Cambios

Took night bus from Santiago to Futrono(it arrives early in the morning and all shops are still closed by then, if you need to buy something you have to wait until 8:30-9:00), then local bus from Futrono to Llifen, got offered a ride to Enrique's place for 15k$. We decided to follow Greg's advice and take Variant D, so we contacted Enrique the day before with the number provided. He was very talkative and accommodating and we paid him 2x10k$ to Enrique. He offered to drive us up to the bridge over Rio Nilahue, which we accepted. At the drop off where the gravel section starts we gave him another 10k$ for driving us and we mentioned that we want to go swimming. After this, Enrique insisted to drive us further up to a nice swimming and camping spot (there is also a black gate but the signs say "uso publico", there are tables and benches in the forest and a descent to the river, which forms a nice lagoon) where we were finally dropped off, bathed and filled up our water stock. Took the RR until turning on variant 3 to get to the hot springs at -40.510952, -72.123191 because we were worried about water, as the water at [53.5/1330] were only small puddles. Traversing variant 3 has nice views of the lava flow and the plateau and impressive geysers/fumaroles but steep canyons made traversing more and more challenging. Finally, at the tip of the lava flow where the hot river emerges, crossing is no longer possible due to ongoing canyon incision, as the flanks are a too steep and the rubble is quite loose. We had a close call when we tried to cross the canyon, so we decided to camp on a suitable spot close to the lava flow and scout for a way down on the next day. The next day we found a way to the river following the canyon flank and had to ford the river (-40°30,6096', -72°07,3413'knee-deep but quick) to get to the other side. There is a nice camping spot close to the hot springs (actually two rivers, one hot and one warm with nice poolsand shelters for shade), but it can get crowded on the weekends, as the locals also frequent this spot. To rejoin the trail we followed a route marked by orange tape up towards the lava stream. The way over the plateau was okay, but would have probably been nicer if there hadn't been clouds all day, which meant that we were either walking in fog or rainwith very limited visibility. We set up our camp at (-40°35,5183', -72°08,1358'), which is close to a good flowing water stream fed by melting snow, so it should probably be running for quite some time. This is also a good base camp spot for the Puyehue Summit. We had great weather for the summit, the view is amazing, very worth it! On our way down we passed the empty refugio and met several local groups hiking up there. Also met fellow GPT hikers Christin and Jesse, that was very fun. Camped a little away from Santiago's Property to avoid conflicts and walked to rest of the way to the bus stop in the morning. We met noone on the way but had to climb two fences. The guard dogs were making a lot of noise but turned out to be very friendly. The bus still leaves around 7:30 am and took us to Osorno in ~2h for 2k CLP p.P.