March 4

Marcio meets us at 11;00 and we head to the park. It is about an hour and half drive. Marcio wants to learn English as much as we want to learn Spanish so we share our languages as we drive to the park.

When we were traveling south with Patty, we spent the night with some of her friends. One was Christian who was responsible for bringing the National Park of Patagonia back to its natural state. Doug Thomkins (founder of North Face) and his wife Kristin had purchased many acres of land in Patagonia with the goal of returning it to Chile to be made into National Parks. National Park of Patagonia is the result of this purchase.

When we arrive to the park, the first wild life that we see is the guanacos grazing in front of the visitor center.

We had seen some of these animals from afar, but this is the first time that we were so close.

They reminded us of a cross between a camel and a llama.

The first stop was the visitor center where we could pay our entrance fee and purchase a campsite for the both of us. The campsite is about two miles away so Marcio will drop us off there and then we can come back to check out the visitor center which looks really nice. Before he leaves Marcio tells us that tomorrow he is picking up a couple of people from another camping area. It is known for is beautiful stone house. If we want to see it, we can meet him at the visitor center at 3 and he will take us there and bring us back. We plan to do a longer hike tomorrow but we will try to be back.

We head to the visitor center and spend some time looking at the exhibits. We are thankful that they are in English as well as Spanish.

Most of the building in the park are made with these stones. There is a restaurant here, but due to covid it was closed to the public.

Tomorrow we want to hike the the Lagunas Atlas trail so we take a photo of the trail so we can use it tomorrow.

After having spent some time with the Gauchos, this statement says it well.

After spending several hours here, we decided to take a 6 mile hike to a suspension bridge. The trail ends here but eventually will be connected up to other trails.

On the way to the bridge we pass a guide with a couple of clients. He stops to talk to us and tells us that if we hear guanacos screaming we should look to where they are pointing with their heads and we may see a puma. The puma preys on guanacos so they are always on the alert.

The hike meanders to the river and we see the suspension bridge in the distance.

We cross to the other side where the trail stops.

Headed back to camp and had some noodles for dinner. We plan to be up early to see if we can get the hike done before 3.

March 5

We were up and on the trail by 6:30. It is around 20 km so if we hike a consistent pace we should be back in time to meet Marcio by 3:00.

At the start of the trail we encounter this sign.

I guess we will be alert and hope that the guanacos will warn us if a puma is near.

The sky is a deep blue and a flock of parrots seem to be following us. The sunlight accentuates the color of the feathers.

The trail is well marked and ascends out of the valley to a ridge.

More scenes from the trail

Once we reached the top of the climb we passed numerous lakes.

And then it was mostly downhill as we worked our way down to the valley.

As we continued down the hill a couple of larger guanacos were stationed on both sides of the trail. They were definitely making a screaming sound and both were facing the same direction. First we thought that they may be upset that we were walking on the trail then we remembered the guide telling that if there is a puma in the area they will sound an alert.

This guanaco was definitely in alert mode.

The guanacos were still screaming when we reached the bottom of the trail and saw this sign.

We decided to take a lunch break here and as we looked in the direction that the guanacos were facing we saw a large puma come out of the trees and then head back into the tall grasses. I am not sure if we hadn’t been told of this behavior by the guanacos we would have seen this puma.. It was Don’s first time to see a puma in the wild.

After eating our lunch we headed over to the visitor center to wait for Marcio. While waiting we were entertained by this sleeping guanaco.

Marcio shows up and we drive to the stone house campground. He tells us that the drive is a gift to us. We appreciate his kindness. The stone house is another building made of stone that campers can use, a stone path crosses a bridge to get to the building.

At the stone house, we are greeted by the ranger that works and lives at the house when he is on duty. It is a beautiful building with hot showers and an indoor space to cook and sit. The ranger was quite proud of the ornate cook stove.

If we had more time and more food, it would have been nice to stay here. Marcio was waiting to take us back to our campsite. He had picked up two hikers that were heading back to Cochrane. We were glad to have been able to see this place. It make us appreciate what can be done to conserve our wildlands. Tomorrow we will pack up and head up and over a pass that will take us back to Cochrane. We have the route on our phone so hope it goes. There wasn’t much information about it at the visitor center. It was quite the day starting with a beautiful hike, seeing a puma and connecting with Marcio to take us to the stone house campground.

March 6

The rain had fallen thru the night and several guanacos screamed periodically. We were told that a puma was often sighted at the campground, but decided to stay in the tent and not check it out. By first light we were ready to head back up the trail again. The first part of the trail was the same one that we had done yesterday. At the top we saw the sign that would send us down the other side and eventually back to Cochrane.

Our packs are heavier than usual so our pace is slower than yesterday. The rain continues to fall so the camera mostly stays in the pack. The trail is not marked as well as yesterday, but there are stakes and rock cairns most of the way. We have an All trails app on our phone and this trail was on it. Several times when we seemed to be off trail, the app guided us down. It was obvious that this trail has been recently worked on, which made for easier travel. What seemed to be lacking was any recent footprints. Patty told us that Chileans don’t hike much so that could be one of the reasons. We finally came to the lake that is a little over half way to Cochrane. There was a picnic table here so setting up camp here was a no brainer. The rain has continued to fall so we were glad to have our tarp to eat under.

We walked around the lake, to find the trail we will be taking tomorrow. you can see our tent in the distance.

We weren’t able to find a fuel canister in town and hoped that there would be enough for dinner, We were relieved that our meal was cooked when the canister ran our of fuel. The rain continues to fall so time to take cover.

March 7

The rain finally stopped during the night and the silence was noticeable. Since we didn’t have any fuel, we decided to eat our cold breakfast in our sleeping bags in the tent. (no worries about wild critters here). Our packs were lighter, but our knees were a little sorer due to the terrain that we had traversed yesterday. The trail started out flat which was helpful, but we knew that we had to loose a lot of elevation and soon we would be going down the steep part of the trail.

We are glad that at least the trail is not too wet. We take our time as we are careful about our foot placement. This would not be a good place to twist an ankle. We can see the valley below which is our destination.

Eventually we see the town of Cochrane. We have a lot of downhill to do. If we thought yesterday was steep, today is really steep!

Our app of the trail tells us that we are making progress so down we go, occasionally stopping to give our knees a rest. Finally we reach the dirt road that will take us back to town.

We liked how the Chileans post their signs. A polite way of saying the suggested speed,

We reach the hostel that we stayed at before our trip and they have the same room available. We take showers and are able to dry our very wet tent. The magical powers of sun. We decide to take our laundry to the place where we had taken it before our trip. The sign in the window said abierto(open) but the door was locked. We knocked and the owner came out. He said he works in the back so he locks the door. It was good that we knocked. We talked to Raul the director for NOLS Patagonia and asked him about the bus that will be heading back to the branch on March 12th from the town of Tortel. We are going to Tortel tomorrow and then it would be a two day bus ride back to the branch, if we use public transportation. If we can catch a ride with the NOLS bus it would be a long day (about 11 hours), but we wouldn’t have to spend another night in Cochrane. We found out that NOLS has courses starting in Tortel and we know some of the instructors. Perhaps we can make the connection.Always fun to figure out logistics. We checked out another restaurant and had delicious beef stew. Of course after the long hike that we did today, a treat at the ice cream store was a necessity.

Back to our hostel and looking forward to a night in a bed.

March 8

Today is a do not do much day. we caught up on some reading and listened to the rain falling. Tomorrow we will be catching the bus to Tortel. We have enjoyed staying in this town and checking out all the shops.