Mirador Laguna Otùn | Tourist Attraction
Colombia
Details
- Verified:
- about 2 years ago
- GPS:
- 4.80213, -75.41399
- Altitude:
- 3893.6 masl
- Contributor:
-
tanguy.adriaenssen
Amenities
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Description
I will give some facts to help decide if you want to come up here, but first let me say, we are glad we came… just a few things to know:
1/ The road to get up here is not smooth or relaxing! We did in on motos but no doubt in a 4x4 camper or truck you’ll get bounced around… it’s not challenging just 40 kms of rough get tiring after a while.
Like I said, glad we came, we spent 2 nights at the restaurant / soon to be hotel camping in one of there rooms.
2/ you have to leave your vehicle at the ranger station and from there it’s a 5.5km walk to the base of the mirador hill. It’s not an exciting or particularly scenic walk. It’s an all beat up access road, slippery in certain section when it rains, lots of lose pebble type rocks, not particularly pleasant, and that 11ams return!
3/ the hike up to the mirador is steep and you are at 4000 meters. The view however (if the weather plays nice) is stunning! But in my opinion the mirrador views alone don’t warrant the 11kms hike HOWEVER… if you have a few more kms left in you and you want to get adventurous there are some amazing trails up here (see photos) we ended up hiking a total of 17kms and 6 of those made it worth while. The trails aren’t super obvious or marked but, with a gps or a decent app on your phone you can do great things here!
4/ the weather… it all hinges on the weather. Most mornings are clear from sunrise to about 9:30 then the fog rolls in and well, there goes your lake views! And then around mid day we got rain. Talking to the locals that seems to be the trend (at least for the last 2 years) we started our hike at 0700 and headed back when it started to rain around 12:30… back at camp by 14:00.
So yeah, plan on going early which means, either start driving up at about 3:30am or sleeping up here (which we did) but consider temps at night are close to or just below freezing. There is only one sleeping option up here right now (see other post)
That’s about the extent of its, it’s a shame that 1- access road is so beat up and 2 that you can’t drive to the lake and start hiking from there (where it gets really good) walking 11 kms to get to the start of a good hiking spot with about 7 hours of decent weather window seems a bit of a waste but, doesn’t seem that park people have much interest in it all… shame really.
Also, no shelter, the mirador itself is falling apart (probably shouldn’t go up it) and when it starts to rain, it gets cold real quick so plan for all seasons up here!
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I will give some facts to help decide if you want to come up here, but first let me say, we are glad we came… just a few things to know:
1/ the road to get up here is not smooth or relaxing! We did in on motos but no doubt in a 4x4 camper or truck you’ll get bounced around… it’s not challenging just 40 kms of rough get tiring after a while.
Like I said, glad we came, we spent 2 nights at the restaurant / soon to be hotel camping in one of there rooms.
2/ you have to leave your vehicle at the ranger station and from there it’s a 5.5km walk to the base of the mirador hill. It’s not an exciting or particularly scenic walk. It’s an all beat up access road, slippery in certain section when it rains, lots of lose pebble type rocks, not particularly pleasant, and that 11ams return!
3/ the hike up to the mirador is steep and you are at 4000 meters. The view however (if the weather plays nice) is stunning! But in my opinion the mirrador views alone don’t warrant the 11kms hike HOWEVER… if you have a few more kms left in you and you want to get adventurous there are some amazing trails up here (see photos) we ended up hiking a total of 17kms and 6 of those made it worth while. The trails aren’t super obvious or marked but, with a gps or a decent app on your phone you can do great things here!
4/ the weather… it all hinges on the weather. Most mornings are clear from sunrise to about 9:30 then the fog rolls in and well, there goes your lake views! And then around mid day we got rain. Talking to the locals that seems to be the trend (at least for the last 2 years) we started our hike at 0700 and headed back when it started to rain around 12:30… back at camp by 14:00.
So yeah, plan on going early which means, either start driving up at about 3:30am or sleeping up here (which we did) but consider temps at night are close to or just below freezing. There is only one sleeping option up here right now (see other post)
That’s about the extent of its, it’s a shame that 1- access road is so beat up and 2 that you can’t drive to the lake and start hiking from there (where it gets really good) walking 11 kms to get to the start of a good hiking spot with about 7 hours of decent weather window seems a bit of a waste but, doesn’t seem that park people have much interest in it all… shame really.
Also, no shelter, the mirador itself is falling apart (probably shouldn’t go up it) and when it starts to rain, it gets cold real quick so plan for all seasons up here!