Between Bariloche and San Martin de los Andes is the Seven Lakes Road section of Ruta 40 that really encapsulates so much of the Lakes District reputation of beauty. Every twenty minutes in this 100 mile stretch of road there is another beautiful view and another short side-road to explore a valley, lake, river, town. I said “wow” so many times on this section of my trip and each peak > 7,500 ft offered incredible views of glaciated volcanos, peaks, lakes and the Chilean-Argentinian Andes.
Villa la Angostura
It’s really the section from Villa la Angostura and San Martin that is the best 50 mile section winding through the mountains. There are some noteworthy endemic trees in this region including the Ancient Alerce trees (similar to Sequoia and some of the oldest trees in the world) to the south near Cholila and here, an Arrayanes Forest (a flakey cinnamon-colour barked tree) at the tip of a large island in the massive Nahuel Huapi Lake. It rained while staying here and I needed to rest my foot so I didn’t make it to the forest, but my take on Villa la Angostura is that it is way too busy and bottlenecked by Bariloche day trippers.
Ruta 40 Drive
On my way to San Martin de los Andes, I stopped to hike a steep (often overgrown) trail up Cerro La Mona (8.3 miles, 3,600 ft). I had the great summit views pretty much to myself. After enjoying the summit, I continued North stopping along the way to take in more vistas. These stops are notable because I get very destination-oriented and it can be hard to slow down and check things out. A short drive part of the way down towards Villa Lago Meliquina was notable and I wonder if staying in that town could have been a fun, beautiful experience off the busy Ruta 40.
San Martin de los Andes
The town of San Martin was very quaint with a lake beach walkable right from town, a great artist market and a lot of beautiful alps aesthetic buildings. It was busy and the grocery store was chaos, however, given it was a lot larger than Villa la Angostura, it didn’t feel crowded.
My main goal here was to hike up Chalpeco for a long day (13.4 mi, 5,200 ft) which I was sure to have an amazing panorama vista. The “trail” was mostly horse paths and then a pathless ascent up a scree hill to a hike-able ridge. I got to stop on the ridge to watch some large Andian Condors soaring around me (sometimes within 20 ft) for a while before reaching the quite spectacular summit. It had an off trail feel that was wonderful and even was recovered enough to jog down it. I could 100 miles of the Chilean-Patagonia range from Lanin (12,000 ft), multiple glaciated Chilean volcanos and even Tronador (11.500 ft), 60 miles away.
The Patagonian Desert
I was very curious how the Andes dumped into the desert which makes up most of Patagonia so drove back on RN237. I had no expectations and was surprised by some great beauty of a tan/orange landscape reminiscent of Utah, broken by blue water flowing out of the mountains.
In summary, the Seven Lakes Road is worth the hype. It was super beautiful with so many side adventures to be had. A great way to end my trip to the Lakes District of Patagonia!
