Things to do
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Baños Colina
Terraced hot pools stepped down a bare hillside at the head of the valley, the highest running near 50 degrees and each one below it cooler. The final stretch of road is rough gravel and suits a high vehicle, the springs are run by the local community, and heavy snow closes the route in winter.
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Baños Morales
A hamlet of a few dozen houses at about 1,800 metres where the Volcán and Morales rivers meet, named for the mineral baths beside it and standing at the gate of the El Morado reserve. Most of it shuts outside the summer months, and the last kilometres of road are unsurfaced.
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Embalse El Yeso
A reservoir at around 2,500 metres that holds much of Santiago's drinking water, turquoise with glacial silt and ringed by bare rock under the Yeso valley. The last stretch of road is unpaved and slow, the wind gets up hard through the afternoon, and swimming and boats are prohibited because of what the water is for.
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Monumento Natural El Morado
A CONAF reserve entered on foot from Baños Morales, climbing several hours past Laguna El Morado toward the snout of the San Francisco glacier under a rock wall of nearly 5,000 metres. Registration at the gate is compulsory and stops before midday, so an early start is the difference between walking it and being turned back.
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Volcán San José
A stratovolcano of nearly 5,900 metres closing the head of the Cajón del Maipo on the Argentine border, snow covered through the year and with recorded activity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It shows from the road above Lo Valdés, and any ascent is a climb of several days on ice with a guide and a permit.