Day 1 started off with sleeping in and some cheesy breakfast empanadas before heading to the trailhead (via prescheduled taxi). The horse guy said he’d arrive sometime between 10 and 11am so you know he didn’t show up until 11:05am even though we had been there since 9:50am. I should know better having lived here for four years but sometimes the gringo impulses to show up early to things are just too strong.

The horse guy also implied that he’d be faster than us walking up the trail and that our stuff would be at the campground when we arrived. We were skeptical but also motivated to pick up the pace and prove him wrong. Normally it’s a 4-7 hour hike depending on how much weight you carry as well as the condition of the trail, but we made it the 13 km up to the main campsites in 3 hours. We were able to go faster since we got lucky with relatively dry trail conditions and relatively light packs (thanks to the horse). And when I say relatively dry trail conditions, I mean just a medium amount of mud and not a mountain/swamp of mud (we still got very muddy). 

Going fast also meant that we spent two hours at the campsite waiting for our stuff, but we did get to see the horse fording the river with our bags so that was pretty fun.

We checked into the Vista Hermosa campground where we’ll be for three nights before switching to the La Junta campsite. I wasn’t able to get all 16 nights in the same campground because of availability (we extended the stay in Cochamó last-minute after the weather got bad in Puerto Natales and we decided to abandon our original plans to go further south). Luckily the two campgrounds are right next to each other so it’s not terribly inconvenient.

I was surprised to find that the campground had sinks for washing dishes, and nice pit toilets, (cold) showers, and some protected common areas/buildings where you can go sit and hang out with other people and cook meals. I was expecting just a water pump and a patch of ground to pitch a tent, so I was pretty stoked with the extra amenities. 

In Cochamó it rains a LOT, so we rainproofed all of our stuff every night before bed. Anything that wasn’t in the tent was put into bags/backpacks and wrapped in trash bags, which is yet another example of the exorbitant amount of time we spent packing and unpacking and repacking on this trip. It’s a good thing we started that waterproofing routine right away on Day 1 because it began raining just as we were going to sleep. Sad for climbing the next day but at least we were cozy warm in the tent, and in general stoked to be in Cochamó!

Day 1 Modified Perfect Ratio

0 pitches : 3 hours

I promise this graph will get more interesting over time!

The full list of Cochamó posts can be found here.