November 13, 2025
Corcovado to Lago Vintter
Claus and Mallen the Swiss couple were up and about shortly after me and when they'd finished packing up before leaving, we talked the usual shop that takes place between cycle tourists when they meet. I was particularilly impressed by their bike-packing bikes. Which from a distance looked like any modern touring bikes; but, Claus explains that he builds bike frames as a hobby. Mallen chips in "When I see him in his shed I think em maybe its time for a new bike". Claus has also returned to Patagonia many times, while this is Mallen's second visit. We talk about the changes we've seen over the years. The people, the roads and the driving.
The Swiss couple were heading to Chile, while I am shortly behind them on the same road west leaving town for the first few hundred metres until I go left taking Route 44 where a green distance sign reads: Lago Vintter 57: Rio Pico 108.
Oswald my host at the campsite told me last night that it wouldn't be possible to get further than Lago Vintter in a day because the road is bad and there is a lot of climbing. He sure wasn't wrong as the day would prove.
It was fairly easy going all morning as the wheels rumbled over gravel along a pleasant wooded valley with many streams bridged. I saw a fox in a clearing stare at me before running off. I saw many hares run across my path.
After lunch by a stream however, I set off again and rounding a bend see the dusty scar of the road zig-zag up a steep mountainside. It was quite an arduous climb in the lowest gear and in places I lost traction and put my foot down.
I reached the top and with a grand vista off to my left towards the mesetas and dwarf Lenga woodland on my right and snow streaked mountains beyond, the level was short lived before yet another steep uphill section.
Setting off after a 16 hrs tea break, I met all of the six cars I saw all day in one convoy, which stirred up a lot of dust as I heading into yet another steep incline. And there wound be more after that.
Eventually the road summited and the huge sheet of blue water of Lago Vintter came into view still almost 10 kilometres off, but it was downhill all the way with the lake out of view as woodland flanked the road until at last reaching the bridge over Rio Corcovado, where the vast choppy waved lake opens up on the right.
I wheeled down beneath the bridge where the section between the first support is riverbank and an ideal sheltered spot to set up camp which I do. The bridge providing a roof in case of rain which didn't look to be far off.
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