Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park

Vast temperate-rainforest park of waterfalls, volcano trails, and ancient alerce trees.

Pumalín is the main reason Chaitén is more than a ferry stop. The park protects a huge sweep of temperate rainforest, with wet green valleys, waterfalls, volcano views, and alerce trees old enough to make human history feel brief.

Access is spread along the Carretera Austral, so plan the day around one or two trails rather than trying to sample everything. The weather can shut views down quickly, but even in rain the forest has a dense, primeval feel.

things to do sight national park rainforest hiking
A story
Pumalín began as a private conservation project led by Douglas Tompkins, co-founder of The North Face. It later became part of Chile's national park system, one of the clearest examples of private land conservation becoming public Patagonia.