Tag Archives: Chile

Water Crossings

We had so many interesting water crossing pictures in South America that I decided to collect some of them into a single post.

Chile:

P1000064

Torres del Paine

P1000137

Back section of Torres del Paine

IMG_2226

Woah!

P1000193

Getting on this thing was scary

IMG_2303

New bridge (i.e. not blown out yet)

P1000202

Sketch

P1000263

Near Valle del Frances

IMG_2343

also near Valle del Frances

P1000351

Not technically a water “crossing”, but a cool picture. The Torres del Paine.

IMG_2796

Off-trail water crossing

P1000593

Crossing on a boat counts, right?

P1000657

Huerquehue park near Pucon

Peru:

IMG_3362

Cable car crossing

IMG_3365

Cable car crossing 2

P1010159

Homemade bridge (by locals)

IMG_3501

Jeff testing the homemade bridge

IMG_3576

Jeff on another homemade bridge near Yanama

IMG_3632

Seems like it’s usually Jeff in the bridge pictures

IMG_3640

Foot access over the water on the new road. Cars just drive straight through.

P1010388

Near the hydroelectric station

Lakes District, Chile (Mar 2013)

To recover from backpacking in Torres del Paine, we spent a few days in Chile’s lake district in Pucon.  A definite tourist town with a special emphasis toward adventure sports.  We arrived late one evening in the pouring rain and went searching for a campground.  We were thoroughly exhausted and frustrated with each other by the time we got the tent set up. But we were greeted by a beautiful morning:

IMG_3079

IMG_3081

Volcan Villarca

Pucon is known for hot springs and for being close to Volcan Villarca, a fairly easily climbable active volcano. We thought about climbing it, but iffy weather and the cost of tour groups you had to join to do it deterred us and we instead went out on an impromptu backpacking trip in Huerquehue national park.

P1000619 P1000632

Totally different vegetation and scenery than southern Chile. This area was heavily forested and clearly quite wet. We did a 2 day out and back trip through the hills to a natural hot springs.  Longish days through forest and by many beautiful lakes.  Not too many views, but still pretty. The hot springs were wonderful. So refreshing and secluded; we had the baths almost to ourselves and decided we should do more trekking to hot springs in the future.  The way back was less fun as it rained all day. The rain was fine for a few hours, but once I was completely wet, backpacking became much less fun.  I’m learning to hike in rain but am still definitely a fair weather camper!

P1000651IMG_3102P1000716

Next: off to Peru!