With wide sweeping plains and grasslands dotted with wild vicuña and red leafy forests, Patagonia Park reminds us of scenes from romantic Western films and is a hiker’s dream.
It boasts many easier trails you can see the dramatic horizons in every direction, and covers so large a territory that there are several sectors with roads of their own far from the other sectors, so you need to plan well or plan to spend more time here than in other parks in order to visit all the sectors.
The largest town from which you use as a base camp is Cochrane, but there are other villages around the park that are closer to the trails in that sector, like Valle Chacabuco and Chile Chico. But to follow the series of these parks and get to the rest of Chilean Patagonia, you will still have to get back to Cochrane eventually.
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.
If you’re following this park series of articles, and going in the order presented, then the airport you will have gone through already is Puerto Montt.
However, if you’re starting your journey with this park, then you would be better to fly to Balmaceda. This is the airport that serves Coyhaique, Chile. From Coyhaique, buses leave daily to Cochrane.
Parque Patagonia doesn’t currently collect park fees online like they do for other parks, and so you pay for those fees at ranger stations as you are entering them by road.
Continuing from the last park visited, you will be in Villa Cerro Castillo, and from there it’s about 4-5 hours by bus to Cochrane. However, you can only reserve bus tickets in advance if you are departing from Coyhaique. Boarding a bus in Villa Cerro Castillo would be about 90 minutes after the buses leave from Coyhaique, and you just have to take your chances on getting a seat by the time the bus arrives, but in most cases it won’t be a problem.
While Cochrane is the best place for services, lodging, ATMs and tour service connections, it’s 11 km past the road that goes to probably the most popular trails in the park, which is X-83 to Valle Chacabuco and Paso Roballo. It’s down this road there’s a visitor’s center and museum, but there are no other services, and buses don’t go down that road, so trust me, it’s better to go all the way to Cochrane to unload, and then come back the next day prepared just to do hiking or camping.
For going to the Jeinimeni sector near Chile Chico sector, that is way on the other side of the park, about 4 hours from Cochrane, and there is no dependable bus service there. What you could do, however, is go as far as Aldana where there are various lodges on the lakes and rivers around that town, and those lodges can help you connect with a passing bus to Chile Chico. Then in Chile Chico, do the same thing for the reverse route, but have your lodge make sure you connect to a bus going all the way to Cochrane instead of only part way to Aldana.
Open October through June
Topography: High plains, grasslands, deciduous forests
Climate: Moderate rainfall and snow at higher elevations.
This park for me has a bit of everything for every traveler. Mountains, forests, lakes, archaeological sites, valleys, animals, good weather. It is also one of the most pleasant to hike of them all (except in the winter months). Large gorges carved by the Chacabuco River provide a natural passageway that has long been utilized by a wide variety of wildlife as well as nomadic peoples. Large cow ranches once stood on the grasslands, but after a century of overgrazing, the grasslands have started to recover and are now home to some of the region’s greatest levels of biodiversity. This is the Patagonian steppe in all its glory, with mountain ranges, fall-bursting red woods in Lenga and Ñirre, abundant fauna, and scores of breathtaking lagoons and lakes, including Cochrane and Jeinimeni, that feed these breathtakingly beautiful landscapes.
Many hikers prefer the trails in the Chacabuco valley, as it’s a loop trail so you don’t have to retrace your steps. There’s a 330-foot pedestrian bridge that goes over the Chacabuco river in Avilés valley that is certain to give you a thrill.
There’s so many lakes and streams in this park that it’s a great place to go on boating or rafting expeditions, especially in the autumn months to see the spectacular changing of colors in the surrounding forests.
|
Name
|
Distance
|
Hiking Time (round-trip)
|
Difficulty
|
Features
|
Open
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Los Carpinteros
|
4.7 km
|
2 hours
|
Easy
|
Cochrane River, Lake Cochrane, closest to Cochrane
|
All year
|
|
Los Coigues
|
9.2 km
|
5 hours
|
Medium
|
Continues from Los Carpinteros along Lake Cochrane
|
All Year
|
|
Los Huemules
|
1 km
|
2 hours
|
Medium
|
Connect Carpinteros with Ñirre trails
|
All Year
|
|
Las Aguilas
|
6.4 km
|
2.5 hours
|
Medium
|
Tamango and Hungaro peaks
|
All Year
|
|
Los Ñirres
|
5.2 km
|
2 hours
|
Easy
|
Connects Carpinteros with Huemules trails
|
All Year
|
|
La Confluencia
|
3.2 km
|
3 hours
|
Medium
|
Confluence of the Baker and Chacabuco Rivers.
|
All Year
|
|
Chacabuco Canyon
|
16 km
|
6 hours
|
Medium
|
Lake, Grasslands, Southern Icefields
|
All Year
|
|
La Vega
|
6.9 km
|
2 hours
|
Easy
|
Grasslands, Mountain views
|
All Year
|
|
Avilés
|
16 km
|
6 hours
|
Difficult
|
River, Avilés footbridge
|
All Year
|
Park Patagonia is too big to handle in a single day’s plan, so put any notion of making it a quick stop out of your mind.
Coming from Villa Cerro Castillo (unless you’re taking a bus from Coyhaique), follow the advice from your innkeeper when to catch the bus to Cochrane, even if you are going to get off in Aldana. Aldana is the village where you would get off to lodge again before connecting with another unscheduled bus going east to Chile Chico and the Jeinimeni sector of the park, which is a fabulous less-visited journey and trails, but they are often closed and so it’s quite a bit more risky and hard to plan. If you’re going to be getting off the bus at the X-83 intersection to go east to Valle Chacabuco without first going to Cochrane, you will need to have private transportation arranged to meet you there, because there are no public transportation options on X-83.
In Cochrane, plan to spend the rest of the day resting, meeting your expedition provider, or arranging private transportation. You don’t need anything more than a taxi if you’re going to go to the trails closest to Cochrane (Los Carpinteros, Los Coigues, Ñirres, Huemules, and Las Aguilas), as those are just a few kilometers outside of town, but you will need to ask your taxi to come and pick you back up at an arranged time.
For visits to other trails and sectors of the park, it’s really only feasible with a private tour, but we have several half-day tours you can choose from by simply going to the home page, choosing Cochrane as your starting point, and then for Destination choose any of the locations from the list that begin with “Cochrane – ” to see the detail of the tour and trail package.
Three daily departures exist by bus from Coyhaique to Cochrane. These pass through Villa Cerro Castillo about 90 minutes to 2 hours after leaving Coyhaique, and you can board there if there is a seat available. These buses will let you off in other towns along the way that are closer to certain sectors of the park, like Puerto Rio Tranquilo and Aldana, as well as the intersection with X-83 that leads to Valle Chacabuco. From there you would have to negotiate privately with local transportation providers to get you the rest of the way, but again, this is only if you are not going all the way to Cochrane.
There are other more complicated bus scenarios for which there is no public information outside talking to local residents and innkeepers. For example, you could catch a bus from Villa Cerro Castillo going north up the road a bit to the X-65 intersection, and there wait for however long your innkeeper told you before a passing bus comes going south on X-65 to Puerto Ingeniero Ibáñez, where you would catch a ferry to cross the lake to Chile Chico. This could save you a lot of time getting to Chile Chico if you time it right, but it will take very precise planning about a day or two before you leave.
Visit our private transportation page to arrange a private car or van to take you various trailheads in the park, and make sure you choose the day-trip option if you are just going to come back to Cochrane the same day. If you are going to go camping and want to come back on a separate day, choose the round-trip option.
However, the better choice is to choose one of the tours, which includes both transportation and companion guides who will hike with you and introduce you to the best viewpoints and experiences. To see the tours, just go back to the home page, select “Cochrane” as the origin and then choose any of the destinations that begin with “Cochrane – “.
Parque Nacional Patagonia stretches so far and wide, that this is a place I don’t recommend trying to do it solo. You will quickly find yourself stranded and in danger. I would recommend instead that you first get yourself to Cochrane on the bus (with help from your innkeeper in Villa Cerro Castillo), and then choose from one of the tours on our home page.
To see the tours, just go back to the home page, select “Cochrane” as the origin and then choose any of the destinations that begin with “Cochrane – “.
If you can only choose one tour, I would highly suggest the La Vega trip that includes some of the most choice landscapes in the Chacabuco valley.
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