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→Season 2023/24
==Season 2023/24==
*2024 Mar 31st to Apr 5th / 4 hiking days / SOBO / Hiking / Opt 1 / Michael and Kaisa We did sections 14 and 15 together. TL:DR: Opt 1 is a nice route with lots of forest walking and some termales options; the Renahue sector of PN Huerquehue is still closed, but that also means no one is there. Day 1 Mar 31st Our hitch dropped us off at the beginning Opt 1. It is a road walk, but the road is not much used, so it wasn't too bad. We camped at (-39.06732, -71.51559) just before the bridge. It was a functional campsite. It was right next to the road and the ground was covered in a thin layer of pumice, so not optimal for the tent. But it was flat, and didn't require climbing any fences. Going back a small path it had good river access. It was also clearly used as a campsite by other people. There was a fire ring and a grill hanging in a tree. Day 2 Apr 1st We continued on the road. We passed the entrance to Opt 1B, though we didn't have time to take it. It is a clearly marked trailhead. We continued on the road to the private property. We tried calling the phone number on the private property sign, but no one answered so we decided to just go ahead. The entrance was through a barbed wire gate, then follow the path along the fence line to the trail. The trail was in pretty good shape except for a few areas where water has rutted it out. We did not find any real access to Laguna Isolada; there was a ring of marsh grass about 3 or 4 meters wide around the whole lake. Where the track gets closest to the lake there was a fallen tree that we sat on for coffee and lunch. At two points there were fairly elaborate wooden barricades, one that we climbed under, the other we climbed around. It was unclear whether they were for animals or people. As has been noted before, the road begins earlier than it shows on the map. We did not see anyone the entire time. We both really enjoy walking in the forest, and the forest was very pretty throughout the day, so we were happy we chose to go this way instead of just hitching all the way to the termas. We arrived at the termas area. Eco termas seemed nicer than San Sebastian. The weather forecast was predicting heavy rain and wind up to 60kmph with gusts over 100 kmph the following day, so we wanted to stay in a cabaña instead of the tent and neither of the termales places could accommodate us. We found a cabaña at Cabañas Rio Blanco (-39.10593, -71.61558). It had a well equipped kitchen, wood stove with wood included, and hot water in the shower and sinks. The woman who runs it, Angélica, was incredibly nice and made excellent pan amasado. There is no cell service in the valley and power cuts are a daily thing, though there was power for several hours a day, so plenty of time to charge things. Day 3 and 4 April 2nd and 3rd We stayed at Cabañas Rio Blanco for two days to wait over the weather. Day 5 April 4th We left Rio Blanco and started up the trail to PN Huerquehue. The trail was in decent shape, better than we had expected. Along the way we saw a lot of different mushrooms, including some very impressive groups of Amanita muscaria that were so shiny red they almost looked fake. At the Letrero mark on OSM is the welcome sign. There was a laminated piece of paper stapled to it that was so badly faded from water as to be unreadable. If it weren't for Natalie's note from last year we would have had no idea what it said. The Renahue sector is still officially closed, as is the camping. The trail up was sometimes a little hard to keep track of. It was also pretty slippery for a lot of it. I would definitely not recommend doing it in the rain. The forest is pretty though and we really enjoyed the hike. We camped at Renahue. It was fine, though nothing special. Day 6 April 5th From Renahue we followed the trail toward the entrance. Until Laguna Huerquehue there were still a lot of blow downs to climb over. In some places it looked like recent maintenance had been done, in others not. Laguna Avutardas is a short detour, as is Laguna Huerquehue which is less a laguna and more of a wetland. Laguna Toro was pretty and we stopped there for lunch. There is a campsite marked there on OSM, however the ground was saturated, not sure if from the rain or from the lake, but not a good camp spot. Lago Verde and Lago Chico were also nice. The trail after Lago Chico was in pretty rough shape. It was clear and there was no brush, but it was very wet and extremely slippery. There was no one at the ticket office when we left, however that is not really the exit. There is still more than a km of trail until a road, and then another 2 km until the actual gate. It was about 7:30 and we were about 200 m from the main entrance when a CONAF guard drove up in a truck, on his way to his house I assume. It ended up being a somewhat uncomfortable conversation, he was upset that we had gone that way and he said a number of things that didn't make sense, but the essence was that it was prohibited to cross the park from Rio Blanco. After everything he was a bit more demure and said if we wanted to camp at the CONAF camping it was 20.000 and we could register and pay in the morning, then he left. We were considering camping but a truck was leaving the entrance right as we got there and we caught a lucky hitch all the way to Pucón. *2024-03-09 // 1 day // Hiking // NOBO // OPT3 + RR // Quentin Clavel
As the weather was not on my side this week, and that I've got only one sunny day, I did my best to have this nice day for the ascent of the sollipulli volcano.
