AT A GLANCE

Why go?

Laguna Tronador is a small, glassy mountain lagoon set in a natural amphitheatre of granite walls and primeval Valdivian rainforest, deep in the northern sector of Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park on Chile's Carretera Austral. Reaching it means earning it: a short but genuinely steep trail of wooden stairs and rustic walkways climbs roughly 560 metres from the roadside to the water, passing cascades, a centuries-old alerce and views across to the snow-dusted Michinmahuida volcano before the final descent to the shore.↗↗↗

For travelers working their way along the Carretera Austral, it offers one of the park's most rewarding half-day hikes: compact in distance, rich in forest and waterfall scenery, and ending at a classified swimming lake where a cold Patagonian dip is the reward. It is best combined with the nearby Cascadas Escondidas, Los Alerces and Michinmahuida glacier viewpoints, all strung along the same stretch of road.↗↗