Cuesta Queulat, CL to Villa Amengual, CL

28.5 mi / 7.7 mph / 3020 ft. climbing
Home: El Alto Residencial

The weather modeling for rain seems to be quite accurate and stable here in Patagonian Chile (in contrast to being almost useless in the Peruvian highlands), so we woke to clear blue skies just as expected. Well, we had to get packed out of the surrounding forest before we could confirm that, and nothing had dried out from yesterday’s rain, so that took longer than usual.

And then it was straight into the “Cuesta Queulat”, where we did not progress much more quickly. 1500 feet of steep gravel switchbacks (of which we’d done the first 10% yesterday), with another 200 feet once it eases and returns to pavement, it’s one of the biggest spikes on the Carretera Austral (which is why we didn’t attempt it yesterday afternoon in the rain!) Rett was frustrated that her body was uninterested in producing her normal amount of power for whatever reason today, so she had to walk up more of it than she preferred. But I was in no rush, and didn’t mind looking through a new funnel of trees at each switchback to see which new mountain had come into view. We still finished the 5 miles to the top in less than two hours, making our lunch break there actually feel a bit early.

I took the same photo just above our campsite yesterday evening, and even though it was post-rain, the snow-covered mountain on the left was still invisible.
Something about the hazy, lazy light of early morning always makes the mountain ranges look more tropical.
Climbing Cuesta Queulat.
One of the ~15 switchbacks on the Cuesta Queulat.
Slowly working our way to the top means there’s time to notice the pretty fuchsia.
While it was a pretty well-engineered climb, the grades still varied quite a bit from moment to moment. Here it was a bit easier.
A new mountain from a new switchback.
Near the top of the pass, the road returns to concrete, and we begin to see mountains on the other side.
Riding on gravel road always gives a feeling of remoteness, so when the road became concrete near the top, but traffic did not increase, it almost had the feeling of a world where an unnamed cataclysm has removed most of the people who should be here.

There was a big gravel parking area at the top (which Rett was pleasantly surprised to learn was the top!), making it simultaneously a good place to stop for lunch, as well as a place to spread out all of our tent pieces (and much of our clothes) to dry them out in the now-unlimited sun. While we ate, a young French woman appeared out of nowhere; even as a bike rider, I’m still sufficiently car-focused to be momentarily confused by someone appearing in this remote place without a vehicle (similar to how we’ve had workers walk into our hotel rooms after reasonably assuming we had left, since there was no car parked outside). It turned out she had just come off a hiking trail that starts here, after hitching a ride to the top, and would be looking to hitch back down. We had a nice chat, and were joined by a family in a car where one of the guys was a bike tourer himself, jealous at seeing all the cyclists on this highway (at least four bike tourers went by while we were paused at the top as well).

What’s the word for a group of waterfalls? “Swarm”? “Herd”? “Splash”?
A wider view of the splash of waterfalls, including their apparent source (though still mysteriously powerful).
Drying everything out at lunch. The stone surface made it easy to find stones to hold things down with in the breeze!
Our rain/wind-breaking jackets came out for the downhill.
#FindRett to get some sense of the scale of the deep valley we were descending into. Several well-filled parking areas in the stretch presumably led to other trails in Queulat National Park, which were probably pretty cool to explore.
The paved downhill is another case where it seems like the roadbuilders are really catering to southbound cyclists (which is the heavy majority of us), since a paved downhill and a gravel uphill is much better and more-efficient than the reverse.
A tree leans over to look at the ice-topped mountain.
Blue ice on the mountaintop.
Maybe that “mountain” is a cannon that shoots the rocks in the air that the sign is warning about?
Sections of the road are “patched” with these concrete pavers, presumably because there is no way to deliver asphalt when a repair is needed (either because the asphalt plant is too far away, or because it’s shut down for the winter). It seems like installing pavers must be an incredibly-expensive alternative, but I guess better than leaving the road impassible!
Now back down to relatively-level ground, jackets are no longer needed (plus that mountain might tear them if we got too close).
The pointy mountain from a slightly less-pointy angle (but it’s still really pointy!)
I guess the ice atop these mountains is working hard to make them pointy too?
Yep, here’s some evidence of a glacier actively pointifying this mountain!
Oh geez, another pointy mountain! I guess the glaciers make them so pointy that the ice eventually just slides right off.

We had used WhatsApp to book a cabin in the tiny hamlet of Villa Amengual, but a day later our host told us there was a problem and it wouldn’t be available (did they get a longer booking, or was there an actual problem? Who knows!) She did proactively arrange another accommodation for us, which was nice, though it left us knowing less about what type of place it would be, or the cost. It turned out to be a “residencial”, which was a home with several rooms in the back part of the house, and a couple of shared bathrooms. Definitely a downgrade from the cabin, with little downgrade in price (~US$55), especially since we again had separate twin beds. There was a small dining room at the front of the house, so without a kitchen to prepare our own meals, or any real restaurants in town, we inquired about dinner and breakfast. They would cost extra, but make our lives easier.

For dinner we got a starter of bread, butter, and salad, and then out came a bowl of soup, which even had some meat in it. Ok, we’re getting fed pretty well here! So what’s the main course that will go with this sauce they just brought out? Uh, hmm…that’s not a sauce, but a flan-type dessert. Ok…I guess that was dinner! At least they had brought out a second basket of rolls, so we were able to refill with plenty of carbs after our first ride in Chile where we climbed more than 3000 feet in a day.

After dinner I went out to see if I could find any additional food for tomorrow, and while things didn’t initially look good on this Sunday evening, the “closed” shop we had passed at the northern end of town came to our rescue with a sign on the door explicitly telling me to ring the bell. Something I might not have had any confidence in a few months ago, but now I know that the bells often have an electronic receiver, and after a few minutes I heard someone exiting the house behind the store and then entering the back to let me in the front. Phew. It still feels a little strange to do my shopping while the clerk is obviously just waiting there for me to finish so she can go back home, but she did a nice job of not being obvious about it.

A steeple of wood and a steeple of rock in Villa Amengual.
If I lived here, the deadly rockslide at Villa Santa Lucia certainly wouldn’t have made me feel good about looking at this every day!
City sheep. Though with the mountains that close, maybe they’re country sheep, heading home after a visit to town? Either way, Lamby was mad that she didn’t get to meet them.
In a tiny remote town like Villa Amengual, it’s difficult to know if there are sheep on the sidewalk here because that’s just how it’s always been, or because they’re part of some modern “green” approach to lawn-mowing.
The sunset view from our “residencial” room was pretty excellent.

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