O Circuit: Dickson Refuge - Campsite Los Perros

Dogs No Dogs

Features Birding · Commonly Backpacked · Geological Significance · Lake · Views · Wildflowers · Wildlife

(1) Running on this section is only allowed if done in the Dickson - Los Perros direction. (2) You are not allowed to smoke, light fires or use any types of stoves along the trail, only at designated places in official campsites. (3) Los Perros campsite has a small shop where you can buy food such as instant noodles and tuna cans, but no restaurant. It has bathrooms (only cold showers) and a kitchen for cooking (sinks and tables, bring your own stove and pots). You can only cook inside the kitchen. Reservations for campsite should be made in advance, see parquetorresdelpaine.cl/es/….

The whole trail is well marked and easy to follow. From Dickson Refuge, the trail starts heading southwest through grassy areas into the forest. Look for signs at the campsite to point you to the right way (there are other trails leaving from this location). After about 500m from the start, the trail turns southeast and starts going gently up. The next 2.5 km are one of the steepest parts of the run. At the top, there is a viewpoint where you can see the Los Perros Valley and Los Perros Glacier to the southwest. The run continues heading southeast inside the forest for about 1.5km until it crosses a stream and turns southwest. From here, the trail follows the Los Perros River along its southern bank going southwest for approximately 6km. It is a very smooth uphill. Once you are out of the forest, the trail turns slightly south heading to the Los Perros glacier. This is the steepest part of trail, which is mostly made of rocks, and it ends at a rocky moraine where you have beautiful views of the Los Perros Glacier and its glacial lake. From there, it is only 1km to Campsite Los Perros, following the south bank of the Los Perros River. This final section has a few side trails to viewpoints of the glacier, but the path to the campsite is always marked by signs. Stay on trail until you reach the CONAF office to register and then proceed to check-in further ahead.

The trails goes mostly through lenga forest, where you can see lenga trees and other common shrubs and groundcover plants such as chilean sweet cicely, dog orchid, yellow orchid and dwarf maitén. Common birds are rufous-collared sparrow, thorn-tailed rayadito, white-throated treerunner, patagonian sierra-finch and, with some luck, magellanic woodpeckers. At the final part of the trail, the vegetation is mostly sparse shrubs growing on rocks such as calafate and chaura.