Area Natural Protegida Tromen
1) Day hike up Cerro Wayle (3,185m)

From Refugio Wayle, we climbed up a path, and looped round the summit crater of the volcano. It was a nice easy walk, with good views of Laguna Tromen and Volcan Tromen to the south, and Volcan Domuyo, the highest peak in Patagonia, to the north. (10km, 5h, 1,000m ascent/descent)

2) Day hike up Volcan Tromen (3,989m)

This was a far more challenging day hike, which we’d been told would take 12 hours. So we left our tent at 2,150m in a sheep corral an hour before dawn for the long climb to the summit. Up to 3,000m the walk was easy, on grassy then sandy slopes, but from this point onwards became far steeper. It took 2 hours to follow a steep gulley up to 3,800m, having the option to climb up on steep sand (2 steps up, 1 step back), or on steep rocks/scree (quicker, but with the danger of slipping, or the front person sending down rocks on the person below). We only found out on the way down that there was a path most of the way (though it was mostly sandy so would’ve taken a lot longer to climb up). On emerging from the gulley there was a clear, but still steep, path to the summit. There were better views from here than from the summit of Wayle, which we now towered over, though we were glad of the acclimatization the previous day’s walk had given us. The climb took 5 hours, and we feared the descent would be as long and slightly dangerous, until we found the path, which made the descent relatively straightforward, and we were down in 3 hours. (13km, 8h, 1,850m ascent/descent)

Some GPS points