Petrohué Waterfalls
Saltos de Petrohué
Interesting facts
- Successive lava flows from Osorno repeatedly dammed the outlet of Todos los Santos Lake and raised its level; the falls are where the river crosses one such flow.
- The river runs over young volcanic andesite, while its steep left bank is formed of much older granodiorite.
- When lahars come down from Osorno, the river carries abrasive sand and silt that have polished the rocks of the falls smooth.
- Torrent ducks, birds adapted to fast whitewater, are sometimes seen feeding in the rapids.
- From the lake to the sea at the Reloncaví Estuary, the Petrohué River runs only about 36 kilometres.
- The river is famed for sport fishing, with chinook and coho salmon as well as brown and rainbow trout.
- Vicente Pérez Rosales, established in 1926, is the oldest national park in Chile.
- The Petrohué area receives around 4,000 millimetres of rain a year, much of it in the southern winter months of June to August.
- Together with neighbouring parks in Chile and Argentina, the park forms a continuous protected area of nearly 15,000 square kilometres.
Why it is worth it
The Petrohué Waterfalls are not tall. What makes them remarkable is the river and the rock. A short way below its source in Todos los Santos Lake, the Petrohué River meets a barrier of dark basaltic lava that once flowed down from the Osorno volcano, and instead of dropping over it in a single fall, it tears through it in a series of chutes, channels and short steps only a couple of metres high. The river carries a great volume of water here, on average several hundred cubic metres a second and much more in the rainy months, and the whole mass is forced through cracks and gutters in the black rock in a roar of foam.
The colour is the second surprise. In normal conditions the water is clear with a green and blue cast, bright against the volcanic stone; during the thaw it can turn brown and dark. Above it all rises the cone of Osorno, 2,652 m high, so that from the viewpoints the falls, the rock that made them and the volcano that produced that rock appear in a single frame.
The falls lie inside Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park, created in 1926 and covering about 2,530 km² of lakes, forest and volcanoes in the Chilean Lake District. The park protects Todos los Santos Lake and much of its catchment, with Osorno standing between it and Lake Llanquihue. At the falls, paths, boardwalks and footbridges lead through the forest to viewing platforms right above the rushing water.
Getting there
The falls are close to Route CH-225, the road from Puerto Varas past Ensenada to the village of Petrohué on Todos los Santos Lake; Puerto Varas is about 48 km away and Petrohué itself about 64 km by road. Public transport runs along the route from Puerto Varas. The nearest airport is El Tepual International Airport (PMC), serving Puerto Montt, about 62 km away.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Osorno Volcano 8.9 km · volcano
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Petrohué Waterfalls is a chute-type waterfall in the upper reach of Petrohué River in Chile, a short distance downstream of the source of this river in Todos los Santos Lake. This waterfall is inside the Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park, close to the road leading to the Petrohue locality on lake Todos los Santos.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
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