Pumalin Park

Douglas Tompkins, who founded The North Face and Esprit, began buying land in this part of the Chilean coast in 1991 and eventually assembled a very large holding of temperate rainforest, including some of the last unlogged alerce stands. The park grew parcel by parcel from willing sellers, about 98 percent of it bought from absentee landowners, until it reached from the Argentine border to the sea, and in 2005 it was declared a nature sanctuary. In 2018, after Tompkins's death, his widow Kristine McDivitt Tompkins handed the land to the Chilean state, and it became Pumalin Douglas Tompkins national park.

History

In 1991 Douglas Tompkins bought a large, half-abandoned estate of 17,000 hectares in the Reñihué valley, most of it untouched Valdivian rainforest, moved there with Kris Tompkins and began buying neighbouring land from willing sellers, about 98 percent of it from absentee owners. His Conservation Land Trust added some 280,000 hectares, and the park was declared a nature sanctuary on 19 August 2005; after an agreement announced on 18 March 2017 the land was donated to the state, and in 2018 it became the 402,392-hectare Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park, named in honour of its founder (Wikipedia, Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park).

Highlights

• Unlogged temperate rainforest - including old alerce stands.
• Land assembled privately from 1991 - by Douglas Tompkins.
• Bought from willing sellers - mostly absentee landowners.
• Handed to the state in 2018 - and made a national park.

When to go

December to March; the Carretera Austral is hard going in winter. Several days.

Things to know

This is one of the wettest places in Chile - rain most days, in most months. Access involves gravel roads and ferries that must be booked in summer. Facilities are campsites and trails rather than lodges. Volcanic ash from Chaiten still affects parts.

Nearby

Chaiten and its volcano are south; Hornopiren is north up the Carretera.

Key facts