Mountains

Pillán Mahuiza Geopark, in San Martín de los Andes, Patagonia, Argentina, spans over an area of 4,847 km2 on the Neuquén departments of Aluminé, Catán Lil, Collón Curá, Huiliches, Lácar and Los Lagos. This geopark has been conceived by a group of local geologists following the UNESCO guidelines for the Global Geoparks Network, applying for being the first geopark in Argentina and to join the incipient Latin-American Geoparks Network. The area proposed for this first Argentinian geopark comprises the southwest of the Neuquén province, in the geological province known as Northern Patagonian...

La Payunia is a 25,000 km2 volcanic area located southeast of the Argentinian province of Mendoza, at the foot of the Andes and between rivers Atuel and Colorado. It is one of the regions with more density of volcanoes in our planet, with more than 800 cones of different sizes and eruption styles. These quantity and density make La Payunia one of the most important volcanic districts on Earth. Its landscape, made by vast lava plains with many volcanic cones, basalt flows and pyroclastic fields looks like a different planet, making the visit to La Payunia a wonderful experience. The area is candidate...

El Tromen Natural Protected Area is located on the north of Neuquén province, on the Chos Malal and Pehuenches departments, 38 km NE of the town of Chos Malal. It belongs to the Neuquén province jurisdiction, with category of provincial park. It was created in 1971, with an area f 30,000 has.   It management plan, of 1999, defines as conservation goals: - Preserve the natural characteristics and representative samples of the different ecosystems of the area. - Preserve, evaluate and spread the geomorphological and physiographic features of the area. - Protect the populations...

Like every year by mid-May the Patagonian forest is bursting in autumn colors, as lengas, ñires and other Nothofagus trees are turning into yellow, orange and fire-red on the mountain slopes. Last year in San Martín de los Andes area we had the Calbuco volcano eruption, and the forest was partly covered in grey ashes, but this year the fall is being as spectacular as it used to be. As in the north hemisphere spring is starting to melt the ice and the snow, warming the weather and making the minds dream about the prospect of summer holidays, here down south days are turning shorter and shorter,...

One of the best tours off the beaten track you can do from San Martín de los Andes is going to Villa Pehuenia 200 km north of San Martín and a gem still hidden from the massive tourism. Villa Pehuenia lies in the middle of the Pehuen District, one of the best touristic circuits of the Neuquén province. Some tour agencies in San Martín de los Andes do it as a day tour, but we think is much better to spend at least one night in Villa Pehuenia, so you have enough time to enjoy the place and als go thorough the so-called "Pehuenia circuit", one of the main attractions of the area.    The...

After spending the last couple of days in the pristine Perito Moreno National Park we started the third and last part of our tour. Our last destinations were two of the highlight spots in Southern Patagonia: El Chaltén and El Calafate, both in Los Glaciares National Park. This park protects an area of 724.000 hectareas of colossal glaciers and lakes, surrounded by magnificent landscapes of steppe and forest. Due to its amazing splendour this park was declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 1981 and it is undoubtedly one of the most wonderful natural landscapes in the world. El Chaltén,...

Yesterday, April 22nd, 2015 (ironically the Earth Day) the Calbuco Volcano in Chile erupted. Let’s take a look to what volcanoes are and what are then main ones in the Patagonia region. HOW VOLCANOS ARE FORMED The inner structure of the Earth is made of three concentric layers: core, mantle and crust. The outermost part of the crust is called lithosphere, and there is where the geological processes occur. The core is an alloy of iron, solid in the centre and partially molten on the exterior. The mantle is made of molten rocks, with different temperatures and density; that creates a convective...

Geography Lanín volcano, with a height of 3,776 m, is one of the highest peaks in Patagonia and an icon both for the Mapuche culture and the Neuquén province. It is located near the town on Junín de los Andes, on the border between Argentina and Chile. Three quarters of the volcano are on Argentinian territory, where it gives its name to the surrounding National Park, the Lanín National Park. The other quarter belongs to Chile, where is part of the Villarrica National Park.   Being in a relatively plain area, and surrounded by much lower mountains, Lanín is visible from very far away,...

Lanín National Park is a 413,000 hectare protected area located in the southwest of Neuquén province, in the Argentine Patagonia, bordering Chile to the West and Nahuel Huapí National Park to the South. It was created in 1937 to protect and preserve an important area of Andean-Patagonian Forests, especially the Monkey-puzzle trees (Araucaria araucana), the Raulí (Nothofagus nervosa) and the Roble beech (Nothofagus obliqua), which in Argentina are exclusive of this National Park.   It is the third-largest National Park in Argentina after Nahuel Huapí and Los Glaciares. Full of glacial...

  Patagonia is a diverse land, with multiple and changing landscapes. This is especially true in the ecologic region known as the Andean-Patagonic forest, also called Subantarctic forest, that stretches north to south over the mountain side of the Andes on a strip of around 50 Km. wide, from the Neuquén province to Tierra del Fuego, on the south end of the continent. The landscape on this region suffers (or better said, enjoys) great transformations as a result of the turning seasons and the flowering and falling of the leaves of the different trees species that make up the forest.     By...