8
ediciones
Cambios
→Season 2025/26: Added our experience, Isabelle and sander
==Season 2025/26==
'''2026-02-03 to 2026-02-10 / 8 days/ Hiking/ WEBO/ Options 3, 2B (Refugio Viejo)/ Isabelle & Sander
There’re some great recent report so we’ll just stick to some short additions.
In general: great mountains in Argentinean part and beautiful forested valley in Chile. We expected busy trails but mostly just met one or two groups per day. Maybe because the first day had a little bit of rain. Only 1 tabaño in 8 days, of which 6 were sunny. Trails are very well maintained.
Day 1 - Colonia Suiza to Refugio Italia, short day. Took the bus at 8 am from Bariloche, wanted to buy some fruit in Colonia Suiza but everything still closed (all shops and restaurants seem to open at 12:30). A handful of day hikers. Some rain. Refugio wants you to reserve camping spot before, some spots are well sheltered. Windy night.
Day 2 - Refugio Italia to osm wild camp between steep passes at -41.17616, -71.64804
Walking the shore of Laguna CAB was almost possible with dry feet, low water levels?
The osm wild camp -41.17616, -71.64804 is very nice, many sheltered places, a little pool for bathing. One other group of Argentinians.
Day 3 - to little lakes 2 km before Laguna ilon
At steep path just east of Lago creton: stay close to cairns. Easy to miss the path. A ‘negative’ sign of two bamboo sticks in a cross also helped us when we took a wrong turn. Between the little lakes where we camped you’ll find many flat sheltered spots, perhaps better to continue to official camping at laguna Ilon, but we didn’t reserve beforehand.
Day 4 - short day to Pampa Linda
Camping Rio Manso is very nice. We hoped for some better resupply but could just find lots of cookies and snacks. At camping vuriloche they had some fruits and also batteries and gas. Although Argentinian Gendarmeria is open until 9 (?) you can only get stamps between 8 am and 6 pm.
Day 5 - long day to Refugio viejo del tronador
Chileans carabineros were super nice. Explained its for them a privilege to stay at this pass and do it only once for one month. Although they looked a bit surprised we could leave some stuff in their shed which we didn’t need at the Refugio. Refugio viejo is spectacular. It was Saturday and spent the night with 6 others from Bariloche, felt a bit like hanging with the locals. Most were camping but it seemed hard to get any stakes in the ground. We understood it’s often empty during the week.
Day 6 - down to Settler {21-02} [92.9/592]
You can camp at this settler for 10k Chilean pesos per tent.
Day 7 - long day to Camp {21-02} [120.0/323]
Termas vuriloche super nice and hot. Just when we jumped in a helikopter landed across the hanging bridge at the Refugio. We’re expecting some fancy tourists but turned out they only dropped off some gas canisters for the Refugio.
Later in the forest a cool tarantula dragging a frog behind.
Beautiful flowering big Ulmo trees! Blossoms everywhere.
This camp at the lake is nice and you’ll find some shelter but the water tasted rotten even after filtering (although our filter froze one night so it might not filter properly…). The spot 200 m more south just across the river is probably with better water but less views perhaps.
Day 8 - to Ralun
After one hour hiking it started raining which didn’t stop till the end of the day. We got soaking wet and the trail extremely muddy but still ok to walk. Also quite windy at the lake so we didn’t stop and just continued to ralun. To our surprise one family was making a daytrip in the pouring rain and picked us up on their way down with their car and brought us to Cochamo where we stayed two nights to prepare for gpt 22. Hostal Mauro (23k) was 45k for two person room and had a kitchen with a burning stove, but not really clean. Hostel bicycletta is really nice but dorm was full and double room was 55k and no heating to dry clothes.
'''2026-01-26 to 2026-01-29/ 4 days/ Hiking/ WEBO/ Options 3, 2, 2A/ Greg Carter