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→Season 2025/2026
==Season 2025/2026==
* <span style="background-color:aqua;">'''2026-01-17 to 2026-01-22 / 6 Days / Packrafting & Hiking / SOBO then NOBO / Opt 09, 08, RR, Var D, Opt 03 / Michel & Lisa'''</span>
Summary: Another really beautiful section. It's a bit of a battle to get up to the Torres (either long road waking or bush bashing) but it's actually worth it. We took the packraft down Río Murta in very high flow and stashed things in Cruce Murta before venturing up to the Torres. There are definitely mice here as well so we made sure to always hang our food and had zero problems this way. Option 8 is both nice and deserted but also tough, especially for going in. As others have said it might be a better option to get out with lighter packs, due to the bushwhacking and the elevation gain on this route.
Day 1
We took the bus towards Chile Chico from Coyhaique at 8:00 from the bus terminal and got dropped off at River In {33H-09) [0.0/275] at around 12:15. There's an open, small hut that we used for shelter from the setting in rain. You could sleep in there as well. The river water levels were really high due to rain the previous two days and the flow fast - very different from what the satellite images show. Turbid, brown water instead of crystal clear, blueish. We started paddling and enjoyed the really fast flow (10 km/h and more when completely in the flow). At the same time it meant that we couldn't see much of what was going on below the water surface and we scratched over rocks a couple of times. There were hardly any rock islands visible and we floated over places that on satellite images are just rock - there was that much water. At times we were worried that the river could become dangerous in narrow stretches if there were sunken trees but nothing dangerous happened. We made the 36 km to Bridge (33H-04) [0.2/211] in only 3 h 20 min (excluding breaks). We took close by, at Residencial Patagonia [-46.44156, -72.71190] where the high water levels basically allowed us to float into their back yard. We stayed the night (20000 clp pp in a room, 8000 clp for camping) and stored our packraft in the alojamiento for going to the torres.
Day 2
We hitchhiked to Bahía Murta, bought some additional supplies and started hiking Option 8. The path is clear and easy to travel at first. After Ford {33H-08} [11.5/545] (Estero Sur) the trail becomes harder to follow with boggy sections and lots of fallen trees. There's considerable elevation gain up to Water (33H-08} [14.5/946], where you get the first nice views of the valley and start descending again. We continued to Camp (33H-08} [16.1/703] where we found a spot that's just big enough to put a 2 person tent and not exactly flat but good enough. All in all we did 22.3 km that day in 9 h 25 min, thanks to the bushwhacking which wasn't terrible but not exactly pleasant either.
Day 3
We continued from our camp and were positively surprised that the path actually got better after the first ~3-4 km with less fallen trees, a more visible path and less soggy ground. There are many more potential campsites along this section which are not marked in the track files, some of them I noted here:
* S46.376195° W72.537594°
* S46.354586° W72.516934°
* S46.348093° W72.501339° (camp with some tables and a view over an open (boggy) area with mountains in the background - looks like someone is trying to set something more commercial up here)
* S46.352356° W72.489023°
We got to RR at around 14:00 and continued for a while before taking a well deserved lunch break. We chose to follow Variant D which is more direct and leads to the first lagoon. If you're comfortable with hiking over rocks and boulders we would definitely recommend this over RR since the view of the towering mountains you get once you're at the lagoon is amazing (given good weather I suppose). There are no obvious camp spots at the lagoon itself but you can find level, sandy spots in the vicinity of you wanted to stay here. It can probably get pretty windy down here though. We continued to Camp {33H} [61.1/1167] and went for a swim in the second lagoon (yes, the weather was that good, haha - lucky us!) which is about 10 min walking from the camp. We didn't find a perfectly flat spot here but there are a couple options that are actually more than fine. The advantage of picking this site is that you're really sheltered from the wind, thanks to the trees. Water nearby and soft ground (vegetation) are added benefits. Some parts are quite wet so you might have to search around for a moment to find something suitable.
Day 4
We decided to have a relaxed day and just hiked up to the pass to see the actual Torres, which to be honest we found almost a bit underwhelming. Personally I much preferred the view down the valley from our camp and from the first lagoon. But you might get a better view from down in the valley from the lagoons (i.e. after descending from the pass, which we didn't do). Still, the Torres are impressive and it was definitely worth the walk up. From the valley bottom and the pass it looked like one could potentially climb up to one of the passes to the east to get a view down onto option 02 (-46.40615, -72.48187 or -46.40237, -72.48235) but it would be a scramble - we didn't try. Potentially it could even be possible to go down there to join option 02 with some bushwhacking, but that's really a shot into the blue. Maybe someone wants to try. ;)
Day 5
Since there was some bad weather forecast for the coming days we decided to hike out. Going down we decided to try the RR to be able to compare with variant D. RR was also fine but there was some trail finding through the forest required and some boggy sections as well. However, it might still be slightly faster than Variant D. Still, coming up I would highly recommend Variant D so you get the beautiful view from the lagoon. We came all the way to [-46.28395, -72.44366] in 6 h 50 min, where we camped. The spot is close to the road but invisible from there, nice and flat and wind protected. In the evening a pigmy owl came for a visit and sat in the tree next to us really close before it was detected by another bird and flew away - a pretty special encounter. Lots of mouse holes everywhere so we hung our food like always on this section just to be sure.
Day 6
We continued along the road, first nice and shady in the forest and then in the scorching heat of the sun. We saw a pigmy owl in the forest that allowed us to observe it for quite a while and then we even saw it catch some large insect (a firefly maybe?) which felt like another really special moment along the otherwise rather dull road.
We continued walking along the road until we were lucky to get picked up by one of the settlers who was driving to Villa Cerro Castillo with his wife. They were very friendly and explained a lot about their lifestyle living up in the mountain valley all year. They said that the flow of hikers to the Torres has really increased in the past few years and that some people seem to be setting up some gear for climbing up there with clients. They said that they didn't mind hikers coming to visit. :)
* ''' 2026-01-16 to 2026-01-20 / 5 days / Hiking / SOBO 3B, RR, H, K / Daniel.s '''