Cambios

==Season 2024/25==

I camped in camping Carilafquen in Huechelepun. I left early in the morning as it was 32km to get to Reigolil. I stopped by the lodge nevados for a coffee and stayed a bit, the place was so lovely. On the highest parts of the regular route there are some patches of snow to cross but nothing sketchy. Watch out for snow bridges though. The river fords are doable as well.

We did a combination of GPT 14 and 15, although we didn't have the files at this time.

==Season 2023/24==

We did sections 14 and 15 together.

We left Laguna Huequefilo and headed back to finish 14 and start 15. We gathered more piñones along the way. At (-39.05455, -71.46918), around km 52.26 there was a sign for a minimarket. The woman who runs is, Viviana, is very nice. She and her family moved there a couple of years ago from Santiago. We suggested she carry gas for camping and she said she would try to get some to sell in the future. She had canned fish, pasta, rice, 200 g tomato sauce packets, bullion cubes, mermeladas, butter and margarine, and a variety of cookies and candy. Prices were reasonable. We bought some things and got back to the road. We almost immediately caught a hitch to the beginning of GPT15 Opt 1.

No snowfields, no Tabanos, no Mosquitos. Plenty of water except for the Sollipulli peak area.

Without summiting Sollipulli this would be a drive by section, but Sollipulli makes this section absolutely amazing and I strongly recommend the easy climb up just for those mind blowing views.

What a section !

Then you continue till reaching the gravel road until Icalma. There it's possible to resupply Ith multiple minimercado, you have some possibilities to sleep too, bit it's still a tiny city, don't expect a lot.

from Reigolil - no good resupply, no pan- following RR, night camp 46,9; then no prob (cross rio Carilafquen just first bridge after camping, think it is 14E) till point S38°51.753` W71°23.062` where I follow wrong way- for sure this would lead to 14a and to the main road. I decided go back to RR and be hours in bush. At the end I missed the route once more but I found water which I needed (aprox S38°50.483` W71°21.907`) and then meet 14B and back to RR to the camp $ 13, and next day to Icalma pueblo.

Hitchhiked to km 5,2. Then I went on RR, found last water at -38.841797 -71.363423, soon after the as overgrown marked trail starts. Trail actually not to bad overgrown, most of the time clearly visible, sometimes I had to stick to GPS, especially at the beginning, there are a few trails there… Till the Laguna {14C} I did not see water anymore, except close to Camp at km 17,9, around 50m down towards the puesto was running a little streamlet, maybe drying out? Laguna on OH 14-C is very nice! Good camping spot, but I headed on, still to early. Camped then at km 28,6. I loved this place! An open air cinema with all the green and birds flying and singing around. At -38.889097 -71.450367 you’ll find a locked? gate, barbed wire fence around. Check if it is really locked, I did not look accurately! I say this, because the next one I encountered outside this valley was just pseudolocked. Anyway, I passed the fence at around -38.889820 -71.449927, around 100ms to the left from gate beneath. Seemed to me the best option, but check out for yourself…Walked on. You’ll find another unlocked gate at -38.901269 -71.504529, private property with a sign that just authorised persons can pass, some company I suppose. I took a detour over OH14 E, but having seen the exit of this company road close to km 30, shortly before the bridge, I would have taken it. There a gate as well, but not locked and either entrance or exit nobody around. Went on to Conaf to take some water. Read about their rules and so I decided to take the unofficial trail up to the volcano shown on the OSMmap at 38.9238605S, 71.4873252W as some others already spotted. My plan was to do the Sollipulli-Traverse over the rim. The thing is: Where this trail (actually more an MR) starts, there is a nearly 100m long fence, hindering you to drop in directly, furthermore at the end of this fence there is an other cabaña, looks like an outpost of CONAF checking who is taking this trail. I do not know who sits in this shack, did not want to know either, did not want to explain my plans. So I went back were the fence starts. This is at -38.92315, -71.48867, there is a signboard with „Sollipulli Lodge, 500ms". There I dropped into the bushes. There would be actually a pretty nice camp spot for one to two tents at around -38.922156 -71.489928, around 30ms from the MR, but nobody sees you and water nearby at the other side of the road. From there I walked up (little CC) keeping in mind where the OSM trail goes, found a path and somewhere I got on this OSM trail. Went up to the summit. Looked over the rim, realized I had to descent for the next summit towards the south, impossible there to cross over the rim. Went down southeast of the summit to this two beautiful lakes, some bigger snowfields there, but could be done with afternoon sun. Camped at -38.971172 -71.489823, an amazing campsite! But realized there that without micro spikes or crampons I would have to detour some extended snowfields in the morning and loose a lot of time, not knowing what expects me after the next summit. So I skipped my plan for the traverse and went down over OH 14-01. Then all the way out to Reigolil. Difficult for me to hitch a car…

DON'T SKIP GPT14, the views on Nevados de Sollipulli is one of the most STUNNING views in my life!

At last, I didn't cross bridge[59.8/835] to Reigolil and keep going south because i have enough food for GPT15.

Last year we wondered if one can avoid roadwalking on GPT 14 and GPT15 by traversing Sollipulli (not the glacier) and it turns out it can be done and is quite a spectacular option (probably a lot more attractive then RR and when done right, not with too many people). The idea is, SOBO, to follow the rim of Sollipulli for about 4 km, then go to Laguna Cochor (14-01B), then to Laguna Isolda, Termas Rio Blanco and NP Huerquehue (15-01) and then Villarica Traverse (16-04). If you hitch (should be easy) or take a bus between the end of 15-01 and beginning of 16-04 through Pucon, you will get quite a nice trail without much roadwalking. See our notes to GPT15 and GPT16 for the rest of this option, here follows the Solipulli bit.

Next day, we walked down to the road, walked about six km, got a hitch of 3 km to Reigolil, after 15 min there got a hitch of 5 km, waited for an hour and then got a hitch all the way to Pucón (about 75 min of driving).

Trail is mildly overgrown going up to the first campsite but not as bad as expected. Usually until your knees but the trail is still visible, it just slows you down. Keep an eye on your GPS if you think you lost it, it's spot on with the GPX files. Camp 14 [22.4] is such a nice spot! Be aware that if you want to do the Sollipulli summit you have to there before 1100 (according to the sign) or the rangers won't let you up. Still a 2hr walk, but not difficult.

==Season 2022/23==

One of the best sections so far for us thanks to the Sollipulli volcano. We started at the Icalma lake (the San Alfonso camp was great, 10 000 per two people, hot water (yes!) and access to the beach). There are some restaurants and minishops as well, enough to resupply I believe. The overgrown section had been cleared half a bamboo-metre ago, so sometimes it was tough and felt like the forest wants to suck you in. Nothing impassable, but the two kilometres took us two hours. Another thing - the river where the ascent starts in the forest is for long the only water source there if the weather is dry. There was a gate (S 38° 53.3570' W 071° 27.0191'); there's a hole in the fence on the left that we went under. We camped at a good spot on the right side of the road (S 38°53.4903' W 071° 27.8162'). The next day, we rushed to the CONAF station - we got there a little past 11 AM, but the ranger let us do the ascent anyway, we even had lunch before we went up (not from the stand, sadly, still operates only at the weekends). You can leave your backpacks with the ranger, which was great! We didn't pay anything to enter the park. It took us 5 hours there and back with a longer break at the top. The view from the top is indescribable plus the path leading up to it is also very nice with some snowpatches next to it that you can slide down as you please.

The bus schedule: 7:30 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. from the bus stop by the shop to Pucon.

We used Icalma as a resupply which worked well enough; many "mini- supermercados" and cheap accomodation (we had a cabana for 20mil/10mil each) but as a warning internet is awful! There is a nice pehuenche restaurant at the southern end of town on the main road and a little further than this on the main road you can get the best cell signal. Supposedly a bus goes to Lonquimay Mon-Wed-Fri but I forget the times, I think it was at 6am and 3pm.

We headed to routa S-965 to hitch to GPT15 PN Huerquehue (no cars passed until S-965).

This section took us 2 days. Unfortunately we didn’t go to the summit, because we needed to go quickly down to Curarrehue, but otherwise we wouldn’t skip it, just a few kms more and it looks incredible. About the trail, the beginning is a dirt road around the lakes and it continues until the start of overgrown section. That is a little more than 4kms, but from the start its a relatively normal trail, easy to follow. The overgrown part is mainly between km 2-3.5, but not so terrible overall following the gps. We camped at the end of this part that took us around 2 hrs, maybe less. After that you walk on a minor road all the time, in a really nice forrest. All the puestos were empty. Hot Spring waypoint is somewhere around houses so we didn’t even go there. To cross the river before CONAF station we used GPT14-E and the bridge. At the station was one guard, food truck closed, water available. The lodging after 1km is nice but it comes with higher prices, we stopped there to have some drink and beer + cola (cans) cost us 6k CLP. We spent the night in the forrest after the pass, but camp at km 46.9 looked great. The rest of the trail is still the same gravel road. Minishop at 57.8 has only basic food, but also some things for repairs etc. In Reigolil was only one shop on the main road open with very limited supplies, but we got from the lady pastel de choclo and some homemade bread, all delicious! Later we continued to GPT15.

==Season 2019/20==

From Reigolil to Solipulli it is a very easy forest road inside the reserva nacional. Carabineros asked some questions and said we could camp where we wanted. Arriving at the CONAF site at Solipulli, there is a small campground, free if you pay the entrance for the volcanoe (4000pp). There is a food truck with sopaipillas and jugos. We hiked the Solipulli and it is a must see. It is incredible and there are not that many people doing it. The CONAF ranger is very friendly. We did not hike from there to Icalma to avoid bushbashing and we wanted to see the big fiesta planned in Melipeuco (every year in late feb). It was worth it as we got to see a celebration of baqueanos. Melipeuco is not this nice but there are several supermarkets and restaurants to resupply. Easy hitch to Icalma (or there are 2 buses / day). We then hitched to Liucura to start section 12.

Nothing to add to the previous comments. We arrived at the pipeline construction site during working hours and just followed the indications of the workers, no detour, just some optional route. We spent the night at the CONAF campground and had one of the best breakfasts in Chile at the Sollipulli Lodge (13'000 p.P.). As the rain hasn't stopped by lunchtime we had lunch there too, it was excellent :-D We actually quite liked this section with all the trees. We directly added section 15 after this one. There are several busses per day from Reigolil to Curarrehue but we don't know the schedule.

We combined sections 14 and 15. It took us 3 days and nero.

GPT15 - road and trail in good condition. On the climb to the lake bit before last settler there are some wild cherry trees on the left. We stuffed ourselves and left for others too. Enjoy. Multiple shops, accomodation options and restaurants in Curarrehue.

Overgrown trail towards the start is relatively easy to follow. Mostly overgrown around the middle but the tracks towards either end are in decent condition. The rest of the section is easy walking. I would strongly recommend taking a small detour to summit Volcán Sollipulli in the CONAF National park (~30km into the section). When we arrived at the park we had to pay a CLP 4000 fee per person. When speaking to the ranger about where we intended to walk, he advised that the optional route down from the Volcán we planned to take is in very poor condition and would not let us take it. We had to do an out and back. It took us around 3.5-4h to summit and return. The trail is in excellent condition (trail markers are present) and the view is spectacular!! Possibly the best thing I’ve seen on the GPT. We camped in the park for no charge and bought some hot food from the food truck in the evening on the weekend. No issues with the rest of the section.

2 long days including Sollipulli climb

A few minor corrections: There is no bridge @ Bridge 46, just ford the river easily. Gate @ far side of ford is marked no entry but walking through appears to be OK.

There is a gravel track that stays on the right side of the river & goes past Ford 133 & Ford 134 so you don't need to cross either of them. It leads to Ford 135 which you do cross.

=Resupply and Accommodation=