The Cajón de Flores is a high valley deep in the Central Chilean Andes, only a few kilometres from the Argentine border. It has a particular microclimate, more protected from the sun and moister than surrounding areas, which leads to a spectacular display of wildflowers in late Spring. We knew that we would be too early to see this, but decided to do a 3-day trek into the area, as it was well off the usual trekking path and, from the small amount of information we could find about it, promised to be quite different to the treks that we had already done. Not accessible via public transport, this became our last guided trek in the Andes.

Day 1 - Cajón de Paredones (11km - 300m ascent - 280m descent)

We met our guide Juan, an outdoor education and computing teacher who moonlighted as a mountain guide, at our hotel in Rengo. Together with one of his students, Lisanyell, we headed off in a 4WD for the 2-hour to our starting point, leaving the orchards and vineyards of the flat central valley to pass the world's largest subterranean copper mine and head deep into the mountains. We stopped briefly to register with the carabineros at Pangal and ensure that permits for trekking were in order (needed for border areas), then followed an impressive 100-year old wooden aqueduct up a long valley of the Rio Pangal, before climbing a set of switch backs to finally reach our starting point at Las Callanas (1500m) - near the small abandoned copper mine of La Juanita.

 

Beyond us lay our path, the broad flat stony bed of the Rio Paredones heading eastward between the tall rock walls of two snow-capped ridges towards the glacier-topped peaks that blocked the valley and formed the frontier between Chile and Argentina. It was an impressive alpine panorama, dominated by the points of Torre de Flores (4980m), Torre Pangal (4550m) and distant Catedral Barroso (4300m).

Small snake keen to avoid our company

The scale of the mountains surrounding us was reinforced by a flock of 4 condors, soaring high above, tiny silhouettes against the sky and the sheer rock walls. Possibly less welcome were the small snake and large tarantula that decided to use the same path as us, though both were keener to avoid our company than we were theirs.

We awoke to a fine alpine morning; mists hung around the peaks at either end of the valley and the Torre de Flores looked even more brooding with the sun directly behind its dark mass. After breakfast, we set off to climb up to the entrance of the Cajón once again, high above the numerous silver braids of water where the Rios Flores and Paredones joined.

Here Christian left the horse and mule to graze the mountain pastures and all five of us set off on foot, heading deeper into the narrow valley; the clouds swirled around the snowy cirque in the distance ahead. The route traversed the lower western slopes along an often loose and shaly track high above the fast-flowing waters of the Estero Flores. We stopped briefly to watch a rare torrent duck ducking in the rapids of the river.

Low-growing grey-green shrubs covered the slopes, dead flower stems from last season suggesting that these were the stars of any spring flower show, which was limited for the present to clumps of the small green- and white-flowering lilies, and a few scrambling herbs with red tubular bells - pretty nonetheless.

The lower slopes led up to the sheer rock faces of the mountains lining the valley and soon we crossed a series of sidestreams flowing down from waterfalls that cascaded down these rocky walls, carving deep gullies in the soil and exposing large boulders in their loose banks. From the very active erosion going on, the deep valley here was a work in progress.

 

The valley narrowed somewhat and we climbed into a more barren area of loose scree and boulders. The wind had been gradually picking up and was now blowing coldly behind us; with a hot sun and cold wind it became a bit hard to thermoregulate - alternating from "cooking" to "freezing" as layers of clothing were shed or donned - and which, as I was soon to find out, can have interesting consequences.

A little later we reached our first snowdrift as we picked our way across the boulders lining a series of small cascades that dropped the river rapidly from the upper valley.

Above this, the valley widened out into a large snowy basin; we had reached Las Hualtatas, the bowl beneath the immense cirque at the head of the Cajón. We found a large tor to shelter from the wind and enjoy our lunch and the views; a semi-circle of peaks - 4500m El Gendarme guarding the cirque and generating large pillars of cloud above it, the glacier topped ridge leading to 4950m Nevado de Flores and the rocky puntillas of the 4980m Torre de Flores. It was fascinating to watch the clouds forming and dispersing, to frame or hide the peaks and ridges, as the mountains turned on an impressive display in weather creation. As always the clouds won the day and, with the cold wind that funnelled up the valley strengthening, it was a good time to return home.

Here I caused a bit of a hiccup by developing a sudden-onset migrain, mostly likely triggered by body temperature extremes on the way up. I won't go into detail, suffice to say that the dogs and I enjoyed the same lunch, only I ate it first. It was a bit of an effort returning after that, as we headed back higher up the scree slope to cross several large snowdrifts before rejoining our upward track.

The barren upper slopes of the Cajon

Our luck with the weather seemed to hold as, after the night's pyrotechnics, we awoke to no headaches and a cloudless sky for our easy trek out of the valley. After breaking camp and loading the mule, we retraced our steps back along the flat northern edge of the wide stony valley floor, still unable to resist taking more photos of the beautiful alpine panoramas of the mountains about us in the brilliant sunshine.

Reaching a point opposite the large waterfall, Christian's services were called on again, as he ferried us on Satana's back across the three deeper braids of the Rio Paredones. We then rock-hopped across the remaining four braids to the southern edge of the stony riverbed, and headed toward the impressive 150m waterfall.

The handsome Chilean cowboy reached down and lifted her onto his
snorting black steed then galloped off into the sunset (well, any girl can dream!)

A few tricky manouevres saw us over the fast-flowing side stream that rushed away from the base of the falls and we reached the splashpool, tucked away in a beautiful mossy green hollow, lined with trees - a strong contrast to the bare rock walls and barren pebble flats that surrounded it.

 

The aqueduct winds through the Chilean
mountains

We spent a while enjoying the falls and their mists before heading off for two more river crossings on the back of Satana, to arrive back at the vehicle by late morning and head home once again past the impressive wooden aqueduct. It had been a very enjoyable and different trek for us; the first time in the Andes that we had walked up a classic alpine valley where you have a feeling of being surrounded by the mountains.