Things to do
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Cerro Castillo National Park
Raised from an older reserve to a national park in 2017, it protects about 138,000 hectares under a basalt ridge whose towers gave the mountain its name. The Carretera Austral crosses it on the switchbacks of the Cuesta del Diablo, and the four day traverse from Las Horquetas needs registration and a weather window.
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Coyhaique National Reserve
The CONAF reserve begins about five kilometres uphill from the plaza and covers some 2,150 hectares of lenga, coigüe and planted pine on the slopes of Cerro Cinchao. Marked loops reach Laguna Verde and Laguna Venus in two to four hours, and the access road is steep gravel that suffers in wet weather.
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Laguna Cerro Castillo
A milky turquoise tarn held in the cirque directly beneath the Castillo towers, fed by what is left of the glacier on the north face. The trail up from Villa Cerro Castillo gains about a thousand metres, runs six to eight hours return, and shuts when the weather closes on the ridge.
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Monumento Natural Dos Lagunas
A small protected area on the road east toward the Argentine border, built around two lakes left behind by the retreat of the ice and now the closest serious birdwatching to the city. Black necked swans and coots hold the water through summer, a flat interpretive loop takes about an hour, and the wind is constant.
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Museo Regional de Aysén
The regional museum occupies the restored sheds of the old Sociedad Industrial del Aysén on the edge of town, arranged around the wool shearing floor and the stone corrals. Its displays cover the colonisation of the region, the fires that cleared these valleys in the 1930s and 1940s, and the estancia system that followed.
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Nomades Hotel Boutique
A small hotel a few blocks from the plaza, built in dark timber and glass with rooms facing the hills behind the city. It stays open year round, which matters in a town where much of the trade shuts out of season, and the desk arranges transfers for the road south.
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Río Simpson National Reserve
The reserve follows the Simpson river gorge along the paved road to Puerto Aysén, with waterfalls dropping straight off the rim, the Cascada la Virgen among them. A CONAF centre near the entrance keeps a small natural history display, and the trout in the river below have a defined season.