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It was raining again this morning. After breakfast we put on our rain gear and endured some more frustration with the bus system. But eventually, at 9:15 A.M., we caught the #55 bus which took us up to Catedral parking lot. This is the starting point for the hike up to refugio Frey. We could see the gondola running - but it was running up into the clouds, so once you got up to the top, it would be impossible to see anything. We decided to hike the #2 trail out, and return on the #1 trail. It was wet when we started, but not raining. The more we hiked, the nicer the weather got. In fact, most of this day turned out to be sunny and bright. We had blue skies and warm temperatures. The rain gear went into our packs and never came out again the rest of this day. The hike gave us some nice views of Lago Gutierrez. There were a lot of burned trees, as if the forest had recently suffered a forest fire. Maybe that was why the views were unobstructed. The trail came to a canyon, through which flowed Van Titter creek. This is the route up to Refugio Frey. We hiked part of the way toward the Refugio, but we didn't intend to go all the way to the hut. It was shady under the big trees. We stopped at a very nice spot beside the creek for lunch at about 12:30 P.M. There were colorful finches hopping about on the ground, it was a pleasant spot to relax. We turned around and hiked back down the trail. When we got to the trail junction, we took the other route, which was a lower trail along the lake. It actually turned out to be TOO low, because although we were hiking closer to Lago Guiterrez, we couldn't see it due to all the foliage in our way. But there were a couple small hills that allowed us to climb up for views of the lake. Near the end of this hike, we found a small waterfall called Cascada de los Duendes. From there it was a short walk to the #50 bus stop, to take us back to Bariloche. While we were standing at the bus stop (which is right near the shore of Lago Gutierrez), I spotted a kingfisher sitting up on a telephone wire. It was a pretty bird, and nicely posed. I got so involved in taking the bird photograph that we missed the bus and had to wait an extra twenty minutes for the next one. We ate that evening at Trattoria I'Italiano. Melanie had spaghetti and I ordered ravioli. We had ice cream for dessert. That evening we picked up our rental car, so no more waiting for the bus! (Originally, we were going to go kayaking when we arrived at Bariloche, so I figured we would not need a car until the day after this one. But bad weather cancelled the kayak trip.) Panorama Photos
MapsThis is a map of Nahuel Huapi National Park. Today we hiked trail #2 and trail #1. This is the best hiking map I could find for this park, I never found a contour map in any of the local shops.
Videos
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Click on any thumbnail to begin the slide show at that photograph Catedral to Gutiérrez Hike Photos
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