Qualla: Hotel Termas el Sosneado

Hotel Termas el Sosneado: Introduction

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Roofless walls of stone stand in a treeless valley more than two kilometres above the sea, the Atuel River running cold nearby and sulfurous water still steaming up from the rocks. This was once a destination - a luxury hotel where guests came to soak in hot springs fed by a volcano. The Hotel Termas el Sosneado opened in 1938 with a lavish campaign and a guest list of dignitaries; today it is a shell, weathered by Andean winters, drawing a different kind of visitor. Many who make the rough journey here are not after the baths at all. They have come because of what happened in the mountains just beyond.

Read more: Hotel Termas el Sosneado on Qualla

Hotel Termas el Sosneado: A Resort in the Clouds

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The hotel was the creation of a company tied to the Buenos Aires and Pacific Railway, built in 1938 along Provincial Route 220 by the banks of the Atuel, at an altitude of about 2,180 metres. Its draw was the thermal water - sulfur springs running down from the Overo Volcano, kee...

Read more: Hotel Termas el Sosneado on Qualla

Hotel Termas el Sosneado: Left to the Mountains

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The glamour did not last. After 1953 the hotel was abandoned, and although a few caretakers lingered on for a while, eventually even they left. The Andes reclaimed it on their own terms. Without a roof or repair, the building surrendered to the seasons - frost prying at the mason...

Read more: Hotel Termas el Sosneado on Qualla

Hotel Termas el Sosneado: The Valley Beyond

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The hotel sits in the shadow of Cerro Sosneado, a 5,189-metre peak that is the southernmost summit in the Americas to exceed 5,000 metres. But the place is best known today for something that happened roughly 21 kilometres away, deeper in the mountains. On 13 October 1972, an air...

Read more: Hotel Termas el Sosneado on Qualla

Hotel Termas el Sosneado: The Long Walk Out

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Rescue came only because two of the survivors, Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa, refused to wait for it. In mid-December they set out on foot across the peaks with almost nothing, climbing and descending for days through terrain that should have killed them, until they came upon...

Read more: Hotel Termas el Sosneado on Qualla