Alerce Costero National Park, National park in Los Ríos Region, Chile.
Alerce Costero National Park is a protected area in the Coastal Range of the Los Ríos Region, within Ranco Province in southern Chile. The park covers a temperate rainforest dominated by Fitzroya trees of exceptional age and size, crossed by a network of marked walking trails.
The area was first protected as a National Monument in 1987, then reclassified as a National Park in 2010. This upgrade came after decades of logging had significantly reduced Fitzroya forests across southern Chile.
The Fitzroya trees, locally called "alerce", are central to the identity of this coastal forest and give the park its name. Visitors walking among them often notice how their reddish bark peels in thin strips, a detail that makes them easy to recognize even from a distance.
The park is accessible via route T-80 from La Unión, and the trails are marked for different fitness levels. Since the forest stays wet year-round, waterproof footwear and a rain layer are worth bringing regardless of the season.
The Fitzroya genus was named after Robert FitzRoy, captain of HMS Beagle, the ship that carried Charles Darwin during his voyage to South America. In some parts of the park, fallen logs from past logging are still visible on the forest floor, slowly decomposing over many decades.
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