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==Season Section Log==
17 to 18 of January 2023 / Will / SOBO, option 1 to the Termas del Pelehue, via GPT11-02
I took the bus to Guallali, which took me past the Carabineros and directly into town where I set up in the standard grove. A bit after dark two carabineros showed up at my tent. Intimidating at first, they were very friendly after I explained my plans. They just said that next time I should make sure to stop and report to them on my way by.
The section starts out with a not very interesting road walk, but suddenly became super beautiful 15ish km in. I camped at 25.1, a somewhat sheltered spot by a stream, where the wind rattling my tent made it hard to sleep. A few arrieros came by during the evening. The 26.1 campsite looked similar.
The horse flies reappeared as I got up closer to the pass. Had flashbacks of sections 7 and 8, trying to determine whether each stab was a horse fly or burr or paranoid hallucination. My theory is that they've migrated up to the higher altitudes, now that it's later in the season.
I took option 1 (diverging a decent amount) to join up with section 12 at the termas de pelehue. It was tough and slow going, taking around 3 hours, but I really enjoyed it. I planned my route to avoid horizontal slope traversals so I never really felt in danger of a serious fall. I did still slip a few times, cutting up my hand a bit.
I started out with the ridge walk from the pass. Would have been great walking if not for the absurd winds, I spent most of it slightly to the south below the ridge. The slope was pretty gradual there and not slippery. I then went down past the two grass patches following the route on openstreetmap. I descended to the south all the way down to around 1875m, along a stream around 50m to the east of the openstreetmap route. It was easy rock walking at first, but turned into some tricky hands on scrambling as the stream got bigger. I wouldn't recommend it if the flow rate is high. Then I climbed back up to the final stretch of the main option route. The climb was steep at first but with enough vegetation and solid rock in the slope to get up. Everything after that was easy, more or less.
25 to 30 of December 2022 / Véronica / combined GPT11 and GPT12 RR SOBO, via GPT11-02 / 5.5 days total