group on Thursday at 1 PM at the interagency visitor center on Riverside Drive in St George. I let them know that I was giving up on Parashant, but since the group had little or no experience with Gold Butte, this turned out not to be a problem!

We camped at Whitney Pocket in the north end of the monument. The road to Whitney Pocket is (badly) paved, so if it rained, I figured that we'd stand a decent chance of getting out rather than getting stuck.

We arrived with plenty of time left in the day. I suggested that we could go see the Falling Man rock art site, just a few miles away. Somehow I always manage to see yet more rock art when I visit, and this time was no exception — Shawn found a straightforward route up a crag that put us right next to some of the best petroglyphs.

go to the Falling Man photo gallery

I had organized a trip to Gold Butte back in 2022, and I had made plans for a couple of hikes there that we didn't get to. I decided to do one of them on this trip — a hike down Garden Wash through two sets of narrows, then looping back via the narrows in the next major wash to the south.

Garden Wash was great. The road to the trailhead is fairly rough and brushy, but we had no trouble getting to the end. There are some old diggings at the top of the canyon, where I wondered how on earth the miners had managed to move heavy equipment to the precarious mine workings. Around the point where the canyon starts to get narrow, there are some slabs containing shells of belemnites, which are extinct cephalopods related to squids and octopi. The fossils were conveniently marked with blobs of white paint; I'm guessing that some geology class once visited this spot. We found a buffalo gourd plant along the edge of the wash, with fruits that look a bit like giant yellow ping-pong balls.

After we passed through the second narrows, my luck ran out. I pushed the group up into the foothills, thinking that we'd cut off a lot of distance on the way to the next gorge. This was a big mistake — instead of one drainage leading to the bottom of the gorge, we had to cross at least 3 washes. We had to go up and down steep, loose slopes; it was slow and unpleasant work, although the views were fairly nice. We took lunch within view of the mouth of the gorge.

I was full of optimism about the route, but a couple of turns into the gorge, we ran into a massive pour-off. Ouch.

On the way back, we once again cut through the foothills, but at a much lower elevation. There were handsome agave bushes and little yellow flowers, and the terrain was much more forgiving.

With a little time left after the hike, I decided to check out the Gold Butte town site, which I had never visited before. There's actually not that much to see; there is a small grave site and some broken down equipment. I was a bit surprised to see that the town site was in the granite country that I'd been introduced to in 2022.

go to the Garden Canyon photo gallery

The forecast for Saturday showed rain for the afternoon. I suggested that we could do the loop hike to the Kohta Circus rock art area. I've done this hike before, and it's a lot of fun, with some of the best rock art around. It was a short enough hike that we were able to get back to camp by lunchtime.

We got back out to I-15 at a good time. The rain started to fall just east of Mesquite, and after a break while I drove thorugh St George, it started roaring down on the climb to Cedar City. It came down so hard that I got worried about hydroplaning; I'm really glad that we didn't experience that downpour in Gold Butte.

go to the Kohta Circus photo gallery

More than 30 years ago, my friend Howard and I thrashed our way to the top of Granite Peak in the Mineral Mountains. The Minerals are just west of Beaver and east of Milford; they have striking granite crags and domes that attract rock climbers. The bad news is that they have few trails and the bushwhacking can be miserable. My memory of the bushwhacking from the first trip has dimmed, so I felt that it was time to brave it again.

I should point out that on that first trip, Howard and I spent several hours to go about 2 mi round trip. We faced grabby mountain-mahogany trees and scrub oaks, huge granite fins and domes that required elaborate circumventions, granite boulders in awkward places, loose dirt and slippery vegetation, plus tons of downhill-pointing deadfall. When we reached the summit ridge, we couldn't tell whether we were north or south of the summit, and we were ready to bag it. I went off into the bushes to the north to take a leak, and I discovered that the summit was just on the other side of the bushes. The summit register was a aluminum film can containing a label from a can of pineapple, on the back of which were the records of (I think) 4 groups spread over (I think) 12 years.

When I first scheduled the new trip for Memorial Day, I found multiple descriptions of alleged trails. With trails, we could be up and down in (say) 6 hours! Later on when I was researching the trip in detail, I realized that these trails were imaginary. Yes, there are a handful of new use trails lower down, created by climbers who tackle the Milford Needle and other crags, but no trails go to the top. Ouch.

On Friday, Keith, Roman and I scouted the climber trails near the Rock Corral picnic area. We found a route that would take us behind the first rank of cliffs, and I decided that it would do for Saturday's hike.

I didn't have a lot of confidence that we'd be able to make it to the top of Granite Peak, but I figured it was worth a try, if only to demonstrate to everyone just how obnoxious the brush is.

Somewhat to my surprise, the group didn't immediately surrender when we got our first taste of the terrain. We squeezed through the oak brush, scrambled over boulders, broke off lots of dead mahogany branches and managed to make headway, with lots of advances and retreats.

Eventually we came to a spot where it looked like we would have to lose a lot of elevation and thrash through some really dense mahogany. There was a chute just above us that cut between two crags, and although it was very steep, it looked more attractive than the brush bashing below.

The chute was steep, narrow and fairly brushy. It was also full of loose duff and slippery sand and gravel. We kept going in spite of this, and eventually we came out to a fine view of the peak above us. Alas, this view also revealed a big cliff below us, and three more big crags between our position and the correct route. We declared victory and bashed our way back to the Rock Corral parking lot.

It took us about 4 hours to go maybe 1 mile round trip, with 1000 ft of elevation gain. My kingdom for a trail!

go to the Granite Peak photo gallery

Some of us still had a little energy, so I organized a visit to Granite Peak Reservoir. In spite of the name, this pond is not actually very close to Granite Peak; it's hidden near Soldier Pass to the south.

The route takes a couple of switchbacks up to the top of a granite outcrop, then descends somewhat steeply to a line of crags. Some clever person built a dam between a couple of crags to provide water for cattle. The location is very photogenic, not just for the water and the crags, which are very fine, but also for the profusion of spring flowers. We saw balsamroot, lupine, phlox, woodland star, daisies, paintbrush and violets — not bad!

go to the Granite Peak Reservoir photo gallery

On Sunday, we went up into Ranch Canyon, north of Granite Peak. Keith, Roman and I had scouted the road on Friday, and it turned out to be drivable to the parking area below South Twin Flat Mountain, with several minor fords. Some kind person had cleared the deadfall from the road and filled in the washouts from the spring runoff.

I figured that we'd have a great view of Granite Peak and the Milford Needle from the undrivable jeep track that climbs South Twin, and I was right. It was just amazingly gorgeous, with scads of flowers and bright green aspens. The track heads steeply up through mahogany to the flat top of the South Twin volcano. The footing is pretty bad, with lots of loose rocks and deep ruts. I guess the good part is that there are actual switchbacks, and the views are stunning.

After taking a snack break at the top of South Twin, we went down the track to a spur road to a location called the Park. The views in this nook were wonderful. You could believe that you were in a much higher and wetter mountain range, with the scrub oak and white firs filling the couloirs in the granite. The Milford Needle loomed to the south and the mighty wedge of Peak 8473 dominated the view to the west. We speculated about how we might be able to conquer Granite Peak from the northwest; maybe I'll return in the fall and give it a shot.

go to the South Twin Flat Mountain photo gallery

I had long wanted to visit the Wildhorse Canyon obsidian mine in the north part of the Mineral Mountains. After descending Ranch Canyon, we headed up a well-graded road. The spur to Wildhorse was in much less wonderful shape, and Simon decided that he didn't want to risk his vehicle on the pointy boulders and stumps that littered the track. I decided to brave it, and Katherine and Rick and I got a chance to wander through the huge pile of volcanic glass at the end of the track. Obsidian tools from this location have been found in many areas of the West, and it really is pretty stuff. I sucked it up and went home without any glass in my pocket, but it was damn tough.

go to the Wildhorse Canyon obsidian mine photo gallery

Most people left on Monday morning. Rick and Roman and I went for a jaunt in the canyon behind our campsite. Even in the foothills of the Minerals, the crags and pinnacles are still formidably attractive.

go to the Rock Corral photo gallery

Since it was still well before noon, I offered to take Rick, Sheila and Roman over to Pahvant Butte, in the desert east of SR 257 and south of the village of Deseret.

There are really two locations to visit — the rugged summit of the cinder cone, and the weird rock formations on the north called the Lace Curtain. I'd read about the Lace Curtain in a geology book and I'd visited it in 2017. It's quite out-of-the-way; imagine my surprise to discover that the BLM or the county has put in plaques and signage to direct you there. They've also graded an impressive new gravel road almost all of the way to Pahvant Butte. I say “almost” because just before reaching Pahvant Butte, the new road gives way abruptly to the old crappy, bumpy track that was there back in 2017. I'm not sure whether they ran into problems with money or with permitting; it was very surprising.

The Lace Curtain is still odd and unique. The cliff swallows love it; the new plaques mention that golden eagles nest higher up in the holes.

go to the Lace Curtain photo gallery