Sendero de Chile: Chile's very long trail

One of the major goals underlying the Chilean government's initiative is to contribute to the protection of the environment, and to promote a common appreciation for the value of the environment. Additionally, the project is designed to fill the need for safe public access to natural spaces inside the country, and tourism both inside Chile and internationally. 

 Photo by Hugo Martínez Quintana

Beyond just building good will with local communities by involving them in the protection of the trail environment, the planners also discovered that direct involvement of the communities was the easiest way to maintain a trail as large as the Sendero project. By involving the community in all the parts of the  trail management, it makes the creation and upkeep their own achievement.

 Photo by Hugo Martínez Quintana

  The Trail infrastructure includes the signs, refuges, camping areas, access points, bridges, and related construction that is expected of an international class trail system. It is more than a government line on the map, as is often the case in many parts of the World. All the infrastructure is geared towards reducing human impact on the natural environment.

Photo by Hugo Martínez Quintana 

 The trail starts near Visviri, and stretches all the way to Cabo de Hornos. It is built out of a series of trekking circuits. The series of circuits that the trail connects is designed to be expanded to cover as much of the surrounding environment as can safely be included.  It will include 3.460 km. of native forest, desert, lakes and volcanoes, numerous coastal segments, and also trails along Chile's southern glaciers. 

Photo by Hugo Martínez Quintana  

The Trail is classified into different sections and circuits, main sections are:

• The Trail of the High Planes and the Driest Desert in the World (Northern Chile)

• The Trail of the Valleys (Central Chile)

• The Trail of Lakes and Volcanoes (Southern Chile Araucania and lake area)

• The Trail of the Patagonia and the Southern Glaciers (from Patagonia to Magallanes)

• The Trail of the Islands (Chiloe and Eastern Island

How much of this is for real?

Since the beginning of its construction in March 2005, the Sendero de Chile project has finished a total of 1.143 km., distributed in 39 different sections in all parts of the country (as of December 2005). between 2006 – 2010, the goal is to finish the rest of the 7.971 km. of trail, which are still under various stages of construction. Please keep in mind, that many of the segments, existed before this project began, and in many cases it is simply the connecting portions that are not complete, or it is just the related infrastructure that is not complete. The trails are often fully usable, simply lacking facilities. As often the case in building many trail systems, someone simply has not hung the signs on a trail that has existed for a hundred years.

In Southern Chile there are the following trails:

• Los Pangues - Los Barros (Laja Lagoon National Park)

• Rpagcherrue (Camino del Hombre de Los Vientos - Path of the Man of Wind) inside Ralco National Natural Reserve.

• The Trumao- Los Peucos- El Candado Section on the Ñuble National Natural Reserve

• Sections on Conguillío National Park.

• Alerce Andino National Park

• Circuit Anticura-Antillanca

• Circuit Antillanca-Santa Elvira

• Circuit Coñaripe and Palena Lake-El Azul

• Palena-Green Lake -Tapera – Deer Lake

• Small Ventisquero

• Navarino Island in Cape Horn

• Magallanes National Natural Reserve

• Parrillar Lagoon National Natural Reserve and the circuit "Ruta Patrimonial del Milodón"