Cambios

==Season 2023/24==

No Tabanos, flies, mosquitos, snowfields, fords. Cool weather, sunny with morning frost. Small parts of 04B east of the summit where icy. Lack of water in large parts. I filled up in the little valley on the way to the hot spring, afterwards I found no water anymore until 76. 1km. Water 53.5, 53.7 and 75.4km were dry.

One of the best sections, I loved it. The long road walking in the northern parts is boring, but the hike afterwards through the woods is nice and the volcanic plateau amazing. Lot's of volcanic activity, and the detour to the hot spring is strongly recommended. I camped close to it, and stayed in the refuge, which has an oven for cold nights and offers weather protection, but is just a very simple hut with a table and bench and sleeping possibilities around.

Anticura - Refuge - Puyehue summit - Cratere - volcanic plateau - geyser - Rio nilahue Lago maihue - Puerto maihue

A lot of opportunities to sleep in camping, on the area of Maqueo/Puerto Maihue, even to eat on small restaurant/food truck and small minimarket (but there's a bigger minimarket further on next section)

The route:

Water at km 53.5 and 53.7 now dry (I could get a liter out of a puddle), also km 68.6 and 69.2 are dry! Also no water near the hut, but plenty in between pass km 69.9 and about a km before the hug. On the plateau there is some melting water, but mostly it is very muddy.

Camp beside the lake + Hot spring + Geyser + Volcano + Skiing = GPT19

I didn't see any shops nearby, just a restaurant at (-40.66624, -72.17463), you can go through their gate(-40.66843, -72.17218) to there. They provide good food and fast wifi. I look at their board, looks like they accept USD and EURO at here. (I don't know can money exchange or not)

Great section with great views! Very enjoyable. Not much to add to the other reports. We took the bus to the intersection with the Puyehue hot springs, hitchhiked from there (not a great spot for hitchhiking, but it works). Didn't see anyone at the trailhead and hence didn't pay. We passed by a small steam on the way up, but I would not be surprised if it sometimes dries out. The first night, we stayed by the hut. A small stream made it's way to the hut in the evening, so we got lucky and could refill. Second day, we climbed up to the scenic crater via option 4a. The ascent through loose scree was a bit tiresome, but made for an awesome shoe-skiing descent. The "Water ?" at km68.6 was a snow covered stream, but we were able to get some water from a melting snowfield. We camped at km64.6. The next day we went via an interesting ridge hike to the hot springs (option 1), which is a river in a nice valley. There are multiple spots to get into the river, upstream is hotter. But it was a hot day, and the tabanos were relentless, so we moved on to camp in the next valley, at S 40° 29.078', W 072° 10.870' or roughly at {19-01} [3.0]. This is a beautiful valley with good access to drinking water (not sure about the hot springs -- I wouldn't drink that water).

The descent was relatively unspectacular. We accidentally took an unintended route down (19-D I think?), but it wasn't an issue. Our plan was to hitchhike from km37.4 out to Lago Ranco, but it took over an hour to find a ride, since only few cars passed by.

From what people have written before, I thought I would find a more impressive stretch. Up to Neri and Hector's house it is a gravel road in the forest with no views.

I climbed the volcano on the west side (option 4a). It was scree all the way up. I thought about turning back more than once, but the view was worth it. The descent on the other side was a bit easier. I "skied" down the snowy slopes.

First things first: This section was absolutely spectacular!

From the refuge down to the end of GPT 19 is steep at first, but good and easily findable trail (approximately 3 hours).

Hitchhiked to started packrafting here Port {19} [2.9/103] (Puerto Maqueo) easy access to water. Very good conditions (10:00 am). Went on land and followed the RR. Very good condition. Like in 02/23 locked gate and no one around at Hector and Neri’s place. Pitched tent at -40.480692, -72.135769. Snow starts at 1350m. Water was available. I would recommend having sunglasses (preferably glacier sunglasses), suncream, and a hat. The next 2 days were hiking on snow with constant snow exposure. The snow was a bit slushy but manageable. The trail was due to the snow not visible but you can just follow the GPS. Went from the RR via Option 04A to the Volcano and back. Slept at the Hut. Water was available due to the melting of snow. The way down is easy. Hitchhiked to Entre Lagos.

Contact: https://linktr.ee/RundW

I first attempted to make my way to the plateau by Option 02A. This is not possible as the entire lower trail lies within the private park Parque Futangeu. The entrance fee would be $15.000, camping is forbidden and access to the upper parts is blocked by private property of one of the park owners. Park is strictly fenced and has a guarda del parque. So this is definetly no Option for ascent but maybe for leaving the plateau NOBO. I easily catched a ride on Option 2 to the RR. The gate to Neri and Hectors place was locked, therefore i passed the two locked gates on Option D and connected by Option E back on RR. As others mentioned water is scarce all the way up, but a little creek can be easily accessed from Option D just 200 m after Option E has branched (S 40° 25.785' W 072° 06.839'). Good camping spots when Option G reenters RR. Saw wild boar nearby. Snow starts apruptly at 1300 m within the forest. Mystic atmosphere but hard walking. Lots of patagonian woodpeckers around. Snow increases gradually and I decided to leave my backpack near the Water ? {19} [53.5/1330] which was nearly covered by snow but provides already fresh water. At the rim of the plateau (1550 m) the views were spectacular but the plateau is impassable right now as it has meters of snow there. So I returned back the same way to Rininahue.

==Season 2022/23==

Great section, after a lot of forrest trails it was nice to see again something totally different and quite similiar to the landscape of GPT06. We were a little irresponsible with the water so better plan carefully.

Contact: @martin_hanzelka @helenneka

I wanted to precise one thing that I haven't understand : Santiago has a restaurant, near the road and a refuge (waypoint refuge no water). You have to check in at the restaurant to pay the 15k CLP /pers. This price includes a night in the refuge (there is nobody in there), access to volcano and a night at the camping near the restaurant (with cold shower for free).

Option OH-001 crossing Rio Corrigue: this section barely exists as large parts have been taken back by bamboo. It is now a severe & sustained bamboo bash requiring huge effort to crawl, break & climb through at about 1 kilometre per hour. Try RR or other options instead.

I came from GPT18. Before Lago Maihue there are a couple of small shops & a restaurant. As you go around Lago Maihue on the road there are a lot of $ campsites, then the road climbs high above the lake before dropping to Rio Hueinahue. I forded the river easily & went down to Camping Rupimeca at the lake, about 1KM off route. Good cheap campsite, no electricity but they will charge your phone at the house. Next day I continued to Hector & Neri's house but they weren't around. I went in on the alternative route which goes right on a road just before Hector & Niri's place. It's marked private with two locked gates but there was no one there. Stream near the road but difficult to access - running in a gully & blocked by vegetation. After several attempts I was able to access the stream higher up & camped nearby. Just before the alternative route rejoins the RR from Hector & Niri's house there is a stream, if you drop down right a few hundred metres from RR onto the alternative route here you can get water. The water sources marked near the treeline were tiny stagnant pools & they are a bit off trail. However, in early January there was plenty of water above treeline from snowmelt. Did the spectacular traverse in one long day. The snowfields could be traversed or avoided fairly easily. Fill up with water before you descend to the hut. There was no water at the hut & on the trail out to the road the marked water sources were only tiny trickles. Carry a few litres of water up to the hut if you are NOBO. There was no one at the entrance & I hitched out to Entre Lagos.

Much has already been explained in great detail, so we will be brief: We saw no one at the entrance and therefore walked through without paying an entrance fee. The two water streams in the forest are dry and there is no water directly at the refugio. However, there are still snowfields about 1-2 km further up from the refugio which provide enough water. There was still enough water at 68.6. After that, there were still isolated snowfields, but partly further away from the trail. We spent the night between the lava rocks at S 40.53312 / W 72.16869, as there were still snowfields there, which we used for drinking water. After that, there was no more water until we reached Neri and Hector's house. The two of them were so nice and filled up our water. They charged an entrance fee of 5,000 CLP per person. Because of language barriers, we weren't sure if it was voluntary or because we couldn't show a ticket from the other entrance. Anyway, we paid and moved on. Hitchhiking to Rininahue went quite well once you are on the bigger Minor Road T-851.

From Panguipulli we took a bus at 8:40 am to Los Lagos (on a thursday). From there we took another bus to Paillaco at 11:30 am and got off at the cruce Reumén/Futrono. The connecting bus to Futrono passed there around 12:20 pm. From Futrono we took a bus to Llifén at 13:15 pm. From there we hitchhiked until the junction of Option 2 with the RR at km 37 approx. and arrived there around 17:00 pm. On the way up to Los Venados there is one accessible creek approx. 2,5 km before Los Venados. When we arrived there the gate following the RR was locked. As we didn't wanted to dry camp (we didn't fill up our bottles at the creek) we tried to get access to the river following variant D. It's definitely not possible to get water there, the forest is too dense and its getting too steep to climb down. So we went back and luckily after a while Hector and Neri arrived. They offered us to stay at their Refugio the night as it was already quite late.

==Season 2020/21==

4 days - skipping some of the gravel road along the lake

On the road along the lake we were passed by a bus going to Valdivia which we jumped on happily, so coming off the trail could not have been easier. It passed through Maihue and Futrono as well.

The "Plateau" still has a LOT of snow.

==Season 2019/20==

Great section, amazing views, no technical difficulties with the trails and cross country..

After the forest, the volcanic terrain is very easy to walk in and the landscapes are wonderful. We saw many smokes from the volcanic activity but seemed not dangerous. Check the status of the volcano before to go (www.sernageomin.cl).

=Resupply and Accommodation=