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→Season 2023/24
==Season 2023/24==
* 2024-Jan-15 to 2024-Jan-17/ 2.5 days / SOBO / RR / Matthias de Austria
I took the metro to the last stop, Puente Alto, and started walking from there. The days were extremely hot and there were a lot of tabanero attacks. I waited a few minutes at the closed gate at 11,2 until a car came out. I asked the driver if I could go through, but he said that it was a private area and I wasn't allowed through. When he was gone, I saw that the gate was not completely closed. I was able to reach inside with my arm and open a door in the gate from the inside. There was regular traffic on the road behind it, but everyone just greeted me back in a friendly manner. Might be best just to wait until it opens and then walk through confidentially without asking. The water indicators were correct. Camps: 19.5/1433 (no water), 29.7/1389 (water and small pools, quite nice). Take enough water for the pass at 18.7/1302! No shadow and very hot. After 29.7/1389 there is water a few times and an increasing number of day trippers. Overnight stay in San José de Maipo in the Hostal Maipo for 20k, otherwise no guests, bathroom and fridge dirty and room stuffy, but large kitchen, nice host, lounge and central location with supermarket and bus stop next door. For GPT2 bus to El Melocotón at 7.30am, but get off at the crossroads by the bridge over the Rio Maipo before town. * 2024-Jan-8 to 2024-Jan-9/ 1.5 days / SOBO / OH & RR / Tanja Took same route as Matthias (Filo Purgatorio via the ridge). Not much to add apart from: it’s very hot and there’s no water up there anymore. First stream coming down was at 33.67175, 70.39274 * 2023-Dec-24 to 2023-Dec-25 / 2 days / SOBO / RR and variant E / Matthieu Nice hike to begin with GPT, no particular mountain difficulties. I began in Pirque after taking the buq MB74 at bellavista de la florida. Variant : I followed chileans hikers on variant E to the nothern bank of the river el sauce (sendero estero el sauce on OSM, easily followed with the GPS). Seems funnier than the RR, you cross a nice pool. You have other trails to go down at the river and enjoy on the way. All water markers are correct. Remember to bring enough water for the pass at water 18,7, it's really hot up there. Water 29,7 very good stream. The end of the trail after is a big web of trail along the el sauce river, with places to bath and camp. So the water is not rare. Lots of hikers when I was there (25 december). Camp : at bridge water 18.7.Seems like lots of nice places after water 29,7 when you explore along the river. Gate 11,2 : Not possible to go around, electrical and fence. It was opened by a person in a car after 5 minutes waiting. No question about my passage. I then crossed roads with an arriero with horses and another car, on 24th december. Seems like this trail is crowded, so the gate seems not to be a problem with patience. The other gate is only for cars, way to go around as a hiker. Other : crossed a snake in the middle of the trail. See my section 2 post for more infos.A very tiny scorpion near my tent in the morning... put some shoes when you go for a pee at night ! No river crossings issues * 2023-Dec-5 to 2023-Dec-6/ 2 days / SOBO / OH & RR / Matthias I started option 2 right from the school (San Juan Oriente). Camp spots on the way to the ridge if you start late in Santiago. Took the route to the summit of Cerro Purgatorio (option 2 - variant B). From the summit I continued the ridge southwards (OH-CC-A {01-02B}). That’s a wonderful alpine (I mean andine 😅) cross-country hiking route mostly on steep scree or rock ledge (Schrofen in German), difficulty according to SAC hiking scale T4, I’d guess. No real clambering necessary, hands only occasionally needed for support. The descent from the summit gives you a good impression of the difficulty, it will not become more difficult. Mostly I did not walk directly on the rocky ridge but on the western slope. Camped right on the ridge at ca. 33°38'30'' 70°24'47''. Beautiful sunset and sunrise. On the descent to GPT02 there is a marked trail (white markers) on the last kms. One can follow that path instead of RR where variant F comes in and avoid the walk on MR. When the path comes to a fence turn right and you’ll hit the RR again. * 2023-Dec-15-18 / 72 hours / Hiking / nobo / Option 04, ridge, option 02 / Tomáš Apart from Option 02, I did not actually follow any existing GPT track but I this should be added for 2024/25, Jan said it looks excellent. I think the approcah will be called option 4. I started at the southernmost stop of bus MB-74. The bus actually goes to several streets there and back before reaching here, so do not get off too early. You should be able to start from here: 33.7277389S, 70.5544877W. Just before the bridge, there is a locked gate. Some cars were passing though and let me through, just told me not to make fire. If the gate is locked use the bridge 200 m downstream and go in the riverbank for 200 northwards - it is dry. There is another gate where the sideroad splits from the road that is still on OSM, roughly here: 33.7412080S, 70.5586867W. Again somobody opened it for me but this one could have been climbed easily. The trail is both easily visible on satelite and Strava heatmap. First 2 km it is a road, then a worse road that transofrms to path branches to the left to rejoin the road where another gate is - this cca 5 km part is flat. One then follows the fence on a steep slope until 100 m higher one rejoins very clear path. I am sure there is a better way than I took but it was still easy enough. From there a very clear trail goes all the way up to cca Cerro los Crystalles. Met a group of seven people on motorbikes who went up and down in a day. No water until about 2500 m. On Facebook group, I put pictures of the route, the GPX track need to wait until spring. From the ridge, one could easily follow on GPT02 but I was interested in the ridge between RR and Option 3 roughly from here: 33.8464060S, 70.4211017W to Cerro los Purgatorio through Cerros Loma del Diablo, San Roque and Cruzada Las Hormigas. From the coordinates above, there is a trail that follows the ridge for a few km. Once it starts going down I traversed back to the ridge. Better would have been to go over the hill than traversing. The ridge can be followed, there is a psth that comes and go so it is a mix of TR and CC. Going down from San Roque is a bit tricky, one needs to sidetrack from the ridge at one point and maybe use a hand here and there. Another a bit challenging part is just before the final ascent to Cruzada Las Hormingas. It is abit exposed in those parts but not to much. In SAC scale, somewhere around 4 or five, but out of 20 km of the ridge, this is only about 1 km m at most. And I do not claim to have found the best route, I think some of the clambering parts that were never vertical could probably have been sidetracked. This time of the year, even on the ridge I crossed a stream with water three times (I will add the streams to OSM later), very roughly at km 11, 17 and 20 (this one being on the RR). Only saw cows and condors. I then crossed the RR and went on option 02. I would say it is SAC 4 (somewhat easier than the ridge), I used hands but it was very easy and not exposed at all. Descent from Cerro Purgatorio was surprisingly beautiful with all the flowers (which were there all over the ridge too). Even going down, from about 1500, the heat was really strong. Would not recommend any of this from early January till end of february given there might be very little water. Perfect for December and earlier. I hope both the ascent and the ridgewalk are added to GPT. Every day, I would be abel to get enough cell phone coverage to receive e-mails and chats but not much more. * 2023-Dec-06 / 1 days day / Hiking / sobo / RR / Lilian
I took uber from Providencia to the gate, about 20000CLP and 1hour.
The gate is locked at 10am on Wednesday. Luckily after 5min a young man drive out and open the gate, he didn't said anything and let me go inside.
Hot but more water resources that i think before, a small grassy stream is still flowing just before the pass 800m, lot of tadpoles swimming inside too.
