Activity Summary
Friday 24th November - Day 416 (continued)
Drive to Cochrane
Confluencia Rio Baker/Neff
Airbnb chill
Saturday 25th November - Day 417
Patagonia National Park day 1
Los Carpinteros Trail
Sunday 26th November - Day 418
Patagonia National Park day 2
Luke:
Laguna Altas Trail
Nicola:
La Vega Trail
Laguna Cisnes
Monday 27th November - Day 419
Luke interview
Ruta 7 return leg starts
Drive to Puerto Rio Tranquilo
Summary
Cochrane
Small town, expensive petrol and groceries but it had everything we needed.
Patagonia National Park
Quite a few walks are available but those further into the park require quite a lot of driving. The Lagunas Altas was a very enjoyable one.
Transport
Puerto Rio Tranquilo -> Cochrane
Distance = 108km
Road type = full gravel until Cochrane
Quality = surprisingly good
Problem sections = not so nice narrow and high river valley on a dirt road
Accommodation
Cochrane - Airbnb, Aitken Apartments
Number of nights - 3
Price per night per person - £32
Positives:
Whole apartment
Log burners
Thick duvet & blankets
Decent enough kitchen
Central location
Easy on street parking
Negatives:
Oven no bueno
Expensive (but everywhere in Cochrane seemed to be)
Recommend?
Yes
Diary
Friday 24th November - Day 416 (continued)
It was a glorious day and almost made the gravel road driving not too bad. The stretch to Cochrane was actually pretty well managed, not too potholed and relatively quiet so Luke could plod along at 40kph in peace.
The only really decent viewpoint stop off was for the Confluencia Rio Baker/Neff, about half way in the road trip so it made a great point to stop and stretch legs.
The warm weather and clearly quite dry area was pretty strange having come from the saturated ‘juicy’ Northern Carretera Austral. Walking the 750m to the river was actually quite sweaty work.
It was a really nice place to stop. The glorious sunshine made the Rio Baker shine beautiful blue with lovely snow capped mountains in the backdrop.
The Rio Nef was far less picturesque, a vast amount of rock flour giving it a dirty green vibe but it meant the lack of mixing looked pretty cool.
With a vast amount of rain and snow melt the river was running pretty powerfully as well.
Well worth the stop and then we were back on the road to Cochrane. The road was fine until getting to the entrance of Patagonia National park, where the road narrowed and had steep drop offs to the river. The terrain was a combination of dirt and gravel and with the 2 wheel drive it wasn’t enjoyable. The locals would bomb it around and we had to wait for some poor cyclists to slog it up a hill with a blind corner.
Once close to Cochrane however? It turned into seemingly recently laid tarmac and then ran out of funding to complete the work. Not a person in sight working to complete the road and one tiny section only had one side complete so Luke ended up having to battle with locals driving on the wrong side of the road.
It was a relief to have made it to our end point on the Carretera Austral. We knew what roads we had traversed, where the problems were and ended up changing our return plan slightly to split the drives and avoid the expected bad weather on the really unpleasant parts.
The Airbnb location was completely different to what was advertised but we eventually found our way and once set up we chilled, cooked and relaxed.
Saturday 25th November - Day 417
Luke had an interview Monday so would spend every spare minute he had preparing for this, starting with this morning.
At lunchtime we made the nice and easy short drive to the Tamango sector of the Patagonia National Park for the Los Carpinteros Trail.
Hike details:
Cost per person = CLP11k
Payment = cash in person
Sector = Tamango
CONAF Reservation = unsure if required, they didn’t seem to care and just gave us paper tickets
It was a little cloudy but otherwise pretty good hiking weather. The route was very up and down and with Luke’s blistered feet it wasn’t so fun for him.
The landscape was so different to the mountain terrain we had just left and nothing like the saturated forest environment in the northern part of Ruta 7. It was more like walking in Wales.
After some time we eventually got to walking with sight of the Rio Cochrane.
The yo-yoing took us down to a calm section of the river with some lovely crystal clear turquoise water that could be seen all the way through despite being pretty deep in parts. Had some nice fishies chilling.
The end of the route topped out with views over the river behind us and back towards camp.
The other direction was Lago Cochrane.
We sat and chilled for a bit, had a few pictures and were then on our way back to the car. The best views were behind us over the route we had walked.
Distance = 10.5km
Elevation = 494m
Walking time = 3hrs 2mins
Elapsed time = 3hrs 42mins
Back at the Airbnb, Luke continued his interview prep, had a nice home cooked meal and chilled.
Sunday 26th November - Day 418
Luke had determined the Lagunas Altas Trail was the the main hike in the Patagonia National Park and meant we started a bit earlier to get there.
Sadly the drive to Valle Chacabuco was back along the not so pleasant valley but once turned into the National Park it was nice and easy again.
There were guanacos running around all over the place and on our drive in stopped to watch a group of them cross the road, chill in front the grasslands and mountains (so made for a stellar picture) and then let out the weirdest sounding call. Great start to the day.
Once at the Valle Chacabuco ‘village’ we checked in and got the details about our respective walks. Got some reason the Valle Chacabuco area doesn’t exist on the CONAF website which gave us some stress about whether we’d be allowed to walk but it was all fine.
Hike details:
Cost per person = CLP11k
Payment = cash in person
Sector = Not online for some reason (Valle Chacabuco)
CONAF Reservation = not required, sign up in person at the information centre
Nicola was going to do the La Vega trail so we got about 10 minutes walking together once we’d parked the car closer to the hike.
Luke story time:
It was glorious weather throughout the hike. I barely met any people on the trail and it meant I could hike and practise my presentation for the next day. I sounded like a crazy person but it was the best setting to do dry runs.
The first part was all uphill but pretty easy. Nothing technical and a nice leg stretch.
The first top out views over the valley were decent.
Thankfully the route was all nice and clear, only a bit of snow existed up high off trail.
Before long it was all lake touring. The best lake was the first one which was rocking some great colours.
The barren rocky views with the path running down it was also stunning.
Views over Valle Chacabuco were grand.
One of the lakes made a nice lunch spot.
Lakes and more lakes made most of the views.
The selfie stick made for a nice picture over the valley.
Descending down went back to greener pastures.
Distance = 22km
Elevation = 986m
Max elevation = 1,196m
Walking time = 4hrs 56mins
Elapsed time = 5hrs 22mins
Nicola story time:
I headed on my 5km loop hike, slightly nervous of Pumas and so sang to myself when walking through more vegetated areas.
Continuing on my hike I decided to head over to the lake area of the park. After walking a little way I started heading through a graveyard of Guanaco bones and spotted a brown thing moving in the distance (99% likely was a Guanaco) but not a very confident solo hiker and intimated by all the bones I decided to head back to the main area.
I found a lovely spot on a moraine in the valley and spent a good hour and a half listening to music and enjoying the view until Luke's estimated finish time. It was a really zen - almost meditation like time I spent on the hill by myself and the peace it brought me the much needed mental energy boost I was needing
Reunited:
Luke picked Nicola up from the cafe and we took off back to Cochrane. As with most of our evenings we cooked, relaxed and Luke was boring again.
Monday 27th November - Day 419
Clearly the interview prep Luke did over his walk in the NP was well worth it. His 8am presentation went well enough he was offered and then accepted the job over the next few days. Interview stress over and done.
Once we started packing and loading the car, we had the pleasure of finding a parking ticket on the window. We had no idea what it was for based on the gibberish Spanish handwritten note and concluded the only thing it could be was that our car was facing away from the direction of traffic. Our theories were confirmed by the local police station (rather than the normal police one we went to first) and fortunately they don’t bother fining foreigners, clearly because it’s a stupid rule.
So after giving some details we could then make our way out of Cochrane and ignore the mishap. Absolutely nowhere else along the Carretera Austral seemed to have this rule…
Comments