🇨🇱 Chile · Southern Chile
Huerquehue National Park is one of the most magical corners of the Araucanía Lake District: a world of thousand-year-old araucaria forests, crystal-clear mountain lagoons, waterfalls and lookouts, high in the Andes a short hop from Pucón. For many travelers, this is where they truly fall in love with the native forests of southern Chile.
Its great draw is the Sendero Los Lagos, a hike that climbs from Lake Tinquilco through evergreen forest, gaining height among centuries-old araucarias — those prehistoric trees, sacred to the Pehuenche people — and revealing, one after another, hidden lagoons that look lifted from a fairy tale. The effort of the climb is repaid with landscapes of a serenity and beauty that are hard to forget.
This guide covers Huerquehue National Park with a practical eye: how to get there from Pucón, which trails to walk, what to expect from the headline hike, when to visit and how to enjoy it with respect for the natural world. It's one of those outings that on its own justifies a trip to the Lake District of southern Chile.
The land that makes up Huerquehue National Park is part of the ancestral Mapuche-Pehuenche world of the Araucanía cordillera. The name 'Huerquehue' comes from Mapudungun and is usually linked to the idea of 'place of messengers' (from 'huerquén', messenger), though its precise translation is debated. For the mountain peoples, these araucaria forests mattered enormously: the piñón (the nut of the araucaria, known as pehuén) was a staple food, and the tree itself is sacred to the Pehuenche ('people of the pehuén'). The araucaria (Araucaria araucana) is a tree of prehistoric origin that can live more than a thousand years, and today it is a Natural Monument in Chile, which makes felling it illegal. The park was formally created in 1967 to protect these precious araucaria forests, the mountain lagoons and the native fauna, at a moment when Chile was beginning to consolidate its system of protected areas. Since then, under Conaf's management, Huerquehue has become one of the most visited and best-loved national parks in the Lake District, prized as much for its beauty as for its role in conserving the temperate forest of southern Chile. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The heart of the Mapuche people and of the lakes and volcanoes country: almost three centuries of independence from Incas and Spaniards, the Occupation of the Araucanía and the founding of Temuco in 1881, Pucón and the smoking Villarrica volcano, forests of ancient araucaria trees and an indigenous culture as alive as nowhere else in Chile.
Read the history of La Araucanía Region →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The area now occupied by Huerquehue National Park, in the Andean cordillera of La Araucanía, is part of the ancestral territory of the Mapuche people and, more specifically, of the mountain communities known as Pehuenche. The word 'pehuenche' means, literally, 'people of the pehuén': the pehuén is the araucaria, the emblematic tree of these high-altitude forests, which shows just how tightly these communities' identity was bound up with it.
For the Pehuenche, the araucaria was not merely part of the scenery but the basis of their livelihood. The piñón — the araucaria's seed — was a staple food: gathered in autumn, stored and eaten in various ways through the year, it was an essential source of energy for surviving in the harsh cordillera. Gathering piñones was a central, almost ritual activity in the life cycle of these communities.
These mountain peoples lived by gathering, hunting, herding and the seasonal use of the mountain's resources, moving with the seasons. The araucaria forests, the lagoons and the valleys of the cordillera — like those Huerquehue protects today — were their home and their larder. The araucaria still carries deep sacred and cultural value for the Mapuche-Pehuenche people, which adds a spiritual dimension to any visit to these ancient forests.
The soul of Huerquehue National Park is the araucaria (Araucaria araucana), called 'pehuén' in Mapudungun and known elsewhere as the monkey puzzle tree or 'pewen'. It is one of the oldest and most singular trees on the planet: it belongs to a very ancient conifer lineage, considered a 'living fossil', with ancestors going back to the age of the dinosaurs. Its unmistakable outline — a straight trunk and a crown that opens like a candelabrum or an umbrella — and its longevity (it can live more than a thousand years) have made it a symbol of southern Chile.
The araucaria grows at altitude in the Andes and the coastal range, in south-central Chile and part of Argentina, forming forests that are unique ecosystems. It is a dioecious species (there are 'male' and 'female' trees), slow-growing, and its seeds — the piñones — develop in large cones. Those piñones, as we have seen, were and still are a food of enormous value to the mountain peoples.
For its ecological value, its antiquity and its cultural importance, the araucaria was declared a Natural Monument in Chile, which bans its felling and grants it special protection. That status reflects the recognition that these forests are an irreplaceable natural heritage. Visiting parks like Huerquehue, where the araucarias form imposing forests around the mountain lagoons, is one of the best ways to appreciate this extraordinary tree in its natural habitat.
Like the rest of the cordillera and the Lake District of La Araucanía, the territory of Huerquehue remained under Mapuche-Pehuenche control for centuries, first against the Spanish empire and later against the young Chilean state. South of the Biobío river, La Araucanía held on to its de facto independence until the end of the 19th century, when the Chilean state launched what it called the 'Pacification' or 'Occupation of La Araucanía', incorporating these territories by force through military campaigns, the founding of forts and towns, and the resettlement of Indigenous communities.
The Lake District — with Villarrica refounded in 1883 and Pucón emerging shortly afterwards — then opened up to colonization by Chileans from the center of the country and by European immigrants, especially Germans. The lands of the cordillera, once the exclusive domain of the mountain peoples, began to be explored, exploited (for timber and grazing) and, later, valued for their natural beauty.
Through the first half of the 20th century, as Pucón and Villarrica grew into fledgling tourist destinations, the araucaria forests and the mountain lagoons gained recognition for their scenic and natural worth. Yet the pressure of logging on the native forests also threatened these unique ecosystems, which in time made the case for protecting them formally. That was the path that led, in 1967, to the creation of the national park.
Huerquehue National Park was officially created in 1967, in a period when Chile was beginning to consolidate and expand its system of protected wild areas, recognizing the value of conserving the country's native forests, flora and fauna. The park's central purpose was to protect the precious forests of thousand-year-old araucarias, the mountain lagoons, the watersheds and the native fauna of this stretch of the Andean cordillera in La Araucanía.
Protection came at a good moment: the native forests of southern Chile had spent decades under pressure from logging and fire. Declaring an area like Huerquehue a national park meant taking it out of those uses and dedicating it to conservation, research and respectful public enjoyment. The protected area covers more than 12,000 hectares, taking in the forests, the lagoons (including those on the celebrated Sendero Los Lagos) and the surroundings of Lake Tinquilco.
Since its creation the park has been managed by the Corporación Nacional Forestal (Conaf), the body responsible for state protected areas in Chile. Conaf runs access, trails and camping, and handles the protection of flora and fauna and environmental education. Over time Huerquehue has become one of the most visited and best-loved national parks in the Lake District, prized as much for the beauty of its landscapes as for its role in conserving the temperate forest and the araucarias, that thousand-year-old natural heritage of southern Chile.
Today Huerquehue National Park plays the double role that defines much of the protected land in southern Chile: conserving a valuable ecosystem while allowing visitors to enjoy it responsibly. As part of the National System of State Protected Wild Areas, managed by Conaf, Huerquehue safeguards forests of araucaria and temperate species (coihue, lenga, lingue), lagoons of glacial origin, watersheds and a fauna that includes birds, mammals and species characteristic of the southern Andes.
The park has established itself as one of the unmissable nature destinations in the Lake District, thanks above all to how easily it is reached from Pucón and to the beauty of its Sendero Los Lagos. That popularity, though, brings the challenge of conserving the place against rising visitor numbers: hence Conaf regulates access, maintains the trails, runs the campground and promotes rules of conduct (stay on the trails, don't damage the vegetation — especially the protected araucarias — carry out your rubbish, respect the wildlife).
Visiting Huerquehue is, in the end, a chance to connect with one of Chile's oldest and most beautiful ecosystems, and to understand why it matters to protect it. Behind the beauty of its lagoons and the majesty of its ancient araucarias lies a long history: that of the Pehuenche people who lived off these forests, that of a prehistoric tree that has survived since remote times, and that of a country's decision to conserve this heritage for the generations to come.