Lakes hike in Huerquehue National Park

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GOOD MORNING, I'm in the national park, the name I can't pronounce as it is very long. But it is about an hour north east of Pucon where I have been staying. There are a number of lakes, and I've already passed one. This is the very northern end of Patagonia and the forest here is quite different obviously with having changed latitude a lot in my travels here. It is more of a sort of rainforest with a bit of broadleaf, a lot more varieties, I'm heading up to the lakes, so I will see you up there.

I've come to one of several cascades along the track now. As you can see the water is coming down quite steep here. It has been quite a long steep climb up the mountain but should be there fairly soon as I'm over half way now.

This is the outlet of the first of the lakes. Looking very pretty here. Hopefully the going will be a bit easier now as I continue along the track.

Now I've reached Lake Verde. It's a very nice secluded spot here. Have a look around here. It is absolutely spectacular. It is very beautiful here, very peaceful. This is the limit of where I'm going today. There are tracks that head further up into the mountains, quite a bit further in fact, but this is a day walk, I'm only here for the day and I've got a minibus coming to pick me up late this afternoon so I do need to sort of start heading down. It will be about a two and a half to three hour trip back down the mountain. It does look very peaceful up here but there is after the lakes a very steep drop back into the valley so it's going to take quite a while to get through. I'm going to stop here, have lunch and enjoy this absolutely amazing place before heading back. This is actually my last day exploring and hiking in Patagonia up here in its northernmost part with its unique vegetation up here. I've never seen anything like it before. I'm going to make the most of it just really soaking it in.

I'm about half a kilometre back from the main lake but I've just discovered this other lake here. It's really beautiful with a great big mountain in the background. Some of the others in my group have gone up this mountain hopefully for a view of the volcano. I decided instead to take this track because I thought it would be a whole lot more scenic. Later on, when I meet with them again, I'm going to find out whether it was or not. But it is so beautiful here. It is a perfectly peaceful lake. There was a couple of other people here, a very nice local family doing a day hike here and I've been talking about some of the travels I've been doing and anyway they've left and another group here have just left as well, so I've got the whole lake to myself. It is absolutely peaceful, so I'm going to stay here for a while and just enjoy the sound of silence here.

I'm now about half an hour down and as you can see, I've got to go down to the bottom of this lake here and follow it towards its end. Above the lake you can see the volcano there. There's a little bit of steam coming out of it but you wouldn't be able to see it in this resolution. It's a fantastic view. I had better keep going down. The next ten minutes are going to be particularly scary, so I'd better get it out of the way.

Well I've made it back to the start with plenty of time to spare so now I've got to wait for the shuttle bus. The others who went in the other direction are right there, so they made it too.