Day 1:
Your guide meet you at your hotel in Bariloche, check gear, and prepare all details to leave really early to Pampa linda the next day which is 80 km away . At the family-owned hosteria, at the foot of Mount Tronador we will arrange all details. Welcome Dinner with your Andescross Mountain Guide and get ready for the adventure!
Pampa Linda, “Pretty Grasslands”, is a cute little settlement in the middle of the Nahuel Huapi National Park. Other than the hosteria, there is a Ranger’s Station, camp sites, and the stables where you will meet your partner for the ride up tomorrow!
Night in Bariloche.
Day 2:
Drive early in the morning to base of Monte Tronador. We start the day on horseback and ride at a mellow pace through the forest for about 4 hours gaining a lot of elevation. The horses will leave us in a high alpine meadow, Mallin Chileno, near the Chilean Border. Here we get our passports stamped in a very remote location. Just a little hut in the middle of the Andes serves as the customs office! With your mountain guide, you will hike from the border of Argentina and Chile on the south face of Mount Tronador. There are lots of waterfalls and volcanic formations along the 3 hour hike to Refugio Tronador, aka Refugio Viejo. This little mountain hut is at 2200 meters and very close to Tronador’s largest glacier, Glacier Manso. Your mountain guide will set up the tents, or we can sleep in the vivac hut.
Night in tents or Refugio Tronador.
Approx. 5-6 km with 450 meters elevation change in 4 hours of hiking.
Day 3:
Glacier hike multiday guided trek in Bariloche, Patagonia ArgentinaAfter breakfast, your mountain guide will help you put on all of the glacier gear: crampons, harness, rope. Hike across Manso Glacier, enjoying the view of Pico Internacional and Pico Argentino of Mt. Tronador (3354m). Very beautiful trek in with views of the Patagonian Andes and volcanos in Chile! You will enjoy cravasses, seracs, and hiking on the glacier with very little altitude gain. Andean Condors, the largest birds of flight in the world, love to come to Mount Tronador to play in the wind. This is where the condors bring their young to practice soaring in the drafts around the mountain. Keep an eye on the sky, or if they come to check you out, you’ll definitely notice the big shadow on the snow! Once we are on the other side of the Manso Glacier we arrive to Refugio Otto Meiling. This Mountain Hut is staffed, so we we will enjoy a nice, hot typical Patagonian meal in the heights of the mountains. Relax by the fire, and then head upstairs to bed.
Night in Otto Meiling Mountain Hut.
Approx. 6 km with 200 meters elevation change in 4 hours of hiking.
Day 4:
Mount Tronador – Frias valley multiday guided trek in Bariloche, Patagonia ArgentinaAfter breakfast in Refugio Otto Meiling, we leave the hut, and your mountain guide will rope everyone up to hike across the smaller Alerce Glacier. Then, we take off our glacier gear once we are across and start hiking down to Paso de las Nubes, Cloudy Pass (1400mts). There are waterfalls all around as we hike down Tronador heading Northeast. We will hike down from Paso de las Nubes to the Frias Valley where we will camp at the head of the Frias River. The hanging Frias Glacier is the third of Mount Trondador’s 7 glaciers that you will experience in just a couple of days. The glacier feeds the river with its waterfalls and occasional chunks of ice falling down the cliff. This is the end of glacier terrain for our trek. Your mountain guides will put up the tents at the base of Mt. Tronador where we are going to spend the night at 1000 meters with the sound of seracs pieces falling from the glacier. Do not worry! We are a kilometer away!
Night in tents.
Approx. 8 km with 400 meters elevation change (hiking down) in 5 hours of hiking.
Day 5:
Tronador from Frias lake multiday guided trek in Bariloche, Patagonia ArgentinaWake up to the sound of the waterfalls coming from Glacier Frias, and after your mountain guide breaks camp, we will hike on mostly flat ground through the lush Frias Valley along the river to a large lake with the same name. The flora in this valley is beautiful, and has a tropical look to it even though we are in the middle of Patagonia! This jungle is full of bamboo and coihue trees, and is called Selva Valdiviana, or Valdivian temperate rainforest. The Frias River comes directly from Mt. Tronador’s glacier, so there is a lot of sediment suspended in the water. The glacier grinds off the rock it travels over slowly into this fine sediment, and the melted water is called glacier milk. When we reach the turquoise Lago Frias, you can have a dip in the lake while we wait for the boat. “Frias” means “cold”, but the water is still nice for a quick splash or to soak your feet. Done with our trekking, we can enjoy two boat rides through the Nahuel Huapi National Park. The first takes us across Lago Frias, and then we have a quick 3 km bus ride to Puerto Blest on Lago Nahuel Huapi. The cruise on Lake Nahuel Huapi takes about an hour and a half and is very scenic passing little islands and protected lands all around. We arrive to Puerto Pañuelo in front of the large luxury hotel Llao Llao, 25 km from downtown Bariloche. Your mountain guide will take you to your lodging in Bariloche.
Approx. 8 km with 50 meters elevation change in 4 hours of hiking.
For this trek, we strongly recommend hiring a Professional IFMGA UIAGM or AAGM Mountain Guides.
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