The creation of the Parque Patagonia conservation area – the brainchild of a billionaire US couple – is a step to creating one of the world’s largest national parks. But what’s the hiking like?

“Pain?” asks Jorge Molina, my hiking guide. Yes, there is a little pain, but it’s too late for cold feet. Or, more accurately, it’s too late not to get cold feet, because we’re already shin-deep in a swift icy river.

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“We’ll cross 20 of these rivers today,” Jorge warns. I won’t complain. These cold rivers, flowing down from the glaciers and mountains of Lago Jeinimeni national reserve in Chile’s Aysén region, will supply drinking water on our four-day trek into Parque Patagonia. And things could be far worse. “Sometimes these rivers come up to the waist,” says Jorge. Parts of my body are thankful the water isn’t that high now.

There has also been a little pain in the birth of this new park – which opened fully this year, and may soon become a major new national park. American billionaire Doug Tompkins (founder of the North Face and Esprit clothing brands) and his wife Kristine (former CEO of clothing company Patagonia) have been working on it for years. The ambitious plan was to unite land they bought in the Chacabuco valley in 2004 with the neighbouring Jeinimeni and Tamango national reserves, to create a 650,000-acre public access park. They hope it will get national park status in 2016, though it could take longer.

In an even grander project, the Tompkins are hoping to turn Chile’s existing southern highway, Carretera Austral, into a 2,000km scenic highway, with improved infrastructure, running from the city of Puerto Montt down to Tierra del Fuego, with access to 17 national parks along the way. Their mission in the Chacabuco valley is to restore Patagonian grasslands that have been overgrazed by sheep and cattle. But this has met with controversy and local opposition.

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Jorge fills me in as we start our hike from the banks of the mirror-like Lago Jeinimeni: “The culture in this region is animals, farmers, ranching. When Doug bought the valley in 2004, people felt attacked. But things are changing, and we need to preserve this land. There were too many animals here for an ecosystem that’s so fragile.”

When the Tompkins’ Conservación Patagonica organisation bought the land in 2004, they set about closing the ranches, moving cattle and sheep out of the valley, and removing all the fencing to return the land to its previous natural state. One or two ranches refused to sell to Tompkins and they and their animals remain in parts of the park, but otherwise the land is wilderness once again.

Doug has been accused of being an interfering gringo, dictating how a country uses its own land; of burdening the government with the future costs of a national park; and of protecting pumas that kill nearby ranches’ livestock.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mirror-like Lago Jeinemeni. Photograph: Graeme Green

I met up with him before my hike. He points out that he paid for and owns the land, so can do what he wants with it. But he also sees Parque Patagonia as a microcosm of the wider world’s clash between development and conservation. A national park, he argues, can provide more jobs and income than ranching, which he says has been disastrous for Patagonia’s grasslands. He sees resistance to the park as an example of “cultural lag”, with the general population yet to catch up with conservationist thinking: “Humanity is slow to come to terms with big shifts. But the people who are the most vocal opponents of a national park often become the staunchest defenders. It’s the damnedest thing.”

It’s easy to see why he wants to protect this place. Though it lacks the drama of Torres del Paine’s granite towers, this is still an awesome slice of Patagonia, with wide grasslands and snow-capped mountains, mirror-like lakes and fast-flowing rivers.

As Jorge and I hike through Valle Hermoso (Beautiful Valley), waterfalls cascade down giant rock faces and there’s a glacier visible between the mountains. A pair of black-chested buzzard eagles soar above a forest. We hike up a steep snowy trail to a lookout point over Lago Verde, where steamer ducks glide across greenish blue water. From here, I can see that the lake is teeming with trout.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Too late for cold feet … crossing an icy river in the national reserve. Photograph: Graeme Green

Jorge stops to boil water for mate (the ubiquitous South American herb tea), taking leaves from a pouch that reads: “I take my mate with water from Patagonia that’s free and without dams.” It’s a reference to a successful campaign to stop dams being built on Aysén’s rivers. Down here, even your daily brew is political.

After a long first day, we reach Puesto Frontera campsite, which means we’ve crossed into Tompkins land. We pitch tents and get a fire going in a little forest next to a stream – it’s a world away from the “techno-industrial” civilisation Doug rails against.

Next day, we hike the Aviles valley, leaping across rivers, stomping through bogs and scrambling up rocky banks. We pass puestos, small shelters used by gauchos before the fences were removed and the land returned to its natural state. On the third day the Chacabuco mountains loom in front of us, vast grasslands stretching down into the Chacabuco valley, where 30,000 sheep and cattle used to graze. Jorge points out recovering plants, like the bright red neneo macho shrub and the bushy coirón grass.

There’s a family of guanacos on the hills and an Andean condor glides overhead as we make our way down to Casa Piedra campsite, the finishing point of the trek. Here, like elsewhere in the park, construction work is still going on. The high-end Lodge at Valle Chacabuco, owned by the Tompkinses, is decidedly traditional, heavy on local wood and stone, walls covered in large black-and-white photos of wildlife and gauchos. It’s refined and very comfortable after nights of wilderness camping, though they may need to up the service to match the price tag.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A herd of guanacos in the Chacabuco valley

New hiking trails and biking routes are being finished, too, making this wild piece of land closer in spirit to a US national park.

On my final day in the park I drive past the former house of Lucas Bridges, the Englishman who introduced sheep-ranching to the valley in 1904. Hares sprint across the road as we drive through the valley. Pink flamingos stalk lagoons. Herds of guanacos graze by the roadside, the alpha males standing watch from rocky outposts.

It’s Doug’s view that when people spend time in wild places like this, they come away, if not hardcore environmentalists, then certainly caring more about the natural world. On that point, it’s hard to disagree.

Way to go

The trip was provided by Pura Aventura (01273 676 712, pura-aventura.com); its eight-night trip includes a four-day Jeinimeni-Chacabuco hike with guides, camping and all meals, one night at the Lodge at Valle Chacabuco (B&B) plus transfers from Balmaceda airport, and costs from £1,362pp based on a group of four or £1,938pp for two. TAM and LAN both fly from Heathrow to Balmaceda, Chile, via São Paolo and Santiago, from £1,115 return. For more information on Chile, visit chile.travel

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