Saturday 18 January was the night I almost spent sleeping in a Chevy pick up truck. I had no idea CONAF would be so completely ridiculous!
I was looking forward to spending the day in Queulat National Park. Queulat National Park was created in 1983 and was largely inaccessible until the Carretera Austral opened in 1988. It is still visited by relatively low numbers. The name Queulat means “Sound of Waterfalls” in the language of the Chono people and the park’s most popular attraction is the Cascada de Ventisquero Colgante or Hanging Glacier Falls. I was going to hike to see this during my time in the park today.
I arrived at the National Park at 11am. The National Park hours were 8.30am to 5.00pm, so I decided I would head for the boat first, in case when I came back from the Hanging Glacier Hike, it was too late.
In this part of Queulat National Park, basically all the hikes are to see the Hanging Glacier. Including the hike to the boat where a boat takes you across the lake to see the Hanging Glacier from the water. But it is pretty amazing to look at and I certainly didn’t regret hiking to see it from every angle.
I had paid my entrance fee to go into the National Park. The ranger takes all your statistics, name, passport number, where you’re from, which is very important because if you’re a foreigner you get to pay twice as much as the locals, £8 instead of £4. He also wanted to know where I had stayed the night before and where I was staying tonight. Asking where I was staying tonight was a bit of a nonsense as I’ll explain later.
The hike to the boat is 600m. As I said, I decided to do this first. It was just before 12 when I got to the boat launch and there was a family with 2 children and then another couple turned up. They said they needed 6 adults to run the boat, but they obviously decided 5 adults and 2 children was near enough, because they set off with the 7 of us.
My Spanish is limited, so I couldn’t work out if we stayed on the boat for the whole time or if we got off at the other side of the lake and there was a hike over there too. It turned out it was just a boat trip. There was no hiking trail at the other side of the lake. Having said that, the boat trip was wonderful, well worth it. My first real views of the Hanging Glacier were from the boat and I loved that perspective.
Next was the big hike, the 3.3km hike to see the Hanging Glacier. Again, it wasn’t clear if that was one way or return, neither was it clear whether the time of two and a half hours was a one way or return time. I’m still not sure about the latter, maybe at a push you could do it in two and a half hours if you were a speed hiker and had no stops, but an ordinary person doing the return journey in two and a half hours is a bit of a push.
The thing I do know for certain is that 3.3km is one way. There is a fair bit of climbing to do, but it’s not too bad. It wasn’t as difficult as the hike I’d done in Laguna San Rafael National Park to see the Explorers Glacier. I did bring my hiking poles with me on this hike which certainly made things easier. In addition, I had picked up some good tips from hiking Volcan Villarrica and was using my poles more effectively as well.
I met a couple of English lasses who had already been in Torres Del Paine and hiked the O Trek which meant they’d done the W Trek that I was doing plus a bit more. They said the W Trek was no worse than this one today, which was a relief. It meant I could probably manage it. I book these things with an expectation I might not be able to do them, so I was happy to hear the W Trek did sound like it was within my limitations after all.
The trail to the Hanging Glacier was a bit muddy and a bit steep in places, but not too bad and certainly nothing like I’d encountered on the Explorer’s Glacier trails, particularly the first one I did. The view at the top was amazing, but it was quite crowded, there were a lot of people up there. I spent half an hour taking in the view and taking photographs and then headed slowly down, with my new found volcano/mountaineering pole skills helping in abundance.
The swing bridge is right at the start (or end) of the trail and I wanted lots of photos on that too. I did the short nature interpretive hike and then went back to the swing bridge where there was no one to disturb my photo taking. I didn’t realise why at the time. This I was to discover.
There was only one more trail left to do, the panorama of the glacier, where you see it again from another perspective. I’d done 8km today, what was another 400 metres?
I couldn’t decide whether this was an even better view of the Hanging Glacier than the others I’d seen. I’d need to look back on my photos to check. But it was certainly a fabulous view. I stayed up there a while. Two other couples turned up. They left. I had the place to myself. I started walking down the track and held onto the hand rail and felt what I thought was a nail that had dug into my hand. It wasn’t a nail, it was a caterpillar. I’d not even looked and put my hand on it. And it really stung. For about 5 hours. The deadly poisonous South American Lonomia caterpillar which has a poison that can kill humans thankfully isn’t found in Chile. But whatever species had stung me, it really hurt. I regretted being so careful and not stabbing one with my hiking pole or standing on one earlier if this was the thanks I got. And my day was only about to get worse.
I finally went down the wheelchair accessible route to take in the view from this 50 metre trail, took more photos and headed back to my pick up truck.
There were 3 vehicles left in the car park. I started up and drove down through towards the exit. Then I got to a closed gate. I got out of the pick up to open the gate. Then I saw it was padlocked. Padlocked? And not even with one lock, with two padlocks! What? When I’d driven in, I hadn’t even noticed a gate because it had been open. Why would they padlock a gate when they could see there were still cars in the car park? It had never even occurred to me that what “hours of operation” actually meant was that after 5pm they would padlock the gate so that no one could get in or out.
I could understand if they didn’t want anyone else getting in after 5pm, but surely they could have an electronic gate that could stop people getting in, but would at least let people out. It was well before 7pm at this stage. It wouldn’t even start getting dark for another 3 hours. 5pm seemed ridiculously early to go to the extreme of padlocking a gate with 2 padlocks.
I wasn’t the only one who was caught out. Another couple were also trying to leave. Some campers were arriving. This was ludicrous.
I started out with mad ideas. Something to pick the locks with, although I haven’t the first clue how to pick a lock even if I did have the right tools. Maybe I could just crash through the gate like they did in the Dukes of Hazzard! I was being ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as CONAF, the Chilean National Park Service double padlocking a gate at 5pm in the middle of summer.
I had some more sensible ideas then. Park up for the night and get a taxi to my accommodation. The nearest taxi was in Puerto Aisen, 4 hours away. Okay so maybe ring my accommodation and ask them to do me a favour and pick me up. No mobile reception. A night in the pick up truck was looking more and more likely.
I drove to try and find someone and picked up some Chileans who had turned up too late to camp. They spoke some English. I offered them a lift. Normally I don’t pick up hitchhikers, but they weren’t hitching, I needed help and they spoke Spanish, I had the equivalent of £20 cash in my purse and they were hardly going to steal my pick up truck were they, they couldn’t bloody go anywhere, the exit gate was double padlocked.
They spotted a couple of cars in a house that was probably inhabited by CONAF staff and a pick up truck was coming out of there. I speeded up to block the exit and the Chileans got out to speak to him. He said he would unlock the gate for me and sort out the Chileans camp site for them.
When he unlocked the gate I said thank you very much in Spanish, he just scowled and pointed at his watch. I was immediately in a bad mood again. He was in the pick up truck, he was going out anyway, he would have had to unlock the gate. A Chilean couple had been caught out. I imagined this happened all the time during the light nights of the summer. Miserable sod. Ridiculous regulations. Plus it had taken about an hour to find someone to unlock the gate. So I wasn’t that late, I’d just been trapped.
I had some cheap red wine at my bed and breakfast that was completely revolting. Revolting or not, I needed a drink after that ordeal!
I travelled to Queulat National Park during my time driving on the Carretera Austral in January 2020.
Queulat National Park is run by CONAF, the Chilean National Park Service. The entrance fee is approximately £8 for everyone apart from Chilean nationals who get in for half price. The opening hours are 8.30am to 5pm in summer. Be sure to check the opening hours so you don’t get trapped inside like I did!
Queulat National Park is approximately 30 minutes drive from Puyuhuapi. Puyuhuapi is 230km north of Coyhaique on the Carretera Austral and takes around three and a half hours to drive.
I stayed at 2 different places in Puyuhuapi.
Hostal y Cabanas Ventisquero costs approximately £22 per night for a small, but comfortable room with ensuite bathroom. I booked through booking.com.
Hosteria Alemana costs approximately £30 per night for a single room with ensuite bathroom and breakfast included. I booked directly with the guesthouse. Details of the accommodation can be found on Trip Advisor.
I booked my pick up truck with Keddy by Europcar through an intermediary in the UK. It cost me approximately £52 per day for a 4WD 4 door pick up truck.
To access the Carretera Austral, I flew to Balmaceda Airport from Puerto Montt with Latam which cost £54 return. Checked luggage and seat reservation are extra.
Further information about driving the Carretera Austral can be found in my post
Driving the Carretera Austral – My Tips
Read about my other adventures on the Carretera Austral
Driving South on the Carretera Austral
Read the three part series about my hike on the W Trek in Torres del Paine
The Lazy Writer’s W Trek – Days 1 & 2
The Lazy Writer’s W Trek – Days 3 & 4
The Lazy Writer’s W Trek – Day 5 & Glacier Grey
Read about my other adventures in Chile
Rafting and Canyoning in Futaleufu
