Field note 13 Favourite Roads
You finish each day exhausted and grinning.
Route 7, the Carretera Austral. A thousand kilometres of forest, fjord and gravel through Chilean Patagonia, opened to the public only about forty years ago.From Rodrigo's road archive
Favourite Roads
You finish each day exhausted and grinning.
Route 7, the Carretera Austral. A thousand kilometres of forest, fjord and gravel through Chilean Patagonia, opened to the public only about forty years ago.
- 1,000 kmOf Route 7
- 40 yearsSince it opened
- GravelFor much of it
13.1Route 7, the Carretera Austral, through Chilean Patagonia. A thousand kilometres of forest, fjord and gravel.
13.2The road opened to the public only about forty years ago, so long sections are still unsurfaced.
13.3Ancient temperate rainforest on both sides.
13.4Ferries are part of the route, not an interruption to it.
13.5Wind comes off the water and does not stop.
13.6Queulat, one national park among many on this road.13.7The colour of the water here is not a filter.
13.8Gravel, slope and loose stone, all day.
13.9Rain arrives sideways and often.
13.0
13.0
13.0Route 7, the Carretera Austral. A thousand kilometres of forest, fjord and gravel through Chilean Patagonia, opened to the public only about forty years ago.
One of the iconic routes of the southern hemisphere.
A thousand kilometres of nature and ancient forest. Because the road was only opened to the public around forty years ago, long sections are still unsurfaced, which is exactly what makes it worth riding.
The landscape does not stay still: lush forest, then lakes, then the coast where the vegetation changes completely, and finally mountains like the towers of Torres del Paine.
What the road kept
The difficulty is the point.
The Carretera Austral keeps a rider alert every minute, and that is why it stays with you. Take away the gravel, the wind and the distance between fuel stops and it would be just another pretty road.Go equipped, and go prepared.
Dirt roads, hard wind, steep sections, national park after national park. There are very few inhabited areas, long distances off the asphalt and weather that turns without warning.
It is a road of overcoming things. At the end of each day you arrive exhausted, and grinning from ear to ear. From here the route continues onto Argentina's Ruta 40, south towards Tierra del Fuego and Ushuaia.
13.10Camp at the end of a long day.
13.11Chaiten, rebuilt after the volcano buried it in 2008.
13.12Coyhaique, the largest town on the road and the place to resupply.
13.13General Carrera, the second largest lake in South America.
13.14The end of a day on Route 7: tired, and grinning.The field archive
53 more frames from the road
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