Description of the attraction
Onkol Park is a forest reserve established in 1989. It is located 32 kilometers northwest of the city of Valdivia, in the de Los Rios region of Chile. This is a place of amazing beauty, located between the Pacific Ocean and the Rio Cruces nature reserve, and only 5 km from the coast.
This park, with an area of 754 hectares, is mostly located on the hill of the same name. The hill of Oncol is the highest point (715 m above sea level) in the Cordillera de la Costa in the province of Valdivia, which is of great importance, since the high places of the Cordillera de la Costa were not affected by glaciation and the forests remained here intact when the Central Valley and the Andes mountains were covered with ice.
A special feature of Onkol Park is its lush Waldive forest, preserved in its original form - a humid tropical forest in a temperate climate zone. A similar forest can still be seen in New Zealand, but there are none in the Northern Hemisphere.
A wide variety of evergreen cypress trees, 28 species of ferns and mosses, 7 species of orchids, cinnamon and podocarpus grow in the forest, and from the fauna you can see Darwin's frog, black woodpecker and various endemic amphibians.
On the southern side of Oncol Hill is the Carlos Anwandter Nature Reserve.
The park has camping and picnic areas. In addition, there are four treetop observation decks, two of which are on the route with panoramic views of Valdivia, the wetlands and the seaside. Eleven volcanoes can be seen from here, including the Llaima volcano (3215 m), the Osorno volcano (2652 m) and the Cerro Tronador volcano (3554 m), which lies on the border of Chile and Argentina.
The walks along the routes are conducted by guides as part of the tourist environmental education program. The park has a specially designed trail that leads to the coast in Pichiquin, a sector without vehicle access, which can still only be reached by sea. At this junction of the ocean and pristine forests that have remained untouched for thousands of years, dolphins and blue whales can be observed on the shore as they migrate, and penguins, otters and cormorants can be seen nesting on the coastal slopes.
The park is owned by the companies "Forestal Valdivia" and "Celulosa Arauco y Constitución" and is open to the public all year round.
