While Pumalín is on the immediate eastern and northern boundaries of the town of Chaitén, our next park we are featuring in this post, Corcovado, is also closer to Chaitén than any other hub. So basically, plan on making Chaitén your base camp for two parks, not just one.
Corcovado lies due south of Chaitén, and is associated with two other villages that serve as points of entry and also have some lodging: Raúl Marín Balmaceda, and La Junta.
Most travelers seeking Corcovado out as a singular destination (instead of doing a route of multiple parks) go on a ferry from Quellón at the southern end of the island of Chiloé (opposite side of the bay from Chaitén).
They have good reason! Corcovado is the most inaccessible of all the parks we’ve covered so far, and as hard as it is to believe, the easiest way to get in is on a boat, even though the Austral highway goes right along the eastern boundary.
I will cover how to do the ferry, but considering the route of parks this series describes, I am here to ally with you as a backpacker wanting to access it by land, which is possible, but it’s pretty rustic and you will need to bring your most brave self to the adventure.
The other important thing to know before you go is that Corcovado is occasionally closed to the public. It is a true wilderness, with many parts of it never having a recorded human visit. So, this is a park you should definitely ask the CONAF office in Puerto Montt about, or your transportation provider or lodging. All of them should know based on your date of travel if the park will be open or closed.
If you haven’t yet read up on some of the foundations of the entire seventeen-park route, go back and check out my overview post so you can get oriented.
Because Chaitén is highly sought out for various luxury treks and fishing expeditions, it is fortunate to have its own airport that has connections to Puerto Montt. This isn’t an international airport, however, so you can’t get here from anywhere else than from Puerto Montt. I’ll describe the prices and details in the Where to Start section later.
Even though Chaitén is getting down farther to the south of the Los Lagos region, the closest major airport hub would still be Puerto Montt, as the next closest, Balmaceda, is almost twice the distance farther south.
In Puerto Montt, you can also reserve airport transfers to pick you up and take you to your hotel or to the bus station.
There is no fee to access Parque Nacional Corcovado and its trails. However, you do need to register your visit.
There are three ways to do so:
You can register your visit at the visitor information center or guard post at the park entrance, but there is only one, and it is so far out there that you shouldn’t be surprised if there’s no one there to greet you. You don’t receive a permit in the formal sense of a bureaucratic document. It is a simpler and kinder process of just being recorded in the guest book of the park so the rangers know of your presence and when you plan to return. Again, it bears repeating that even if the park is open, it’s possible you will be going into the park without a ranger present at the station to greet you, so I would highly suggest telling everyone your plans to keep yourself safe.
The most onerous, but this one may be the best and necessary in the case of Corcovado, where it’s highly possible you will not pass a formal ranger station while in the park. Visit a branch of CONAF in Puerto Montt, which is the government ministry that oversees the national parks.
I’ve supplied a list of addresses in this same section of the head overview article.
The surest bet, but only if you’re doing the maritime entry through a ferry ticket, is to simply get a ferry ticket of course. The ferry ticket is a proxy for your your park registration, even though you won’t be able to get off the ferry to do any trails.
You can either fly in to Puerto Montt, the largest city of southern Chile, or read our article on how to get to Puerto Montt by bus from Santiago, which also describes some top attractions to check out when you get there.
To make it even more convenient, we have private drivers available to get you from and to the airport, or for full drives all throughout the Los Lagos and Chiloé regions.
Flights connecting the other airport hubs in this article (Balmaceda and Punta Arenas) are also available in Puerto Montt, plus to the smaller airport in Chaitén, but read more below as flying to Chaitén has several caveats that might dissuade you.
If you are starting in Puerto Montt at the bus station, or continuing from Lenca or Hornopirén from hiking in the other parks, you want to seek out the Buses Kemel line. The bus trip takes approximately ten hours (from Puerto Montt) and they go all the way to Chaitén, including two short ferry crossings from Caleta La Arena to Puelche, and Pillan to Caleta Gonzalo. These are not reservable online at this time.
Lastly, Puerto Montt is the head harbor for the southern Chile ferry system, which I highly recommend using to get around Chilean Patagonia. In this case you would not take the ferry to Chaitén, but to Quellon, and then another connecting ferry from Quellon to Raúl Marín Balmaceda, which is the maritime port of Corcovado. You can disembark in Raúl Marín Balmaceda, but it is just a town, not a trailhead into the park. Departures from Puerto Montt to Quellon, and from Quellon to Raúl Marín Balmaceda are both at 23:00, and you arrive to each port in the morning of the next day. So, basically it’s a full day and half journey to get to Raúl Marín Balmaceda, and you can reserve online by choosing the Austral reservation from the search results here.
I would not recommend at all going north from Coyhaique or Puerto Aysén. It’s just too far. You’ll want to go to parks south of those cities.
Open mostly in summer
Topography: Temperate Rainforest, marine coastal marshes, and high mountainous shrub.
Climate: Rainy but mild
Well, if you’re like me, you go because you enjoy a challenge to say the least. Corcovado maintains an aura of beauty that could only be described as a dreamscape on another planet. That is due to its impenetrable nature of thick forests, icy rivers flowing from glaciers, and pristine lakes and bays where wildlife still gather in abundance.
The icon of the park is the Corcovado volcano, that you can see on a clear day from Chaitén. But it boasts a second volcano (Nevado), as well as the only feature you can get close to by land, which is the the Yelcho glacier.
Because of its relative isolation and difficult terrain, Corcovado is a haven for many endangered species, including the Pudú deer, the Chiloé Fox, the Southern River Otter, the Colocolo Opossum, and the Puma.
From the deck of the ferry or in private boats, birdwatchers will relish seeing all manner of marine birds perching and flying in the marshes and wetlands along the Gulf of Corcovado and Tic Toc Bay, including the Magellanic Penguin. You will also likely spot whales! Look for Blue Whales, Humpbacks, Pilots, and Sperm Whales.
Even though I try to underscore how inaccessible Corcovado is, it’s not completely off limits. If you have the money to spend, there are private small planes that fly into crude airstrips inside the park for fishing trips, and you can arrange for them in Puerto Montt, Puerto Varas, or Chaitén.
In Raúl Marín Balmaceda, you can also hire local boats that will take you up and down the coast of the estuaries to see the wildlife of the park.
|
Name
|
Distance
|
Hiking Time (round-trip)
|
Difficulty
|
Features
|
Open
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Ventisquero Yelcho
|
3.2 km
|
3 hours
|
Easy
|
Yelcho glacial snowdrift
|
Partially open
|
Since this is an article about continuing on from previous parks, the ferry described above is not relevant to that serial logic. So my suggested strategy assumes you’re already in Chaitén.
There is only one publicly accessible trail, which is on the Carretera Austral (Route 7) going south from Chaitén, which is the easy and short trail to see the Yelcho glacier.
However, to get there you have to think ahead, because whatever bus drops you off at the trailhead, the highway at that point is rough and remote, and you may not be able to wave down the next passing bus for several hours, leaving you exposed in the cold (unless you take shelter in the guard house down off the highway, and only then assuming it’s open).
There are no bus tickets reservable online for this trajectory. So, in the next section I will describe transportation options, but in any case, you will want to leave Chaitén about 8:00 am in order to get to the trailhead roughly 45 minutes to one hour later at 9:00 am. This will leave you plenty of daylight and warmth to make the short trek to the Yelcho viewpoint, and get back in time to wait for transport going south or north.
Another strategy is to get lodging at one of the more rustic lodges or cabins that are close to the Yelcho trailhead, the best of which is Yelcho en la Patagonia. Not only will they help you get to and from the trailhead, but they sit directly on the Yelcho lake right across the highway from the park and therefore have many private trails that have much of the same characteristics of Corcovado itself. This to me is the best of both worlds if you’re not doing the ferry route.
Since the trailhead is only 45 minutes south of Chaitén , you can also just arrange a private booking by car to go from town, wait for you at the trailhead while you visit, and then return you to Chaitén . To do this, I would recommend talking with your lodge or hotel reception in Chaitén and they can find the best local resource to drive you there and back.
When you are ready to move further south, you can either do so from the bus terminal in Chaitén, or wait by the highway for a passing bus going south, but if you do this, make sure to dress warmly as you may be waiting a long time.
The famous Route 7 is also called Carretera Austral, and it is the scenic highway into Patagonia. For bus travel, there are no tickets sold online. Go to the Puerto Montt bus terminal and seek out either the bus company Kemel for their regular daily schedules. Depending on the season, they may not go all the way to Chaitén, but there won’t be any problem in the warmer season. You can also look for the tourist transportation service Chaitur Excursions at the terminal, which is a small family-run business focused on tourism in the southern Los Lagos region, and they just have their northernmost outpost in Puerto Montt because that’s where many travelers want to get back to or from the international airport.
If you’re starting from Chaitén after hiking Pumalin trails, it will be easy. Just go to the Chaitén bus terminal in the morning around 7:30 am and check with the Chaitur company to see if there’s any off chance they have an imminent departure going south. They typically only head south at 11:30, 12:00, and 16:00, and the earliest of these would be okay as long as you endeavor to get your hike to Yelcho done and over with by mid-afternoon and back on the highway to catch another passing bus before nightfall. You can also check with Kemel, the same common bus company that most people take from Puerto Montt, as they may be operating services that go south of Chaitén in the morning. You can also just ask around the terminal for anyone to point you to a bus, just making sure you indicate your destination as el sendero Yelcho.
You also have the option of hiring private transportation to take you directly from Puerto Montt down Route 7 to Chaitén. For one to two passengers, the cost is around $315, and has the advantage of picking you up directly from your hotel and dropping you off at your hotel in Chaitén. It will take you to the Yelcho trailhead or to nearby accommodation by just paying for the rate to La Junta.
This is still about an 11-hour trip in a car with minimal stops along the way, and private drivers will be leery of driving the highway at night. That means you’d have more success indicating accommodation as a destination and then continuing to the trailhead with a local transport option early the next morning.
You can get an online reservation aboard the ferry to Chaitén from Puerto Montt. This will allow you to get most of the way to the Yelcho trailhead, then just get a local taxi as describe in the bus section once you arrive in Chaitén. The ferry has departures at 23:00 (11 pm) every day and one at 12 pm on Mondays only. The trip takes less time than the bus, about 8-9 hours.
In Chaitén, you walk two blocks from the pier to the bus terminal. There you can find the tourist information office as well as local transport companies who could take you to park entrances.
Now, if you want the ferry that goes directly into Corcovado Park on the marine side, this will cancel out continuing from visiting any of the previous parks in this article series, as that ferry does not depart from Puerto Montt, it departs only from Quellon and only on a couple days of the week. To get to Quellon from Puerto Montt, you have to take a bus, which you can reserve online.
Also keep in mind that if you take the ferry to Raul Marin Balceda, there’s no going further inland, it’s only accessible by ferry and you’ll have to go back to Quellon or to other marine ports farther south like Puerto Cisnes or Puerto Chacabuco.
Two small regional airlines offer 35-minute flights from Puerto Montt’s La Paloma airport to Chaiten. The cost is usually around $69 USD per person, which is not a bad price for the time savings.
However, there are a few things that may deter you. One is that flights are often cancelled or postponed due to changing weather conditions, which you don’t have to worry about with the bus, ferry or private shuttle. Secondly, there is no set schedule you can rely on, so you have to negotiate with the airline company, and even then it’s all subject to change. Lastly, you are more restricted with how much luggage you bring on these small planes and they are best considered for business travelers with briefcases rather than tourists with their luggage in tow. Overall, these small twin-prop flights are tempting, but come with more risk and hassle that stymies your traveling freedom.
For a true luxury traveler, these small aerial companies and their additional partnering companies throughout the Los Lagos region will be able to fly you directly into Corcovado park to small landing strips in the middle of the wilderness. Typically, these are used for exclusive fishing expeditions that involve getting special licenses from CONAF, so if this is what you want, start planning months in advance to get all the paperwork in order.
Make Chaitén your destination for both Pumalin and Corcovado parks, and this way you can take the ferry directly from Puerto Montt to Chaitén.
From Chaitén, you can then hire local transport (taxis) to shuttle you to trailheads in Pumalin and south to the Yelcho trailhead as well, making the best use of time and money to cover the maximum amount of hiking experiences.
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