Qualla: Altos de Lircay National Reserve

Altos de Lircay National Reserve: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nicolás Gajardo Henríquez, CC BY-SA 4.0. Climb long enough above the Lircay River and the forest gives way to one of the strangest floors in the Andes. El Enladrillado is a high, level plateau paved in flat basaltic slabs laid out so squarely, edge to edge, that they look like an enormous brick patio left by something that knew geometry. The orderliness unnerves people. For decades it has drawn UFO watchers convinced no river or frost could be this tidy, making this remote Chilean plain one of the country's odd magnets for believers in visitors from elsewhere.

Image: Nicolás Gajardo Henríquez | CC BY-SA 4.0

Altos de Lircay National Reserve: The Gateway at Vilches

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Yayoweed, CC BY-SA 4.0. The reserve spreads across 121 square kilometers along the north bank of the Lircay, in the Andean skirts above San Clemente. The path in runs through Vilches, a small mountain community of campgrounds, family-run posadas, and a single grocery store that serves as the gateway. Th...

Image: Yayoweed | CC BY-SA 4.0

Altos de Lircay National Reserve: Stones of the Cups

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Romina Uribe, CC BY-SA 4.0. Long before hikers came for the views, the Pehuenche people lived in these mountains, and the reserve still holds quiet traces of them. Along the trails you can find the piedras de las tazas, large rocks worn with cup-shaped hollows that the Pehuenche used to grind and prepare fo...

Image: Romina Uribe | CC BY-SA 4.0

Altos de Lircay National Reserve: Forests, Pumas, and Condors

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Leonardo from Santiago, Chile, CC BY 2.0. The reserve's forests mix raulí, laurel, cypress, and hualo, and on the long high routes you reach lenga, the southern beech that grows nowhere farther north in Chile. The wildlife is genuinely wild: pumas move through the upper slopes, black woodpeckers hammer the old trunks, an...

Image: Leonardo from Santiago, Chile | CC BY 2.0

Altos de Lircay National Reserve: The Long Climb to the Plateau

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Maritza Figueroa Saavedra, CC BY-SA 4.0. Reaching El Enladrillado is a commitment: roughly seven kilometers up and a full day on your feet, with the round trip near twenty kilometers, which is why rangers cap entry to the long trails by mid-morning. The reward is enormous. From the plateau, a great chain of volcanoes un...

Image: Maritza Figueroa Saavedra | CC BY-SA 4.0