The ‘Yosemite of South America’ is an adventure playground in Patagonia

With a central valley dominated by bald-faced granite domes that loom over temperate rainforest, Chile’s secluded Cochamó District has been nicknamed by some the “Yosemite of South America.”

This heavily forested frontier on Chile’s border with Argentina is still unknown enough that its minor mountains and highland lakes appear on maps with speculative markers like “unexplored lagoon” or “nameless hill.”

Bounded on all sides by national parks—including Hornopirén, Alerce Andino, and Vicente Pérez Rosales—but with none of its own, the region requires a two-hour detour east from the Carretera Austral—Patagonia’s famed southern highway. With new infrastructure in place, Cochamó is in the midst of opening up, luring rock climbers, kayakers, and intrepid backpackers.

What Cochamó doesn’t have is crowds. Just 4,000 residents live in the district, giving it a ratio of one person for every 225 acres. There are no stoplights or gas stations. Traffic jams occur only when sheep cross a road. Here’s how to explore it.

Rock climbing in the “Yosemite of South America”

Cochamó Valley’s mountains are flanked by towering alerce trees, which can grow over 200 feet and live up to 3,600 years. A fifth of the world’s remaining alerce forests lie in Cochamó District, and they received their first protection this January under the new Cochamó Valley Nature Sanctuary.

Tatiana Sandoval, president of the nonprofit Organización Valle Cochamó, says that, unlike a national park, this designation empowers the local community to be the protagonists in the protection of their own lands. “The objectives are not just natural but also cultural,” she explains. The valley is also steeped in long-running gaucho traditions.

In 2017, her organization opened a visitor center with park rangers who regulate access, allowing in just 320 overnight campers, plus 90 day-trippers. “The hope is that the next generations will get to know this place the same way I’ve known it in my lifetime.”

The new and likely to expand nature sanctuary protects 28,170 acres of riparian wetlands, Andean glaciers, and evergreen forests. Access is via a single seven-mile hiking trail to the gaucho outpost of La Junta. From La Junta, paths first carved by rock climbers to reach the base of 3,000-foot granite walls, such as Anfiteatro and Arcoiris, now lure hikers, too.

(This thrilling Chilean trek is the world’s southernmost hike.)

Famed American outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid frequented this mountain pass more than a century ago while hiding from United States authorities on South American cattle ranches. Modern-day trekkers can follow in their footsteps on a moderate four-day hike from La Junta to Paso El León, on the Argentine border, or a three-day horseshoe trail over to the town of El Manso. Both routes have campgrounds and hospedajes (simple homestays) along the way.

Rafting and hot springs in the Puelo Valley 

Thanks to Cochamó Valley’s soaring popularity, tourism is now spilling south into the neighboring—and far deeper—Puelo Valley. Here, the Termas del Sol hot springs complex, which opened in 2019, can draw up to 700 visitors on cold, rainy days. Steel-grey boardwalks link 10 pools filled with waters heated to between 68 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit by the nearby Yates Volcano. The last three pools overlook an emerald lake tucked beneath Andean foothills.

There are new bakeries and cafés in the surrounding village of Puelo, plus a stylish eight-room adventure lodge, Tawa Refugio del Puelo, which recently opened on Tagua Tagua, a fjord-like lake on the Puelo River, 10 miles away.

In Chile’s Cochamó District, adventure lodge Tawa Refugio del Puelo looks out on Lake Tagua Tagua and offers trekking, horseback riding, and kayaking excursions. 

Photograph Courtesy Nicolas Gildemeister

Regular car ferries cross the Tagua Tagua from a small pier by Tawa to the far end, where a dirt road leads deeper into the Puelo Valley to the newly accessible whitewater outpost of Primer Corral. Here, experienced kayakers can navigate challenging Class 5 rapids in the Puelo Canyon.

From Primer Corral, you can also trek nine miles up a Puelo tributary, the Ventisquero, to the hike-in, packraft-out Rincón Bonito. There, a large off-grid mountain lodge and three small cabins offer access to a network of hiking trails in the glacier-filled Ventisquero Valley.

You can tramp from here beyond Cochamó District to the little explored back end of Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park, named after the late American philanthropist who purchased (and donated) vast swaths of Patagonia for conservation (Tompkins once had a home at Rincón Bonito).

Visitors to Chile’s remote Rincón Bonito can hike in, stay at an off-grid mountain lodge, then packraft out on the Ventisquero River. 

Photograph Courtesy Rodrigo Condeza Venturelli

(This Chilean national park protects a superbloom of rare flowers.)

Like Termas del Sol, Rincón Bonito has a social component, serving as an economic driver for the valley’s isolated residents, who make the house beer, provide free-range lamb meat, and work onsite as cooks and guides.

“If we manage tourism responsibly,” says Rodrigo Condeza, a director at conservation nonprofit Puelo Patagonia, “we can help protect these valleys and create an economic motor for those living here.” 

What to Know

Getting there: The closest airport, El Tepual, receives hourly flights from Santiago (it expanded in 2022 to welcome international arrivals, too). The airport is equidistant to the city of Puerto Montt and the lakeside resort town of Puerto Varas; the latter is an attractive base for launching trips out to Cochamó, two hours away by bus or car.

Buses and ferries: Regular buses travel from Puerto Varas onward to Cochamó, Puelo, and (less frequently) Llanada Grande in the Puelo Valley. Road travel into the Puelo Valley requires crossing Lake Tagua Tagua via ferries that depart almost hourly in season.

Tour guides: Local adventure travel outfits Birds Chile and Chile Nativo both offer trips to Cochamó District with English-speaking guides.

When to visit: The weather is warmest and driest between December and March, with February the busiest month. The shoulder seasons, when crowds thin and weather can still be pleasant, are also enjoyable if you have the proper rain and wind gear.

Mark Johanson is a Chile-based travel writer who frequently contributes to National Geographic. Follow him on Instagram.

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