Many points of interest within Parque Nacional Queulat are on or near the Carretera Austral; the best operations base is the Sector Ventisquero, where Conaf’s Centro de Información, 22 kilometers south of Puerto Puyuhuapi via the highway and a short eastbound lateral, marks the start of several dead-end trails. Even the most sedentary can walk the 200-meter Sendero El Mirador to a vista point that looks up the valley to the Ventisquero Colgante, a hanging glacier that conjures images of what California’s Yosemite valley must have looked like before the ice melted. The trail winds through rainforest so dark that you nearly need a flashlight at midday, even when the sun shines bright.

Crossing its eponymous river on a suspension bridge, the 600-meter Sendero Río Guillermo arrives at Laguna Témpanos (Iceberg Lake), which, despite its name, is iceberg-free. On the turbulent river’s north bank, the 3.5-kilometer Sendero Ventisquero Colgante climbs unrelentingly to even more breathtaking views of the hanging glacier. As the afternoon sun warms the atmosphere, ice chunks tumble onto the rocks below.

West of the bridge crossing, on the south bank, the 350-meter Sendero Interpretativo El Aluvión loops through part of the valley where the 1960 flood carried huge boulders and flattened tall trees. It’s signed in Spanish and pretty good English.

Just beyond Guardería Pudú, the park’s southern entrance, the 1.7-kilometer Sendero Río de las Cascadas winds through dripping rainforest before arriving at a granite amphitheater where ribbons of glacial meltwater mark the river’s source. Farther on, where the highway begins to switchback into the valley of the Río Queulat, a short staircase trail approaches the Salto Río Padre García, a waterfall named for the Chiloé-based Jesuit who, in 1766–1767, may have been the first European to see the area.

Queulat’s numerous rivers and lakes, particularly the northern Lago Risopatrón and Lago Rosselot, are prime fly-fishing destinations.