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| Guanacos in front of Estancia Chacabuco |
I spent the past 2.5 days in Valle Chacabuco. It is the future site of Parque Nacional Patagonia. It is Doug and Chris Thompkin´s project to protect habitat and create a wildlife corridor for the endangered huemul. This park adjoins Tamango Nacional Preserva and Parque Jimimieni in Argentina. You can read more about it at http://www.conservacionpatagonica.org/
Lucky me, I had no sooner stuck my thumb out in the north end of Cochrane when the Valle Chacabuco park administrator drove by and gave me a lift. Otherwise, I would likely have had to have walked the 16 km road between the Carreterra Austral and the Park Admin area.
The park is under construction, but some of the trails went in 2 weeks ago. I arrived, paid for camping and dinner (yes, dinner!), and hit the trail towards Tamaguito. Of course, since the trails are new, there are no maps. I got a little off course, but had a nice 5 hour rapid hike up through some pretty country. The area reminds me of eastern Washington, but without the snakes!
Yesterday, I did an 8.5-hr hike with only 2 breaks. I hiked up to Tamaguito and traversed it. It wa a fun class IV scramble at the top with some great views. Afterwards, I continued along the lakes loop trail constantly searching for trail markers and getting off track here and there. It was neat to be one of the first on a new trail. They say the loop is 20 km without traversing Tamaguito, so it was quite a long haul for me.
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| Guanaco and alpine lake |
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| Butterfly |
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| View from Tamaguito towards Chacabuco |
I caught a ride to the crossroads this a.m. and another ride back south to Cochrane to resupply before heading north.
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