Trekking Monumento Natural El Morado y Baños Morales

Enjoy a day in the heart of the Andes.

You can enjoy a walk of about 5 hours to glacier San Francisco, where you will enjoy beautiful scenery, headwaters of rivers, endemic flora and fauna and the laguna El Morado. This beautiful circuit develops in the El Morado Natural Monument, protected by the National Forestry Corporation.

One of the mountains have allot as of character as they are known as cajón del Maipo it is one of the main tourist attractions because of the rich natural architecture, its diverse flora and wildlife. The area is protected and administered by CONAF (national forest Corporation), the place is located 93 Km from Santiago in the town of Baños Morales and is around 3.009 hectares in size. The Andean flora is made up of at least 300 species which are both native and exotic, here you will see species whom are in danger of extinction, they inhabit the Andean sclerophyllous scrub. Other common species are the white grass, grass cloth, seven shirts, guindillo and Fox tail.

The Park also has a rich wildlife, with mammals such as the cururo and Noah silky mouse, and birds like yal, the cometocino, the Golden chirihue, the black Siskin, the Andean Siskin, tench, thrush, the Chilean swallow, dormilona fraile, the Hummingbird giant, the Andean Hummingbird, the mountain doves, the perdicita and the perdicita cojón.

A recommendation is to visit this extraordinary place between October and March, since this will be the best time whilst the climate conditions are favoured, the climate can get really bad and tempretures drop under zero with snow up to 2.8 Metres high.

After crossing the bridge over the Morales River, arriving at Baños Morales, there is the CONAF office, where a ticket must be paid to enter (this is included in the tour). The first part of the walk will see us reach Aguas Panimávidas, which will last approximately 1 hour, at this stop you can see sources of mineral waters. The walk will see us continue traveling 5 km (2 hours approx.) where you will find Laguna El Morado, located at 2,400 metres above sea level. From here you can see the north of the Cerro Morado and to the northwest the Cerro San Francisco and a glacier called San Francisco Glacier.

There is a further walk for willing participants where you can continue walking for 1 km through a path of wild flowers, stones and rocks which will see you reach the foot of San Francisco glacier. Here you can see and listen to the River in the Morado which emits absolute tranquility and a beautiful landscape.