Cambios

When planning the Greater Patagonian Trail the first choice were the '''hiking and horse trails''' that traverse the remote valleys and mountain passes in the heart of the Andes close to the border between Chile and Argentina. Most of these trails are created and maintained by local herdsmen to drive lifestock livestock to their summer pastures and by settlers that live in solitary.

The second choice were unused or rarely travelled '''minor dirt roads'''. Such often neglected roads typically provide access to isolated settlements or villages without atracting attracting any transit traffic. Some of these roads are not maintained anymore and not accessible by vehicle but passable for hikers. Most hiking trails in Europe would fall in this category since the majortiy majority of hiking trails in Europe are occasionally used by forestry and agricultural vehicles.

Not all hiking options are recorded yet by GPS since the author investigated the Greater Patagonian Trail with a packraft. There is also a shorter part that could not be hiked because one area was closed at the time of the investigation due to a large wild fire. These '''to be verified''' trails may therefore be imprecisely shown in this trail description and by the KMZ files. But the author has reliable information that these trails exist and have been hiked recently. At this time the author has simply no precise GPS record and the route is not sufficently sufficiently visible on satellite images.

Whereever Wherever possible the Greater Patagonian Trail incorporates '''lake''' crossings, '''river''' downstream floats and even paddeling on '''fjords''' with a [[#Packraft|packraft]]. If not carrying such a light-weight inflatable boat or if the weather does not permit paddeling paddling then all these water sections can be bypassed on foot, by ferry or with private boat transfers. The river downstream floats do not include whitewater white-water rivers with large rappidsrapids.