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The section follows the rather popular tourist Hiking route Las Horquetas for the first two days, meaning there will be less solitude but also rather well maintained trails. The national park and the region around Cerro Castillo was very impressive, we especially enjoyed to take all the side trails and visit the numerous beautiful glacier lagoons.
The only unpleasant part of the hike was the organization of the national park. The exorbitant high entrance fees are in no relation to the other parks, which is due to a high ratio of private land in the area but makes the park rather unattractive for tourists. some rangers seemed poorly informed and couldn't give much information (e.g. insisted that passes were "closed" and only after asking numerous times agreed to check with his colleagues that told that they are "open"). They also said it is not possible to hike the regular route of the GPT, because we have to check out of the NP at the checkpoint Las Horquetas. There is an optional hiking route continuing North from there. Due to bad weather coming up we ended up not finishing the northern stretch of the trail and just followed the entire Las Horquetas Route at the Carretera Austral.
Jan 2020
GPT32 South 7days
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Coyhaique to Villa Freí:
There is a bus from the bus terminal in Coyhaique to Villa Freí.
From there it was a hot dusty road.
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Accessing the park :
You have to pass through 4 private properties to enter the first sector of the park. We met some people. Had short friendly chats, but no problems with access.
Just before you enter the park (where there are two trail options) there is easy access to the river via a cow trail. However water in general was no issue and I didn't carry water for the entire 7 days through the park.
The camp site used to be an official campsite before the sector was closed due to access problems. The dunny is in great shape.
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Through the first sector :
The trail is in great shape until after the mirador. You then cut upwards into the alpine which is also easy walking. After passing through a saddle, you contour around above the treeline. This is the most difficult part of the section. Quite a bit of step scree traversing. Not for everyone.
Once you drop into the valley waking is again easier. There are some occasional cairns that become more and more frequent as you drop into the other valley. As you contour left an intermittent trail is evident. When you enter the lenga forest (-45.97321, -72.10278) there is a great trail down that turns into a road here : (-45.97886, -72.10358) (Jan: maybe you want to update the track files to reflect this?)
Then is road walking to join the popular walk.
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Popular sector of Cerró Castillo :
There are some side trips not included in the track files. They're on the map you get.
Note that the old Bosque site (-46.06197, -72.16016) and La Tetera (-46.07200, -72.18390) are now closed. You can not camp there. For most people this means camping at the new el Bosque : (-46.06418, -72.16964)(Jan : maybe you want to update the track files?)
Get to Laguna Cerró Castillo before 12 to beat the walkers heading up for the day. But this shouldn't be an issue as you need to cross the pass early : an important thing we would have liked to know is that the pass (-46.08030, -72.21103) can be closed in the afternoon due to strong winds. There is literally a ranger there that can turn people around.
Not much water over the pass either. And the poza cerca mirador doesn't look welcoming. Carry water here.
In the next valley there were more rangers and we saw some people get checked for permits.
It's a shame this park is now being comercialalised :(
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Getting back to Coyhaique :
Not much traffic. The last bus heads back at 6pm
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I'll try upload some map photos and a breakdown of the entrance fees when I get the photos off my camera.
Cheers, Felix.
==Summary Table==