National Park Coniglio (Parque Nacional Conguillio) description and photos - Chile: Temuco (Topic)

National Park Coniglio (Parque Nacional Conguillio) description and photos - Chile: Temuco. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photographs and a map showing the nearest significant objects. The title in English is Parque Nacional Conguillio.

Photo and description

Conillo National Park is located in the Araucania region, 148 km north-east of the regional capital Temuco. The park, with a total area of 60,833 hectares, was formed in 1987 by the merger of the Los Paraguas National Park, the Coniglio Forest and the Laguna Verde sector. It is also part of the Araucaria Biosphere Reserve.

The beauty of the park - in its alpine lakes and ponds, green forests, alpine snow-capped ridges, an active volcano, all this allowed the park to become one of the most visited in the country. The British Broadcasting Corporation BBC called this park one of the last "dinosaur havens" because of its prehistoric landscape.

One of the popular tourist attractions is climbing the extinct volcano Sierra Nevada (2554 m), where you can see the riverbed the Blanco river, Lake Coniglio and the majestic volcano Llaima. This landscape does not leave any tourist indifferent.

The Llaima Volcano (3125 m) with two craters is one of the busiest in South America. Its influence on the park's morphology, local flora and fauna is impressive. For 400 years after the arrival of Europeans to the continent, more than 70 historical eruptions have occurred here. The last two occurred in January 2008 and April 2009, increasing the height of the volcano by 70 meters.

The existing lakes and rivers owe their origin to the continuous activity of the volcano. After the lava has passed, the slag plugs impede the free flow of rivers, forming the existing system of lakes. Thus, Lake Coniglio (780 ha), underground natural drainage and the lagoons of Captrin (5 ha), Verde (140 ha) and Arkoiris (0.5 ha) were formed, which are included in the watershed of Chile's second largest river - the Bio Bio and the Imperial.

The name of Lake Coniglio comes from Ko-nqilliu, which in Mapuche means `` pine nuts in the water. '' And this is really so: mixed evergreen forests rise around the lake - the Chilean araucaria, in its appearance resembling an umbrella, several varieties of beech and oak, hazel, mountain cypress. These forests are difficult to access, so some trees are several centuries old. This area is also rich in predatory mammals: there are puma, fox, weasel, wild cat, as well as birds - ducks, Andean condor, eagles and pigeons.

The climate in the park is warm and temperate, with areas of permafrost in the highlands. The average temperature does not exceed + 15 ° C in the warm season, and + 6 ° C in the coldest months - from June to July.

National Forestry Corporation CONAF has made great efforts to preserve and protect the region, which has made Conillo National Park a model for the protection of the environment. Park visitors can not only observe the life of local fauna and enjoy the beautiful surroundings, but also study biology, zoology, botany through free educational programs.

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Topic: National Park Coniglio (Parque Nacional Conguillio) description and photos - Chile: Temuco.