Fodor's Expert Review Parque Nacional Pumalín Douglas Tompkins
Funded and organized by the late American conservationist Douglas Tompkins, this park covers 402,392 hectares (994,331 acres) and shelters the largest—and one of the few remaining—intact alerce forests in the world. Alerces, the world's second-longest-living tree species at up to 4,000 years, are often compared to the equally giant California redwood. Tompkins, who founded the clothing companies ESPRIT and The North Face, died in a kayaking accident in December 2015, and was posthumously lauded as an environmental hero in Chile and the world over. Pumalín Park represents the biggest parcel of altogether 1 million acres of land officially donated to Chile in March 2017 by Conservation Land Trust, the foundation set up to manage Tompkins's park projects in South America. Thanks in part to lands bought up and preserved by Tompkins, Pumalín became a full-fledged national park in April 2019. The Pan-American Highway, which trundles all the way north to Alaska, is interrupted at Pumalín,... READ MORE
Funded and organized by the late American conservationist Douglas Tompkins, this park covers 402,392 hectares (994,331 acres) and shelters the largest—and one of the few remaining—intact alerce forests in the world. Alerces, the world's second-longest-living tree species at up to 4,000 years, are often compared to the equally giant California redwood. Tompkins, who founded the clothing companies ESPRIT and The North Face, died in a kayaking accident in December 2015, and was posthumously lauded as an environmental hero in Chile and the world over. Pumalín Park represents the biggest parcel of altogether 1 million acres of land officially donated to Chile in March 2017 by Conservation Land Trust, the foundation set up to manage Tompkins's park projects in South America. Thanks in part to lands bought up and preserved by Tompkins, Pumalín became a full-fledged national park in April 2019. The Pan-American Highway, which trundles all the way north to Alaska, is interrupted at Pumalín, though the government plans to expand the highway through it. Meanwhile, there's a well-maintained road stretching 60 km (37 miles) from Chaitén to the northern entrance of the park at Caleta Gonzalo.
This park encompasses some of the most pristine landscape in the region, if not the world. There are a dozen trails that wind past lakes and waterfalls. Stay in excellent wooden cabins or at one of the 17 campsites, or put up your tent on one of the local farms scattered across the area that welcome travelers. After the Chaitén Volcano eruption here in 2008, the main entrance to the park was moved to El Amarillo, some 30 km (18 miles) south of Chaitén. But one can still arrive via the more developed Caleta Gonzalo entrance to the north, where a ferry from Hornopirén can drop you off and where the cabins and a park restaurant are located.
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