How to get there:
The local town is Chaiten. This town has pretty good roads coming
from the south as well as a good connection across to Argentina and onwards to Esquel.
From the north, Chaiten is served by ferry boats.
From Chaiten, drive north on Hwy. 7, about 30 kilometer. Find a small turnoff (right)
near location S42.776, W72.621, elevation about 145 meter. This is the trailhead. There
is parking here, there is a sign at the beginning of the trail.
Route description:
Follow this trail. Possibly there is also a sign saying trail closed.
There has not been any maintenance for quite some time. Vegetation is
trying to take over, especially at the upper end of the trail. Moreover, there are quite
many trees that have fallen across the trail. After quite some distance, the trail will run
close to the river, after this,
the trail is even more overgrown. With a somewhat more steady,
but gentle ascent, the trail arrives in a pretty large open area below the glacier. From here,
the glaciated peak is a nice view.
Unfortunaately, as of 2025, the glacier has retreated a lot and there is
now a wide zone of very
broken ice and lots of crevasses between the rock and the more smooth (snow covered) part of the glacier.
It looks like one must access the glacier higher up and quite some distance from the area served by the trail.
The most promising access area may be from the high ice-free shoulder about 2.5 kilometer north-east. How to
hike across to that area has not been explored. We know that a more direct access was possible only a few
years ago.
Comments:
We stayed in Chaiten and planned to do this climb across 2 days. First day to
the edge of the glacier, then an early start traveling up the glaciated peak before
returning to the trailhead and a late return to Chaiten. A "German" hotel, Schilling, with a pretty
good restaurant next door can be recommended.
After breakfast, we drove to the trailhead and observed that a "trail closed" sign had been posted.
This was most likely due to the lack of maintenance, we assumed that anybody accepting the bad
traail could make use of it. The hike was certainly slower due to all the trees that had
fallen across it. We reached a good camp site
where the trail ended, after about 5 hours of walking.
Our backpacks were somewhat more heavy with overnight gear and the last few kilometer of the hike
seemed more like a bushwack than a trail hike.
The day ended with a beautiful sunset, a good sign for the next day?
The next morning around 0600, we advanced up the terrain that not too many years ago was a glacier. Like almost everywhere,
the glacier has retreated significantly.
A friend (Dr. Dirtbag) had successfully climbed this mountain at the same time of year
only 3 years ago. We reached the ice and got onto it in a spot where this was possible.
Advancing uphill worked well initially,
but then we ran into terrain with crevasses and ice towers that we could not pass.
Retreating a little and traversing more left (north),
we did find a way that círcumvented this trouble and we could
again advance uphill.
Unfortunately, we again ran into
trouble, crevasses that we could not cross, also impossible to turn.
We were above 1500 m of elevation and we could now see the more
smooth, snow covered glacier not very far away,
but still outside of our reach. Frustrating!. Reluctantly, we decided to turn
back down. Many hours had been burnt. We had agreed that we could do a second night up here if needed, but the extra time
provided under such an option would not buy us the time needed.
We were back at camp around noon, a much appreciated rest, then a new long walk out starting around 1300. Not much savings in
time, we arrived back at the car at 1800. We both looked forward to another
night at Schilling hotel and a nice dinner next door.
Thanks are due to my partner Michael for good company and patience with two 5 hour walks, to the glacier and back out.
