Bariloche to Pampa Linda and Paso De Las Nubes (02/28-03/08)

Sunday, February 28th 2016

I woke up at 6:30 today to take advantage of our hotel having a computer and used it to type out many days of previous blog posts from our Cochamó trip since I didn't have enough battery power to do it each day along the way. It was very nice to use a keyboard! I typed for 1 1/2 hours before breakfast. We filled up on more sweet croissants, crepes filled with fruit and toast with jam. We squirreled away several bananas and apples for our camping pantry and even some hot chocolate powder and tea bags! After breakfast I typed for an additional hour and a half at which point I ran out of time and Jeff took over so I could get ready. He typed out the last day of the Cochamó blog and finished captioning the photos. The blog comes out so much nicer when it can be done with the use of a computer! 

We finished up and got out of the door just in time to catch the 11 AM bus to Colonia Suiza. We didn't have the time to walk to the further bus stop where we would have a better opportunity to get a seat, so we just accepted that we would have to stand the whole way. We were not prepared for how much the driver would allow the bus to be stuffed though!! There wasn't a spare square inch of standing room and Jeff and I probably had the most space of anyone since we had our backpacks at our feet instead of another person! To make matters worse the driver drove with no regard for the passengers, whipping around curves, slamming on the brakes and blasting off from stops! Apparently he's never heard of the feather braking and accelerating that we practice in Alaska! We managed to stay standing for the full 45 minutes of the ride and so did everyone else!

We got dropped off just down the road from Colonia Suiza at the trailhead into Nahuel Huapi National Park. Colonia Suiza is a cute tourist trap of a town originally settled by the Swiss. It is a place where lots of people like to go to be Señor Turista, eating and shopping. We were in the town last year after finishing a hike, and stumbled upon a fantastic vegan food kiosk. We really wanted to go back there, but decided to just get on with the hike instead since going to lunch would have required some walking from the bus stop to the food kiosk and then back to the trailhead and would have delayed our hike and caused us to have to haul around our 25 pounds of food for longer! So we instead ate peanut and jelly sandwiches from our backpacks along the trail, along with lemon cream filled Maná cookies. These are cookies I really enjoy and have been looking for the whole trip, but never was successful until yesterday grocery shopping in Bariloche! They actually contain no cream, just processed garbage, but they sure are good!

We walked 3 hours up an easy trail through forest of lenga and tall bamboo shoots along a stream called Arroyo Goye. At the head of the valley we reached the base of Cerro Negro where we began a steep one hour switchbacking climb. The hike was faster than we had remembered it being, perhaps we are just more fit now! (We did this same hike last year when we came back to Bariloche for a second time during the trip to complete the Nahuel Huapi Traverse, a hike that we had started when Kirianne was traveling with us.)

We arrived to the camping area much earlier than expected at about 5. The area is known as Laguna Negra and sit below Cerro Negro. Negro is the word for the color black in Spanish and accurately describes the large rocky mountain looming over the area. The mountain is said to reflect its color into the lagoon, making it appear black. 

There is a staffed Refugio here called Refugio Italia. They offer meals and lodging. All of their supplies come up the trail on horseback. We decided to have dinner inside since we have a lot of spare pesos and we felt like being extravagant.

Dinner didn't start until 8:30, so we took the time in between to build our house, take leisure inside of it and prep overnight oats and make up a big bag of trail mix for tomorrow. 

We decided to go to the refugio a little early so Jeff could have a beer before dinner. We were surprised when we went in how full the dining area was. There were probably 8 tables, all of which were at least partially, if not totally full. There were probably 40 people inside! We ended up getting a table with two older guys we had seen on the trail earlier. As soon as we sat down, one of them left, but the other guy stayed awhile and talked to us. His name is Martin and he's from Buenos Aires. He's on a one week vacation and chose to fly out to Bariloche because he loves the mountains. He is having knee pain, but he along with his friend is planning to do the same trek as us to Pampa Linda.

We were served a 3 course meal that included fresh baked bread slices, what was supposed to be pumpkin soup, but really tasted like processed macaroni cheese sauce, a huge plate each of homemade spaghetti and canned peaches with dulce de leche and candied nuts for dessert. Sadly they were out of their homemade beer, but they did have cans of an Argentinean beer called Eisenbeck. We were very satisfied with our meal! It sure is fun to have such an extravagant meal in the mountains! The total came out to about $16 per person including the beer and a tip. Not bad! Of all the people inside the refugio, I think we were the only ones to buy dinner! The rest were just bums escaping their tents.

We have had another great day and clear sunny skies. We hope for more to come!

Here is a map that shows the entire trek. The starting point in Colonia Suiza is the part where there is a bright light blocking the view. Tronador is on the far left and marks the border between Argentina and Chile.

Here is a hiking description I found that is an expensive guided hike offered by a tour company 

Banana raspberry crepes

A cow eating bamboo not far from us during our lunch stop

Cookies that I love. They are hard to find.

There was a sign at the bottom of the hill below the lagoon asking for hikers to carry any fire wood that they could

Our campsite in a nice cove of lengas

Monday, February 29th 2016

We woke up to another clear, beautiful and windless day. We ate overnight oats with the luxury of fresh bananas for breakfast. Since we didn't have to cook anything to eat, we were able to get going pretty quickly, leaving at 9:30. It's always strange to us what constitutes early here! That would not be considered early in the US, but in general if we are on the trail before 10 AM here, we beat most everyone.

For the first hour we traversed around the lake and then up to a saddle between two peaks above Laguna Negra. From the saddle we had our first views this trek of the snowy volcano Mount Tronador. You can see this volcano from many peaks in the area. We even saw it when we were hiking in Cochamó! In addition to Tronador, we could see a long arm of Nahuel Huapi Lake, the same lake Bariloche sits on and also down into a river valley and across it to Laguna CAB. CAB is an acronym for Club Andino Bariloche. The Club Andino is the Andean Mountaineer club, they run most of the refugios in the area.

We had been to this point on our trek through Nahual Huapi National Park last year, but turned right and continued up the ridge. Today we went down into the river valley. From that point we will be having all new scenery. The descent took about 2 hours and was steep, dusty and slippery like scree in places, which made us real glad we weren't going up it. 

When we were almost to the bottom of the valley we encountered a guy coming down a steep short cut trail that cut off a switch back. We don't like trail cutters, but seeing that he had only a tiny day pack and looked young and agile, we stopped to let him pass. We then pondered on where the heck he could be going with such a tiny bag. There are no refugios or food along the way, and we will be camping 3 more nights before making it to Pampa Linda on the other end. There are two basic shelters along the way, so we figured he must just be traveling really light and roughing by hiking long days and sleeping in the shelters. His bag didn't even look big enough for food and a sleeping bag though. A little further on, we saw him again taking a rest at the stream near the bottom. I wouldn't have bothered asking him anything, but luckily Jeff did. Turns out he was trying to get to Refugio Lopez, and he should have turned right at the saddle two hours ago!! We don't understand how he could have gone the wrong way, the trail junction was marked with red spray paint and arrows at the top with one saying Lopez and one that said CAB. We don't think he had a map or any clue as to what the route was supposed to be like. I wonder what would have happened to him if he hadn't stopped or if Jeff hadn't asked where he was going. Even from the saddle it would be a really long hike to get to Refugio Lopez, but he added 3-4 hours to it! We wonder how he faired.

We had lunch in the bottom of the valley alongside the steam. Cookies, trail mix and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We then began a steep two hour climb up to the lake. Our hiking description said we'd be hiking in bamboo forest and it did not lie. It was some of the densest bamboo forest we have seen. There were also lots of large fallen trees to climb up and over, and some of the trail went along the length of some of the trees that had fallen over. Bamboo would be hard to build a trail through, so it was a good idea to use the larger fallen trees as a right of way here. The area clearly burned at some point and the bamboo became the dominant plant in the absence of trees. Near the top we got back into unburned forest and we began hiking alongside a pretty stream that cascades down smooth bed rock. 

In total it took us 5 hours of hiking to reach the lake, the lower end of the estimate our hiking guide gave. We are often slower than the estimated times, so we were quite surprised to arrive so early. It was only 3:30, so we decided to continue another 45 minutes around the lake. The trail hugged the shore 180 degrees around the lake. It was such a narrow shore in some places and overgrown with lenga trees that I wondered how it would be possible in times of higher water, like spring melt. 

While we were walking around the lake Jeff spotted a paraglider in the sky. He must have jumped off one of the high mountains surrounding the lake. I guess we are not fully alone out here! He disappeared over the far side of the mountain and we never saw him again.

We found a nice campsite just above the lake nestled in a dwarf lenga forest and next to the nice sounding stream that flows into the lake. Once we put our packs down we went to explore where the rest of the trail goes. Tomorrow we will climb up and over the high peak above the lake, and this part on our map shows just a rough route, not a well defined trail. Our explorations, however, lead us to believe that the trail is indeed marked and we won't have to do any route finding. 

We have since been for a swim in the ice cold lake, built our house and had a spaghetti dinner. We are now in bed nice and early. No one else ever showed up to camp here. Martin and his friend must be at the first campsites on the other side of the lake, if they made it here at all.

In total we hiked about 10 km in 6 hours and we are still feeling great with lots of energy, in spite of all of the elevation gain and loss, nothing like the exhausting days in the Cochamó Valley. It's amazing that difference even footing and moderate steps up and down make! We have many things to be excited for, seeing what it's like on the other side of the mountain tomorrow, going back to Pampa Linda, hiking on Tronador in a few days and hiking into Chile, and of course the glorious day when we reach the food trucks in Puerto Varas again!

Day 2 description

Refugio Italia and Cerro Negro

Refugio Italia, Cerro Negro and Laguna Negra

An amazing reflection in the lagoon

Looking back down on the lagoon from the ridge between Cerro Negro and Cerro Bailey Willis

Our first view of Tronador. On the far left middle you can see our destination, Laguna CAB.

Dense bamboo forest

Looking back at Cerro Negro, Cerro Bailey Willis and pass from which we came. Below is the river valley we descended down into and came back out.

A hillside of amancay (spanish name) or alstromeria (name I know from the US)

A nice stone waterfall just below the lagoon

Laguna CAB and Cerro CAB

Hiking along the narrow shore of Laguna CAB

Pretty pink mountain above Laguna CAB

Jeff swimming in the freezing water. He looks far away, but that is because you had to walk about 30 ft out to reach the deeper water. The whole shallow area was deposited sediment from all of the surrounding mountains.

A massive campfire ring at our campsite. Can't see why anyone went to the effort of moving all of these large rocks, especially when there is a sign right where I am standing that says no fires allowed!

Tuesday, March 1st 2016

It was freezing out when we woke up today and our tent was more drenched in dew than we have ever experienced, so even though we woke up at 7:30, it took us until 10 to get going. It was crystal clear out again though!!

We got moving slowly constantly eyeing the progress of the sun behind the mountains. We'd occasionally do squats or jumping jacks to stay warm. Finally around 8:45 the sun reached our tent. It was amazing how quickly it got warm after that! By the time we left we had managed to get the tent fully dry by draping various pieces over the tiny trees. 

We started the day with a steep 1 1/2 hour climb up from the lake to the ridge line just below Cerro CAB. The trail was not as bad as it looked from below, but still difficult, over loose scree, rocks and volcanic ash. At the top we left our packs and took an easy one hour detour to the top of Cerro CAB. From the summit we could again see Tronador, as well as the lagoon below and the valleys and mountains we had traveled from the previous day. 

While we were at the top we spotted two figures on the lake shore. We suspect that they were Martin and his hiking companion, but we are not sure because we never saw them again. We have been alone all day and are along at our campsite once again.

From the mountain ridge we had a difficult 1 1/2 descent and traverse over mostly large slabs of granite, but there were some small loose pieces and scree in there too. With endless rocks in sight it was difficult to spot the rock stacks that served as trail markers. We lost the trail for awhile, or maybe there wasn't much of one here, we don't know, but we continued traversing across and eventually found it again. We felt grateful we weren't traveling in the other direction because it would have been very difficult to find the way up the mountain. 

We had lunch near the bottom, more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and trail mix. We also had some oat crackers and salsa golf, a new snack we decided to try out. Salsa golf is very popular here, and is basically a ketchup/mayo mixture like thousand island dressing. It was delicious on the crackers and was a nice alternative to our generally sweet snacks.

From the bottom of the valley we began the climb up a second mountain. It was a steep and exhausting climb to the top. It didn't help that the sun felt ultra hot! It was 75 degrees! The trail mostly just went up with minimal switch backing or traversing. It was every bit as difficult as it had looked from the bottom! But we had amazing views the whole way up and it got even better when we reached the ridge, beautiful views in every direction. From the ridge we could see down the other side to where we planned to camp at Laguna Cretón. We had a quick snack, then continued on, hoping it would only be about another hour. 

We began a very strenuous descent over long smooth slabs of rock, small loose rocks, and scree combined. It took an hour to get through the rock part, then we continued down alongside a forest and muddy waterfall almost to the bottom of the valley, below the level of the lake where we wanted to camp. Then we had to walk across a big swampy meadow and climb steeply up to the hanging valley that held the lake.

From the point where the steep rocky section ended, it would have been perfect if the trail had traversed through the forest and across to the the hanging valley that held the little lake, but that would require some actual trail building! I was exhausted by the time we arrived.

We did a little exploring to find the best campsite. While we did so we located a bunch of trash left behind from other campers. People suck! You would think that people that like nature enough to come all the way out here would respect it and not leave trash. We are camped at the edge of the forest just below the lake. Tomorrow is a much shorter and easier day of hiking, so we will sleep in, and hopefully not have to wait long for the sun! In total we hiked about 14 km over the course of 7 1/2 hours. We were much slower than the description in the hiking guide today, it estimated 6 hours. If we exclude the detour to the top of Cerro CAB, then we hiked 6 1/2 hours, but we did the walk around Laguna CAB last night instead of this morning, so we we were probably about an hour slower than the description.

Day 3

Tent soaked in dew in the morning

Approaching our first climb of the day, Cerro CAB

Tons of tadpoles in the streams and ponds throughout the entire hike.

Going up Cerro CAB

Going up Cerro CAB

On the ridgeline just below Cerro CAB. Red paint marks the way.

Some delicious new cookies we tried

Jeff at the top of Cerro CAB

View of Cerro Cumpleanos (left) and Cerro Bonete (middle) from the top of Cerro CAB and on the right is Cerro de Los Cristales, our second climb of the day.

A huge quartz crystal I found. It was so big that I couldn't fully wrap my fingers around it. I wanted to take it with me, but decided to leave it for others to hopefully find and admire.

View from the top of Laguna CAB and looking back to Cerro Negro, yesterday's hike.

Descending and traversing from Cerro CAB across large rocks. Cerro de los Cristales in front of us and Cerro Bonete to the left, it is the 3rd tallest mountain in the park behind Tronador and Cerro Catedral.

Colorful smooth rock slabs along the trail.

Looking back at where we came from. I have no idea how you'd find the right way up.

More quartz crystals. We saw a lot of small depressions in the rock that were full of crystals.

Near the bottom of the valley between the two mountains along today's route.

Beginning the hike up the second mountain.

Panorama taken about halfway up Cerro de Los Cristales. You can see Cerro Negro (far left), Cerro CAB and many other mountains in the National Park.

Cerro CAB

Pretty flowers that we saw a lot of

Jeff on a big rock slab, pretty close to the top.

The ridge finally in sight!

Summit of Cerro de Los Cristales

View from Cerro de Los Cristales of Cuernos del Diablo (Horns of the Devil) and Crest del Gallo (Rooster Crest).

Cerro Bonete from the ridge

Cerro Bonete and Laguna Creton below, our camp for the night

Looking across the valley towards Tronador and tomorrow's hike (on the left)

The horrible rock and scree slope coming down from Cerro de los Cristales

Looking back up from near the bottom.

Looking up from the bottom.

Laguna Creton

Setting sun lighting up Cerro Bonete and Jeff with his protective bug net on while we cook dinner.

Wednesday, March 2nd 2016

It remained warm through the night and was still quite warm when we woke up, definitely warmer than yesterday. Knowing that we would have a short day of hiking we decided not to set an alarm in hopes of sleeping in, but we woke up at 7:30 anyway. Outside of the tent it was another nice sunny day, but from our sheltered location in the hanging valley the sun would not reach us until 9:30!! The tent was covered in dew again, so we waited a long time for the sun to come and dry it out. We could have just packed the tent up wet, but it weighs more that way and neither of us like to set up a wet tent at night. 

While we waited we had a leisurely breakfast, consulted our nice topographical map and read the description in our hiking guide book about the hike we will begin from Pampa Linda. Our breakfast today was on the fancy side, and consisted of hot tea, coconut cookies and hot apple cinnamon oats with actual fresh apples! My shoulders are happy to see those go! 

We finally began hiking at 10:30. The trail immediately began a climb up from Laguna Cretón. The trail followed a moderately steep ridge of solid granite. After about 45 minutes we reached a plateau in the ridge and had nice views down nearly vertical granite cliffs to the lovely blue colored Laguna Azul. Farther in the distance we could see Lago Mascardi. We were at a trail junction. From the ridge an alternative trail leads down past Laguna Azul and follows along Lago Mascardi eventually ending at the small village of Villa Mascardi, which is on the road to Pampa Linda.

We continued another easy 30 minutes along the plateau of the ridge until we reached the base of our next climb. We were delighted when it was over in just 20 minutes! We were only about 1 1/2 hours into our hike, and already we'd completed all of the elevation gain for the day. We had climbed to the top of another ridge, and from the top we once again had fantastic views in every direction. We could see the crazy mountain we climbed down last night, a large portion of Nahuel Huapi Lake, many peaks on the Chilean side of the Andes and dominating the view was again Mount Tronador, only this time much closer!

Just before the top we spotted 2 people down below us again. They weren't far behind, so we decided to get some distance between us and them by descending from the top right away. It took us an hour to get down, and was probably the most moderate of all of the downhill hiking we have done this trek, but was still a bit difficult and steep in some places. Luckily our backpacks are getting lighter! The whole way down we had unobstructed views of Tronador. We descended into a swampy grassland surrounded by lenga forest. In a nice patch of tall shady trees we stopped for lunch: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, crackers with salsa golf and delicious dark chocolate from the fancy Rapa Nui store in Bariloche. Since we knew it wasn't much further to the end up our hike we stopped for a full hour. This allowed for the people behind us to pass. It turned out to be Martin, just like we had suspected.

From lunch it was an easy gentle downhill hike to the next lake, Laguna Ilón. We continued walking in the direction of Tronador, with views the entire 1 1/2 hour it took us to get to the lake. Some parts of the trail were overgrown with the branches of small lenga trees that were just the right height for scraping us in the faces, arms and legs as we pushed through. Other than that annoyance, it was a lovely hike. By 4 pm, after a total of just 4 hours hiking we reached our next campsite at the lake. Tronador is nicely framed by two mountains at the far end of the lake. 

We were feeling hot and sweaty and immediately put our packs down for a swim in the lake. A proper swim this time, as this lake is the first one we have been in this trip that actually has a tolerable temperature! After swimming we took a walk along the lake and a walk through the forest to find a nice stream for water. We have unfortunately been harassed by bugs all evening. They are small gnat like things that swarm and bite. The bites make horrible itchy welts, so we wore our bug nets and long pants and sleeves. I don't know what we would have done had we not had the bug nets, probably would have been driven to insanity! We thought tábanos (horseflies) were bad, but these are definitely worse!

There are two other tents at the lake, one belonging to Martin, the other from someone that must have come up from Pampa Linda. We were expecting this to be a more popular place since it's only a 4 hour hike to Pampa Linda. We are all spread out in our own coves of trees and so it's like they are not even here. 

We retired to our tent before dark when we could no longer take the bugs. Once inside the tent, we were tasked with killing the swarm of 20-30 of the terrible bugs that followed us inside. I hope that these bugs don't continue to harass us in the coming nights of camping! Tomorrow is our last day of this trek. We will go to a view point near the lake in the morning, then down to Pampa Linda for the night.

Day 4

Trash we found in and around Laguna Creton. This in addition to another plastic bag found the next morning. :(

Looking down the valley from the ridge we hiked onto from our camp at Laguna Creton.

Laguna Azul. A trail comes up the left side from another lake that is down below.

Laguna Azul and the ridge we hiked along. Looking toward the pass that we will climb somewhere between Punta Negra on the left and El Capitan, far right.

A delicious new snack!

This is where we could finally tell where exactly we would be climbing up and were pleased that it didn't look too difficult.

Another lagoon just below the pass.

View of Brazo de La Tristreza (The Arm of Sadness) of Nahuel Huapi Lake, just below the ridge between Cerro Punta Negra and Cerro El Capitan.

Looking back at yesterday's hike down Cerro de Los Cristales. On the right you can see the small hanging valley that hold Laguna Creton.

View of Tronador from the ridge. Every day we get a little closer.

Panorama from the ridge

Walking around the side of a swampy meadow.

Looking back at the ridge we climbed down from

Meadow and Cerro El Capitan to the far left.

Finally some nice tall lenga trees.

Laguna Ilon and Monte Tronador

Shelter near Laguna CAB. Has a few sleeping platforms inside and reeks of wood fire smoke. There was supposed to be another shelter near Laguna CAB, but we never found it. It must be gone.

A nice sign saying we should imitate cats and bury our excrement!

Thursday, March 3rd 2016

This morning before we packed everything up we took a side trip to a view point. We went today, instead of last night, because that was how it was done in the guided trek description. We originally thought the view point was going to be of Tronador, but upon further examination of the map, we realized too late last night that it would actually be a view in the other direction. For the angle of the sun, going last night might have been better, but it was still really pretty today. It took us about 2 1/2 hours round trip through nice lenga forest to get to the place know as Mirada Del Doctor or the Doctor's View. From a high granite ledge we could see down steep cliffs to Lago Frey, impressive granite domes across the lake, the Brazo Tristeza Arm of Nahuel Huapi Lake and many of the mountains in the Chilean Andes.

Back at the lake we battled the flies once again while we packed up the tent, which had dried out while we were gone. Our camping site was nestled in the forest just back from the lake. On the lakeshore itself, the flies we almost non-existent, so we packed up quickly and had lunch on the sand before departing at 12:30.

We had an hour of easy walking over and down an almost imperceptible pass through lenga forest before we reached another view point for Tronador. This is the closest we have been to the mountain yet. We were able to see more detail in the glaciers, as well as see the powerful cascades of water draining down the steep cliffs below the glaciers. We stopped for a half hour to admire the view and also listen, as you can hear the glaciers thunder when the ice shifts and breaks off and falls onto the rocks below. 

From there we continued another hour down along a steep valley wall to a stream at the bottom. The trail was very dusty and eroded in places and required us to down climb over the large roots of trees along side the trail, as well as over many large fallen trees. Once at the bottom we followed the stream for a distance, then the forest finally leveled out. We walked though lots of bamboo and large lenga and coigue trees. We then arrived to a swift glacial river crossing that we had not been expecting. We were prepared with our sandals and trekking poles and made it across easily. From there it was a flat walk though farms to "town." It only took about 3 1/2 hours. 

We came to Pampa Linda 4 years ago on our first trip to Patagonia. We visited on a day trip from Bariloche to see Tronador's famous black glacier and the Garganta Del Diablo or Throat of the Devil. The throat of the devil is a wide arc of a canyon where many impressive waterfalls flow from overhead hanging glaciers, and the black glacier is formed from all of the blocks of ice and rock debris that fall from the tops of the cliffs. It is named the black glacier because of all the rock and sediment that is mixed in with the ice, giving it a black color. It is from the black glacier that the Río Manso begins, this is the river we hiked along on our last day of the Cochamó trip up to the border. We will unfortunately not be going back to visit this area since its down a dirt access road several kilometers from town.  At least we remember it from the last time we visited.

There's not much here, a fancy guesthouse with a restaurant and another slightly cheaper lodging option with a restaurant, a national park office, a horseback riding tour company and two campgrounds. I thought it might be neat to stay in the guesthouse, Hostería Pampa Linda, but we couldn't find any staff when we went inside. We looked in their restaurant and also waited outside for awhile and never found anyone to speak to. The door was wide open when we walked up, so it was strange that no one was around. 

We have settled on Camping Los Vuriloches. It's supposed to be run by the Club Andino. They have a restaurant in which we scheduled a 7 pm dinner. I think maybe in high season, the restaurant might actually have open hours, but now with only 3 other tents here, you just make a reservation and they open the restaurant for you. We had delicious lentil stew, mashed potatoes, French fries, salad (lettuce, tomato and onion), some of their home baked bread and a banana for dinner. What a joy it was to have such a fine meal in the middle of a backpacking trip!

It was 160 pesos ($10.50) per person per night to camp and 60 pesos ($4) extra per person for a hot shower. We decided after 5 days of hiking a shower would be nice. There is no electricity here or other public utilities, so we had to wait awhile for them to somehow heat the water for us. The shower was excellent though, steady warm temperature and good pressure! Those are rarities down here, usually it alternates between boiling and freezing!

We had been expecting there to be some sort of kiosk where we could buy additional food for more days of camping. There is a small supply of food for purchase at our campground and another small one at the more more affordable of the two lodging places. We were able to buy a package of "healthy" cookies, two bananas and two apples at our campground. We hadn't expected fruit, so that's exciting! We also saw into the kitchen of the campground restaurant and saw many loaves of fresh baked bread cooling, perhaps we will see if they are for sale. We checked out the selection at the other place and saw they had Oreos. We contemplated going back to get them, but decided it would not be in our best interest, especially at 40 pesos ($2.75) for a tiny package of maybe 10 cookies! We noticed that inside the cook shelter here, there is a big empty shelf full of index cards with the names of various foods and their prices. Perhaps in high season they have a more varied offering of food!

We are now inside our tent listening to the hum of the generator that will be on until midnight powering the few light bulbs on the property. 

Day 5

At Mirada del Doctor. You can see Tronador peeking out from behind Cerro Mar de Piedras on the left.

At Mirada del Doctor. View of Lago Frey, impressive cliffs and Brazo de la Tristeza in the background.

Neat growth on the lenga trees here, it's kind of like mistletoe, it's seamlessly connected to the lenga branch.

A nice viewpoint for Tronador. Nice views of the glaciers and their waterfalls. The black piece of land on the right of the the mountain is where the Refugio Otto Meiling is located. We will sleep there tomorrow.

More nice flowers. These ones grew on vines.

What we believe to be the water source for Pampa Linda.

Nice forest with really tall trees near the bottom of the valley

It always amazes me that a sign can be made and no one can be found to give a correct translation before they make it! I still don't know what vado means, but I gathered it was something to do with the unexpected glacial river crossing.

Jeff preparing for the crossing

Our coveted fruits and cookies

The barren shelves of the "well stocked" kiosk

Another map of the park and the route we took. For the next leg of the trip we will skirt the border between Argentina and Chile, going from bottom to top on the map.

A fine meal was had at the CAB Campground, Camping Los Vuriloches.

Friday, March 4th 2016

Today we will begin a new trek of 3 days that will bring us to two nice refugios and over a pass known as Paso de Las Nubes or Cloudy Pass. This is a hike we've been wanting to do for years and was the goal that we had in mind when we decided to come back into Argentina via the Cochamó Valley. Getting to hike all the way to Pampa Linda instead of taking a bus was just a bonus and not something we had initially planned to do. We are so grateful that we have had so many days of great weather! At the end of this trek most hikers take a boat and bus combination back to Bariloche, but there is an alternative trek into Chile and that's what we have chosen to do.

We set an alarm for 7:30 and I woke up 5 minutes before. We are now programmed to wake up at 7:30 every day it seems! When we got out of our tent we could see it was again a beautiful clear day and we managed to catch the alpenglow on Tronador for a few brief moments. Being in the bottom of a large broad valley, the sun came to our tent pretty quickly, but it was freezing out and made us slow to get moving! We had hot cinnamon sugar oatmeal for breakfast with the wonderful bananas we were able to buy from the camp restaurant last night. 

Just before we left we inquired about the possibility of purchasing bread, and it must not be something they do often, because the question was passed off 3 times before we got an answer. They would sell us a loaf for $150, the equivalent of about $10. It seemed expensive, but when compared to the 150 it costs to get breakfast (toast, cornflakes and tea) in the refugios, it seems like a good deal! We also considered that we were in the middle of nowhere and homemade bread would be wonderful for peanut butter and apple sandwiches, so we were overjoyed to buy it.

We got going around 10:15 and had to walk an hour down a farm road to where the actual trail began after crossing the glacially fed Río Castaño Overa. Once across the river, we entered a forest of perhaps the most expansive collection of large lenga and coigue trees we have seen. The trees combined with the forest floor of bamboo made for such pleasant viewing. The trail wasn't actually much of a trail, it continued to be a road, but a very nice switch backing road through the forest. I guess there used to be a bunch of short cut trails to shorten the distance of the long meandering switchbacks that the road takes, but erosion has gotten really bad and park rangers have made an attempt to close off the short cuts by filling them up with debris.

We walked for 45 minutes along the road, then came to a side trail that went up the river to view the Castaño Overa glacier from below. We stashed our backpacks in the woods and took a leisurely one hour detour. The view at the end was of high cliffs with a glacier up top and its many melt water cascades pouring over the cliff edges. It was an impressive sight and well worth the time, and it's always a joy to be without our packs for awhile.

When we reached our backpacks again, they felt especially heavy after having been without them and flying down the trail for a short while! We continued another half hour along the road before it narrowed to a true trail width and began a steep section of switchbacks or caracoles as they are named in Spanish. After 30 sweaty minutes huffing and puffing up the hill we reached the ridge and a shady picnic area where we had our luxurious lunch of peanut butter and apple sandwiches. 

From the lower ridge it took us another moderately steep 1 hour and 45 minutes to get to the refugio. During our hike up we kept hearing and seeing a helicopter as it landed and took off and flew away and returned 3 more times! We found out later that it was the military doing training exercises on the ice. During their multiple landings they delivered many propane tanks, other supplies and several large cases of mate to the refugio workers. Refugio Otto Meiling is located in a spectacular spot on a thin strip of land between the Castaño Overa and Alerce glaciers. From the refugio we could see down to the valley floor of Pampa Linda, the route of the entire 5 days of the traverse we had just completed, and layer upon layer of Andes mountains, as well as many lakes and rivers. 

We camped behind the refugio in a sheltered arc of rocks. The refugio was built in 1971, and many people have camped there before us, so there were many such spots for tents. 

We learned from Martin, the guy we had dinner with at refugio Italia/Laguna Negra, that it is possible to hire a guide and do a traverse across Tronador's glaciers to reach the second refugio of the trek, instead of going back down the ridge from Otto Meiling and over another pass through the forest. There is only one guide at the refugio and another couple beat us to him, scheduling a pleasure walk on one of the glaciers for tomorrow morning, but he agreed to take us across the glacier at 1 pm after his morning tour. We had wanted to leave earlier, but decided it was OK, because we'd still have plenty of sun, time to explore around the refuge a little and the trip would only take us about 5 hours. The 5 hours would include a hike up to a higher ridge on Tronador with even more expansive views of the surrounding mountains.

We opted to have our dinner in the refugio and save our remaining food for when we have no refugio to provide us with food! Our options for dinner were cheese stuffed pasta or goulash, so we chose goulash. The goulash ended up also being a pasta meal, but the pasta was homemade and nice. The dinner came with fresh baked bread, which was delicious, but we are getting sick of only white processed foods and crave nutrition! Jeff got two beers, but I decided to hold off and conserve our remaining pesos for extravagance the next day! We had our dinner with a nice German man who is on a one in a lifetime four month long sabbatical from his career as a pastor. It's once in a lifetime, because he gets paid for the whole time he is gone! We also got to know the other couple that booked the morning glacier tour, the man is from Buenos Aires and the women is from Wisconsin and now they live in Colorado. They are on her 50th birthday present trip, so we are glad they get to do their tour in the morning and we didn't beat them to it. They aren't doing the full trek like we are and will have to go back to Pampa Linda tomorrow afternoon for a bus back to Bariloche.

This is what Pampa Linda looks like

Hosteria Pampa Linda

Sign urging hikers not to take shortcuts on the switchbacks. The erosion is really bad!

Me and our fine loaf of bread!

Us taking our rest hike with backpacks, on a nice trail with big Coigue trees.

Glacier Castaño Overa above with waterfalls and cliffs.

A fine coigue specimen

Finally at the end of the switchbacks and time for a nice rest and lunch in the shade.

Trail continuing up the ridge to the refugio.

Looking down to the valley where Pampa Linda is located

Hiking to the refugio with glacier Castaño Overa and Tronador in front of us

Arriving at the refugio just in time to see the last helicopter take off.

Possible routes for guided excursions.

List of prices for all of the foods and services you can buy at the refugio, including breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, beer, wine, sodas, a shower and a place to sleep. Everything is expensive.

Description of the guided excursion we decided to do

View of Refugio Otto Meiling on the left. The smaller of the other two buildings is gear storage and the other we believe is where the workers live.

Saturday, March 5th 2016

Since our tour was not til 1 pm, we tried to sleep in, but again woke up at 7:30, again with clear skies and only light breezes overnight. It was also really warm when we woke up and the tent was completely dry. Breakfast in the refugio consisted of cornflakes with homemade yogurt, orange juice, 3 pieces of toast each, butter, jam, dulce de leche spread (caramel) and tea. Not all of it was vegan of course, but I ate it all anyway! Afterward we felt semi poisoned from all the sugar and we continue to crave nutrition.

We took our time lingering at breakfast, then went back to our tent to lounge for awhile. By the time we were all packed up, it was almost 11. We stored our backpacks inside the refugio, then went for a walk to explore the small strip of land between the two glaciers. Our walk was in a triangle shape, first along the glacier on the South side of the refugio, then to the point where the two glaciers meet, then along the glacier on the north side of the refugio. While we walked we delighted in watching numerous condors soar just above our heads. We even got to see one condor land on a cliff not far from us.  We have never had condors so close, they are truly huge and majestic birds!

After our walk we had another lunch of peanut butter and apple sandwiches. We then geared up for our glacier walk, putting on mountaineering boots, harnesses and helmets. We were also given ice axes and our guide, Dante, carried safety ropes and crampons. It is amazing that at this remote place, high up on the mountain, they had an entire building dedicated to gear storage for tours. In addition to the trip we are doing, they offer a trip that takes the most direct route across the glacier to the next refugio, it's about 2 hours shorter than our tour will be. They have tours to the summits of Tronador as well, it has 4 different peaks to climb. This is a serious climb, and takes all day, they start well before sunrise.

Our hike started with a 20 minute walk to the point where the rocky ridge disappears beneath the two glaciers. When the refugio was constructed in 1971, it likely was right up next to the glaciers, and they have since receded. We walked over snow covered glacier slow and steady with a moderate slope in a slight zigzag pattern almost the whole way to the high point of our trek at La Motte Ridge. We walked roped to Dante with a distance of about 20 feet between him and Jeff and another 20 feet between Jeff and I.  This is for safety, in case one of us falls though the snow into a crevasse, the others can stop or shorten the fall with their body weight. The walking was not terribly steep, but we did not stop to rest and it was really hot, and we were fully clothed to protect us from the harsh reflecting sun on the snow and ice, and we had our still heavy-ish packs, so it felt pretty strenuous, kind of comparable to jogging. Dante was nice and offered to carry our tent for us since he didn't have as much weight in his bag, so Jeff was able to take a few things from my bag, and that made it much nicer.

When we reached the base of the La Motte ridge, the going got very steep, and Dante redid the ropes so that each of us was only at arms length from him. It felt like we were two dogs on leashes! At this point he also gave us each an ice axe and we put on the crampons. It was a short and steep, nearly vertical and scary strenuous climb to the high point. It was especially strenuous for me, and I kept having to tell them to slow the pace so my heart wouldn't explode!

At the top we stopped for awhile to admire the view, and what a glorious view it was! We could now see even more mountains, lakes and rivers, as well as a closer view of the different peaks of Tronador. It had also been nice on the way up getting to see the glaciers and many deep crevasses. It took us 1 hour and 45 minutes to reach the top. 

After a short rest at the top, we began the walk back down. We traversed across and down some steep slopes, but it didn't feel as scary as the final upward portion had. Our feet were dying in the mountaineering boots and were grateful when we made it off the ice and got to leave all of the gear and put our own boots back on. Dante would have to make the return trip, so everything was left at the edge of the ice to dry out in the sun. It took us 1 1/2 hours to get back down from the summit, brining our total time on the ice to 3 1/2 hours. From the edge of the glacier we hiked 1 1/2 hours down the ridge to the Agostino Rocca refugio. We were good and tired by the time we arrived. I couldn't image going back like Dante had to, but I guess that is why he is the guide!

Just before we arrived to the refugio, Dante pointed out what he called a really good campsite. We took his word for it and immediately put down our bags reserving the spot. We found out later that it literally is the best spot. There is one other decent tent space a few steps up the hill from ours, but the rest of the perimeter of the refugio is forested. The building sits at the very top of a densely forested hill. Apparently everyone else has to camp down the hill somewhere! I don't know how we got so lucky, since we didn't get here early. It was about 6:30 pm when we arrived. The German man, Christian, got the other tent space. I guess most people just stay inside here. 

The refugio is only a few years old and is very nice, it all runs on renewable resources. There are many impressive waterfalls surrounding the refugio, they cascade many meters down the cliffs and form powerful streams and turbines are used to capture their energy. They even had power plugs for me to recharge my dying phone! They made us a lovely dinner consisting of fresh baked bread, pumpkin soup, a stew of lentils, carrots, potatoes and pumpkin, 2 mini apple pies each for dessert and we even got a bottle of wine! What a fine meal it was. We have enough leftover pesos to eat breakfast here, then a remaining 230 pesos ($15USD) for some additional extravagance that will be determined tomorrow.

Morning view

Panorama of the refugio with Monte Tronador behind.

View from the left side of the mountain with Castaño Overa glacier in front.

View where the rock ends and ice begins in between the Castaño Overa glacier and the Alerce Glacier.

View of La Motte ridge on the right middle. This is where we climbed up to

Watching the condors. Dante told us they come here only for flight and socializing, not to eat or nest. They nest on the steppe. It was a nice breezy day for flight.

The right side of the mountain with the Alerce Glacier and La Motte ridge

Going up the moderately steep section roped to Jeff and Dante.

La Motte Ridge Summit

Some big crevasses below the summit that we hiked to the left of.

Panorama from the top

Here begins a series of photos from the top in order of what it looks like from left to right. This is #1. Dominating this view is Punta Condores and Laguna Frias down below.

#2

#3. In this photo we are looking at the mountains of the Nahuel Huapi National Park and Jeff and I were able to see our entire route of the previous 5 days getting to Pampa Linda. Also on the horizon toward the right you can see the craggy spires of Cerro Catedral (the second highest mountain in the park) and all the way to the right Cerro Bonete (the third highest mountain).

#4

#5. Looking towards high snowing mountains in Chile. Volcan Yates is among the tallest.

(#6) Monte Tronador

Going back down.

Nearing the edge of the ice

View down to Paso de Las Nubes. You just make out Refugio Agostino Rocca in this photo, it sits perched on a hill at the top of the Paso de Las Nubes, near the center of the photo.

Looking at the end of the Alerce Glacier, its many waterfalls and Laguna Alerce. Also visible is Refugio Otto Meiling on the opposite ridge.

Inside Refugio Agostino Rocca.

Nice pumpkin soup, bread and wine.

The flash makes our lentil stew look kind of gross, but it was nice and was a huge portion!

Flash makes these looks kind of gross too. These were the tiny apple pies we had for dessert. Pretty amazing what they can create in these mountain refugios!

Sunday, March 6th 2016

We woke up again at 7:30 and had breakfast in the refugio. We got two pieces of fresh baked white bread each with delicious blackberry jam and butter, a small bowl of corn flakes with homemade yogurt and a cup of tea. After breakfast we paid our tab. They keep track of all of your consumptions in a notebook during your stay and you just pay before you leave. It seems like a crazy system to us in which a lot of people could leave without paying! There are several people that work in the refugio distributing the food to the people who order it, and I can't understand how they keep it all straight in their book, as it seems like there's a lot of room for error. I added up exactly how many pesos everything we ordered cost and how much we would have left over, so we could maximize our money and not have any left over since this will be our last day in Argentina. I determined we had enough to order two veggies sandwiches to go, along with a package of our favorite cookies, Galletas Cachafaz, and after that the remaining money would go into the tip jar. The only problem with all of this was when we checked out, we were charged 200 pesos each for camping. We had not been expecting this and I hadn't accounted for it. Luckily, the guy charging us missed the fact that we had consumed breakfast and ended up not charging us so for that so we didn't come up short on payment! We felt bad not paying for our breakfast, but all of the money we had left went into their tip jar.

We started our hike down from the pass at 10:15. It took us about an hour to reach the valley floor. Near the bottom we got amazing views of Glacier Frias, and the Río Frias river valley. The glacier was as impressive as the Castaño Overa glacier had been, with similar features. It was situated high up on a tall cliff and was cascading over just slightly and was surrounded by numerous meltwater cascades. 

The bottom of the valley was a wide flat glacially carved trough. The trail however, did not take this nice easy flat route, as the ground was too boggy. We instead went up the right side of the valley just above the valley floor. The trail was often pleasant, but not without difficulties. There was a good bit of up and down, many fallen trees of all sizes that we had to climb over, under or around, as well as many boggy sections that required precision stepping on strategically placed rocks and logs. We did see a number of alerce trees, both large and small, which we hadn't been expecting, so that was a very nice surprise! It took us another 3 1/2 hours along the valley floor to reach the end of the trail at Puerto Frias. It's called Puerto Frias because there is a small boat launch here that takes people across Lago Frias, the glacial lagoon of the glacier Frias that we had seen up the valley. 

Most people doing the trek take the boat here that combines with a bus, a second boat, then a second bus, eventually arriving to Bariloche. Also in this location is a border control hut for people continuing on to Chile via the 26 km dirt road. There are many package tourists that come through this area on what is known as the "Cruce de Lagos," or lakes crossing. This crossing starts or ends in either Bariloche or Puerto Varas and combines buses and boats as an alternative scenic way to get across the border. It's an all day trip and costs nearly $300USD!

As soon as we arrived we got our exit stamp from the Argentinean border control. When we went in asking for an exit stamp, they acted like we were crazy and didn't initially understand what we wanted. I think since all of the trekkers go back to Bariloche, they are only used to dealing with the package tourists when they arrive either by bus from the road to Chile or by boat from Bariloche, so us wanting to walk to Chile was completely foreign to them!  

We were informed by the border control agent that a bus would be coming in 1 hour at 5 pm from the Chilean side with passengers for the boat and that they could probably take us back with them to the town of Peulla. We had expected to have already missed the bus, knowing that the westbound connection comes through around 1, so we were delighted to learn this, as we had fully expected to walk a distance on the road tonight, camp and walk the rest of it the next day. The town of Peulla sits of the eastern shore of Lago Todos Los Santos, where there is a boat across to Petrohue each afternoon that we wanted to take. The boat leaves at 4 pm each day, so we won't be able to go until tomorrow.

We gladly waited an hour for the bus to come and we had snacks while we waited. We talked to the driver when he showed up and he agreed to take us back with him, with the stipulation that he would drop us just outside of town so that no one would know he had taken us. The ticket for this bus would normally cost an outrageous amount, somewhere in the range of $40USD per person! Since the driver was just making his return trip without passengers he was able to sneak us on. The ride took about an hour. We drove through forest most of the way on a switchback road over and down a mountain pass. We gave the driver a nice tip when we hopped off outside of town.

It was a short walk to the Chilean customs. Along the way we found many blackberry bushes with very ripe wonderful berries, so we stopped to eat lots of them. When we got to customs is was about 7 pm. All of the doors where open, but no one was inside. We waited about half an hour before a lady in civilian clothes walked up and gave us our entrance stamps. I guess it was an off hour for people to be arriving.

From customs we continued down the road toward the lake. The only information we had about the town was that we could possibly camp for free across the street from the Conaf office. Conaf is the Chilean equivalent to the National Park Service. We found the Conaf office, but across the street were a bunch of picnic benches of an open air cafe type place. The cafe part was closed, so we stopped for a while and used one of their benches to cook dinner. We had pasta with peanut sauce and a can of mixed veggies that I've been carrying around for 8 days!

This town is bigger than we expected. I had thought it might be a single farm, like some of the other "towns" we have been to. There were a number of farms on the way into town, the border control, a school, a small convenience type store, a couple of tour companies, several houses, the Conaf office, a a health clinic, a really expensive hotel for the package tourists and more stuff along the road to the port. While we were eating Jeff saw some guys come out of one of the tour company buildings and flagged them down to ask if they knew anything about camping. They said there was no official campsite, but they were friends with the park ranger and would go find him for us and see if he would allow us to camp in the yard at the Conaf office. They found him in a nearby house that has been playing loud music all night, must be the party house! Anyway, he agreed that we could camp. We are now set up in the grass alongside the road. Tomorrow we will take a day hike before the 4 pm boat. We are very grateful to be here and to not have had to do any walking on the long dirt road from Argentina.

Here again is the infographic showing the "Cruce de Lagos"or bus and boat combination between Bariloche and Puerto Varas. Hopefully it makes is all make more sense!

View from Refugio Agostino Rocca. On the left are two of the 4 summits of Tronador and to the right is Punta Condores, also on Tronador.

Our fantastic campsite just below the refugio on the south side of Paso de Las Nubes.

Nice sandwiches from the refugio. They made us three they said since the bread was on the small side, but we think it may have had something to do with us leaving all our leftover pesos in their tip jar.

Rio Frias river valley

Glacier Frias and its many meltwater cascades flowing over the cliffs.

Jeff with a pair of nice alerce trees.

One of many large fallen trees to maneuver under

A really sketchy looking bridge that spans the river on a single tree trunk!

A family of small alerce trees

Looking back up the river to the Chilean summit of Tronador

At Puerto Frias.

Laguna Frias

Customs and a small kiosk and office for the boat tour company and Laguna Frias.

A fox outside customs at Laguna Frias

Fancy Hotel Natura in Peulla.

Monday, March 7th 2016

We both managed to sleep in until 8:30, and probably slept better than we have any of the other nights of this trek. Once outside the tent, we could see it would again be a nice sunny day. I also noticed at this point that we were camped next to a nice blackberry patch, so I got busy picking a liter of them to add to oatmeal! Since we had no facilities to use, we also had no access to water. Instead of making oatmeal right away, we had a few cookies, then packed up and began walking the short distance to the port. We thought there would be no boat until 4, but we'd seen a few buses pass by us, so we decided to go check it out. 

When we arrived to the port our suspicions were confirmed by a sign that said boarding would commence at 3:30 pm. There were a number of touristic buses waiting, so the boat must come early with people from the other side, have a layover, then go back with the people coming from Argentina. We found a nice picnic table nearby and a waterfall from which to get water, so we sat and had our breakfast blackberry oatmeal picnic.

After we were done eating Jeff took a walk around the beach and was approached by a guy with a boat asking if we wanted a ride. Jeff of course had no idea what was being said and called me over. We accepted the mans offer of 50,000 pesos ($70USD), knowing that it was probably half the cost of the touristic boat, we could avoid all of the tourists and we could get out of Peulla sooner. 

We rode in a small wooden boat, about the same size as the one we rode in on our Cochamó trek. Inside the boat was us and our bags, the youngish guy driving the boat and an old man who we presume was the young man's father or grandfather. We initially rode for 20 minutes down the lake, stopping at a farmhouse along the way where the old man got out. We discovered that was where they lived. It was a neat location with the house perched on a cliff above the lake, they had their own private strip of beach and a nice dock. After another 1 hour we arrived to the other end of the lake at a small settlement called Petrohué. The ride had been really pretty with views of three volcanoes: Osorno, Puntiagudo and Tronador. It was a bit windy though, making the ride in the tiny boat quite bumpy! We arrived at about noon, hours sooner than we would have if we'd waited for the 4pm boat. We just couldn't believe how lucky we were to have lucked out with the bus ride last night and the boat ride today. We could have still been walking along the road from Argentina!

Petrohué is an even smaller town than Peulla, but it's the gateway to Parque Nacional Vicente Peréz Rosales, which is the oldest National Park in Chile. From what we have seen there are a few families that live here and do boat trips or rent out cabins or space in their yards for camping. There is also a fancy hotel, a big office and snack stand for the tour company that runs the boat crossing, a souvenir stand and a tiny mini market. During siesta time I looked in the window of the mini market, their most abundant stock was in cans of sweetened condensed milk! I also saw 2 cans of peaches, a few candy bars and little else.

The town is separated in two by the outlet river for the lake. The national park headquarters, the tour company, fancy hotel, souvenirs, mini market and road out of here are all on the other side of the river from where we are camped. The park service is supposed to have a free campsite, but we were informed its undergoing maintenance, so the only option is to pay 500 pesos (75¢) to a guy with a boat and be brought across the river to one of the places that allows camping in their yard. We are paying 5,000 pesos ($7) to camp, and there are only 2 other tents here. As of March 1st, we are officially in the shoulder season, as Chilean schools are back in session!

We set up our tent and had a lunch of rice cakes and jam, and a package of instant mashed potatoes! We are now on our survival rations. We will only camp here a night and will be back in food heaven tomorrow.

After lunch we got a ride back across the river. We weren't really sure how that was supposed to work, but we just went out and stood on the dock where we were dropped off on and eventually a boat came by for us. We went for a 4 1/2 hour walk in the national park along a trail named Sendero Los Alerces. There were supposed to be 7 alerce trees along the trail that had been spared from logging and one of the informational signs along the way "invited" us to find them. We never did see them, and although we had awesome views of Volcán Osorno, the forest was not that spectacular. The whole area was covered in a layer of volcanic ash from previous eruptions. It was interesting to see what type of plants could survive in that type of soil. For the most part the forest was thin, scraggly and desert like, but closer to the lake in was dense, humid and jungle like. The walking was rather difficult, the ash was like walking in soft sand. I don't think anyone would knowingly choose to walk for miles is dry soft sand! We were exhausted by the time we got back to our campsite and ate a double portion of pasta with peanut sauce!

Tomorrow I want to do another hike in the national park before we go back to Puerto Varas, but Jeff is trying to talk me out of it! We are both quite exhausted from many days of hiking. The trail I would like to do goes above tree line to a pass on the east side of Volcán Osorno and has views of the entire Todos Los Santos Lake, and of Puntiagudo and Tronador volcanoes. To get to the trail we must retrace some of what we walked today, then continue up in elevation. It will be difficult because of the sandy walking conditions, but I think it will be a spectacular and worthwhile view. 

A healthy dose of some much needed fresh fruit! Blackberry oatmeal.

Riding away from Peulla much earlier than expected!

Me in our little boat at the drivers private beach.

View of Volcan Osorno over Lago Todo Los Santos.

View of Volcano Puntiagudo over Lago Todos Los Santos

View of Osorno and what was labeled as a flurry during our hike around the volcanoes bases. It was a dry water way. Not sure if flurry is the correct term or not, but it made me think of McFlurries from McDonald's!

Looking down another flurry to Lago Todos Los Santos. You can just make out a snowy white peak near the middle of the mountains, that's Monte Tronador.

Berries that grow on small bushes. The berries are called manzanitas, or little apples, because they are sweet and sort of taste like apples.

These flowers were very fragrant and were in abundance on one of the common tree species.

Scrub vegetation away from the lake.

Thick, humid, jungle like vegetation near the lakeshore.

A neat looking giant dead beetle we found.

At our campsite. It was a large area and the people next to us moved their tent from its original far away location and set up right next to us, then talked loudly until midnight! They also liked to yell to each other while one of them was in the tent and the other was tending their smelly campfire. Needless to say, we didn't like them!

Looking across the river from our campsite to the main area of Petrohue and on to Lago Todos Los Santos. You can also see the pointy top of Volcan Puntiagudo.

Looking down river.

Tuesday, March 8th 2016

Tuesday, March 8th 2016

I was awoken at 6 AM when one of the camp dogs plopped itself down on top of the vestibule on my side of the tent. It felt like our house would implode and it landed on my arm, startling me awake! It was dark out, the sunrises have gotten much later than they were earlier in our trip. We had set an alarm for 6:30 so that we could get an early start on our hike, so we decided to just get up after the incident with the dog. We got out of the tent to go to the bathroom and realized it was starting to rain! Jeff has probably never been so happy for rain! it meant we wouldn't be doing the hike after all. We went back into the tent and had the last of our cookies, trail mix and crackers with jam for breakfast, then Jeff fell back asleep for awhile and I read a book.

We took advantage of a break in the rain and packed up and went back out on the dock to catch a boat across the lake, only there were no boats! We watched as the 9:30 bus to Puerto Varas came and went. I guess we wouldn't have gotten an early start on our hike even if we wanted to! After about a half hour of waiting and being passed up by one boat, a guy with a boat finally came and collected us, along with another couple that was waiting next to us. While we waited for the 10:30 bus, we ate a package of rice cakes. We are now down to one remaining package of rice cakes and two bags of potato flakes. We are happy to be going back to where food is abundant.

The ride took 1 1/2 hours. It remained overcast and drizzly the whole bus ride and the whole rest of the day. The volcano remained hidden in the clouds. We went to lunch at a coffee shop where I had a nice quinoa salad with tomatoes, mushrooms, arugula and avocado. Jeff got a nice overflowing sandwich of smoked salmon, cream cheese and lots of veggies on whole grain bread. We were both overjoyed to consume so much vegetation! We had actually tried to go back to the vegan food truck, as it was our first choice, and the food we'd been dreaming about for days, but sadly it wasn't open yet!!

After lunch we went to the grocery store and got supplies to make more sandwiches in the hostel. We are in the same hostel we stayed at last time, Compass del Sur. We already have laundry going and have had showers. It feels wonderful to be clean and in clean clothes! We will take it easy in Puerto Varas for another day before we move on. Our goal all along had been to go back to Pucon and do some more trekking, but we have run out of time for that. We have instead come up with an alternative plan that involves visiting a few cities and being Senor Turista on our way back to Santiago. We have a flight out next Wednesday the 16th.

So nice to have sprouts!