Best trails in Alerce Costero National Park

The Alerce Costero National Park is located in the Los Ríos Region, between the communes of La Unión and Corral, in the provinces of Valdivia and Ranco, Los Ríos Region. It was created in 2010 as a result of public-private collaboration, integrating the areas of the former Valdivia National Reserve, the former Alerce Costero Natural Monument, Quitaluto's fiscal properties, and the donation of land from the Valdivian Coastal Reserve by The Nature Conservancy.

The park represents valuable natural environments because of the presence of ancient alerce forests in its northernmost distribution. Its temperate-rainforests have not been affected by massive disturbances such as volcanic eruptions, so the area has high levels of endemism in flora and fauna, for example, about 60% of the flora species are endemic.

Its main attraction is the Grandfather Alerce Milenario, a specimen with more than 3500 years on our planet. The species is the second longest-lived on the planet, only surpassed by the long-lived pine (Pinus longaeva), which grows in the mountains of California and Nevada, United States.

The trunk of the Grandfather Larch measures 4.2 m in diameter and a perimeter of 11 m, with an annual growth of less than 1 mm/year.