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New lodges and tours in the remote Aisén region of Patagonia could put it firmly on the travellers' map – if the Chilean government doesn't flood it first
"Patagonia sin represas!" screamed the hoarding on the roadside – Patagonia without dams. If the sign spoiled the view, it was nothing to what might befall the beautiful landscape we were passing through if the Chilean government goes ahead with plans – on hold since June – to flood 6,000 hectares of pristine wilderness to provide electricity to power the rapidly growing economy.
For four days my girlfriend and I had been driving along the Carretera Austral, Chile's great 1,250km southern highway, penetrating deep into the remote province of Aisén. We'd flown into drizzly Balmaceda airport and headed south-west. The road surface deteriorated but the weather improved and we found ourselves all alone in our hired pick-up in a wonderland of glaciated valleys, temperate rainforest and back-of-beyond hamlets. In the distance loomed the serrated wall of the Andes, topped with snow.
Stays in a budget hostel and then a smart riverside lodge had taken us close to three of Aisén's postcard sights. The first was Lago General Carrera, South America's second-biggest lake, whose unnatural-looking Persian green water, unbroken by flecks of white or even ripples, was both alluring and alienating.
A side road took us past seven more lakes – we walked around one to shake off the creases you get on long car journeys – and, after a couple of hours' driving through antediluvian montane forests, to the Exploradores glacier. Hanging off the north-eastern face of Monte San Valentín, the highest mountain in Chilean Patagonia, the great blue-white tongue – and the wispy lenticular clouds – reminded me that the northern Patagonian ice field was just around the corner.
The smart lodge was on fast-flowing Baker river, revered by anglers, feared by rafters, east of the ice field. I drove up to its source at nearby Puerto Bertrand and saw a deep lake basically being siphoned into a very narrow, shallow watercourse. Downriver from the lodge the Baker, also surreally green, tumbled over high cliffs and, in a maelstrom of grey glacier melt and freezing river, merged with the Nef to continue south to the Pacific.
We were heading in the same direction, with superlative vistas piling up one after the other. Hacienda Tres Lagos sits beside its own deep green (and alarmingly cold) lake at the bottom of a mountain – but was equipped with a barbecue shack, where we feasted on grilled lamb, and a wine bar where we sampled the latest Patagonian varietals.
But it was only when we turned left at Entrada Baker that the view was genuinely surprising – shocking even. The Patagonia we had seen so far had fitted all my notions of Chile: the Baker valley, like the country, was narrow, hemmed in by geology, packed with coigüe, ñirre and lenga beech trees, riven by cascades and streams.
But the Chacabuco valley east of Entrada Baker was wide open to the sky, with bright golden steppe carpeting an immense plain. Guanacos (small Patagonian relatives of the llama) grazed and rolled in the dust, hawks circled overhead and strange wind-resistant plants exploded out of the arid earth. We were travelling into a region where the deserts of Argentinian Patagonia reach for the Pacific, adding another ecosystem to Aisén's already varied landscape.
After driving for half an hour along a winding back road we came to the lodge built by philanthropist Kris Tompkins for her latest park project. Kris, former CEO of outdoor clothing firm Patagonia, and her husband, Doug (of the North Face and Esprit chain) are well-known in Argentina and Chile for purchasing swathes of virgin forest and wetland and donating them to the respective states as national parks.
The Parque Nacional Patagonia (patagonialandtrust.org) is the latest and perhaps most exciting of all their projects. Once an estancia overgrazed by sheep and cattle, these 70,000 hectares will bridge the gap between two existing reserves to create a national park three times that size.
We stayed just one night at the park's Yellowstone-style lodge, but I found time to chat to the staff and to head out into the hills. The park can be seen as a sort of symbolic counter-gesture to the plans to dam the Baker.
"The proposed dam is old technology," Doug told me. "The only viable industry for Aisén is tourism, and if we bring in 250,000 visitors eventually it can be another Torres del Paine. Fisheries won't work here, food won't, logging won't and farming didn't. We're putting backpackers first here. The lodge is here only to subsidise the campsites."
For almost five centuries, Aisén has remained the least visited, least settled corner of Patagonia and maybe of southern South America. Its preservation may now depend on attracting as many low-impact visitors as possible. The self-indulgent traveller in me would like to keep the road lonely and romantic; but if a few rented pick-ups and a campsite are the alternative to caravans of dumper trucks and cranes and a flooded valley, bring them on. To join the campaign visit patagoniasinrepresas.cl or – even better – visit Aisén.
• The tour was provided by Journey Latin America (020-3432 1552, journeylatinamerica.co.uk) which has a two-week self-drive trip to Aisén and Torres del Paine, from £3,358pp, including three internal flights, 4WD hire, B&B accommodation and some dinners, but not international flights.
Flights were provided by LAN (lan.com) – with BA and Iberia – which flies to Balmaceda via Santiago and Madrid from London from £1,300 return.
Chris Moss is the author of Patagonia: A Cultural History (Signal Books, £12)