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→Season 2023/24
==Season 2023/24==
*2024 Feb 13 to Feb 18 / 6 days / Hiking / SOBO / RR, Var C, Var D, some off GPT track / Michael and Kaisa
We combined sections 9, 10, and 11 together.
TLDR: beautiful section with some very impressive araucaria forests. Technically easy but navigationally a little challenging due to so many trails branching everywhere. Laguna Liay is definitely worth visiting.
Day 1 - Feb 13
After finishing our resupply in Trappa Trappa, we started on RR. The road was fully exposed until we got up a ways into the forest. After that I had to watch the GPS fairly closely. As has been noted previously, the horse trails fork off in different directions, sometimes rejoining and sometimes not. The trail was pretty dusty, but the forest was beautiful. There was very little water access for quite awhile. We arrived at the camp point at km 7.1 with the Mapuche family. No one was at the house so we started looking around. I found Elías in another part of the property. He was very kind and said we were welcome to camp. He showed us a nice spot near a creek set away from the road. We had initially thought to camp more in the open area but he said that the road gets a lot of traffic in the night and the are some “mala gente” that pass through, so the spot he showed us was safer.
Day 2 - Feb 14
We started hiking early and the morning light on the landscape was absolutely beautiful. We stopped after the first ford, mid calf with little current, to have coffee and enjoy the area. We continued on passing a lot of puestos. Many seemed abandoned or falling apart, though there were people at several of them. We waved and they waved back, but they were fairly far from the road so we didn't go over to talk. We met our first other GPT hikers, Christof and Alex (hi guys! We hope you got the roasted chicken in Antuco!) We crossed the second ford, just under the knee, and had lunch and a nap and then started up to the pass. The path was mostly in forest, and though steep, we didn't find it difficult. We started on Var C to Laguna Liay sticking more to the OSM track than the GPT track. We got down to the lake and wanted to go all the way around to the north side, but part way up the trail started heading up to the plateau. We returned to the bottom and tried to walk in the water counterclockwise around the lake, but after only about 50 m there was a section where I was sinking deep into mud. We walked back to the south side beach and then walked the beach clockwise to get to the north side. There were a few fallen trees to climb over, but otherwise we had no issues going that way. On the north side there was a fairly sizable sand beach with a fire ring. We camped there.
Day 3 - Feb 15
We took a rest day at the lake. The atmosphere at the lake was so peaceful and the scenery was so beautiful. Not one person passed through that day, and it felt really amazing to have such a quiet, serene and beautiful place all to ourselves. It got hot during the afternoon so we retreated up into the woods a bit to get some shade. In the late afternoon I went to scout Var D for the next day. There isn't a full trail there really, but from the beach looking uphill I could see a brown stripe going up. It was a short BB to get to it and then a steep up. The trail forked after maybe 50 m. I first went left, but after a while it was all dead ends and started to lose elevation. I went back and tried the right fork with a combination BB/CC and was finally able to connect to a path. From there it was easy to get up to the plateau and then to the other marked campsite which was near a pond that had mostly evaporated for the season.
Day 4 - Feb 16
We started early to get over the pass before it got hot. We took the scouted approximate Var D up and then connected in with RR. The pass was easy and on the far side there was an incredible monkey puzzle forest. As noted there was no water. We took the OSM track up just before the descent to Laguna El Barco for the lookout. The trail down to Laguna El Barco was somewhat steep but easy to follow. At the bottom it passes through a puesto on the way to the road. The guy there also rents camping sites. The El Barco campground is somewhat chaotically managed. We arrived on a Friday and it was packed with vacationing Chilenos. Posted price was 5.000 pp for the picnic area day use and 8.000 pp for camping. They offered 6.000 pp without a table, which we took. It turns out that that is for essentially an unused parking spot next to the road. We would have left, but it was too late to go anywhere else. A very nice couple happened by as we were setting up and said they were about to leave and we could have their spot which had a table and was away from the road. We thanked them and moved up. The shop seems not to be operating this year. The small building it was in was empty and the door was just hanging open. There were two groups selling food, one at the entrance selling tortillla, a fairly large and dense bread cooked directly in the ash in the fire for 2.000 each, some smaller pan amasado, sopaipillas 500 each, a fried dessert bread dusted in powdered sugar 3 for 1.000, and churasco for 4.000. They also had sodas, 1.200 for a 591 ml bottle. The other group was at a camp just past the lower bathrooms, and two of them walked around the campground periodically as well. They had tortilla 2.000 each, sopaipillas 2 for 1.000, and some kind of tea. The second place had our favorite tortillas, we ate several of them. The churrasco was a disappointment. I was thinking Bolivian churasco which is just grilled meat. These were sandwiches with a couple thin strips of meat simmered in liquid in a frying pan and then put on huge breads with a slice of tomato, a bit of lettuce and some mayo. They were okay, but not what I had expected.
Day 5 - Feb 17
We left late and hiked RR. On the other side is another much smaller and more laid back campground. It is run by the couple that lives there. Price was 6.000 pp with a table. They had a toilet and sinks, no shower. They sold tortillas on request, 2.000 each, but the woman, Clementina, makes them when she's making their food, so it can be awhile. We bought 5 of them and they were larger than the ones in the campground. Wrapped in paper towels and kept in plastic bags, these lasted us almost 5 days.
Day 6 - Feb 18
We continued on RR with the intention to head to Guallalí. Along the way we meet a Mapuche arriero, Hector, at his pesto (-37.95912, -71.26119). If you pass by there and he is around, definitely make some time to talk with him. He was incredibly kind and generous, offered us coffee, took us to his animal corral to pet the goats, told us about the political structure in the Mapuche comunidades, and even showed us some of the medicinal plants in the area. He also sells goats and sheep and does asados, but we didn't ask the price. We were about to leave when a friend of his arrived to pick something up for a really important Mapuche ceremony that was finishing that day. His friend gave us a ride, which took us off the GPT track a bit, but dropped us very near a shop at (-38.01007, -71.30695) run by a woman named Maria that actually had a good selection of stuff. We bought pasta, a queso mantecoso from the region that lasted 3 days, her last can of Nescafé, some tomatoes and cucumbers, Zukos, and cookies. She also had eggs, frozen meat, sodas, beer, yogurt, a few other types of cheese, and various other things. Prices were very reasonable. She had a small table and a bench outside the shop and let us stay there to have lunch and repack. More than a dozen cars stopped by to buy things while we were there, so it seems like a pretty popular spot. From there we walked on the highway towards Comunidad Vilcuncura and on towards Comunidad Chenqueco. We passed one other shop at (-38.01473, -71.31626) that looked sizable and had a range of things, though we didn't buy anything there. In Comunidad Chenqenco we connected with GPT11 Opt 5A.
*2024-Feb-13 to 2024-Feb-14 / 2 days / Hiking / SOBO / RR + OH E / Joscha