Pearson - 1993 7 maiten trees, huge radals and retamos, scattered bamboo, and nires. Higher up becomes dense nire and bamboo thicket. Some of the nires very large. Average sized ones had about 50 growth rings. Some charred trunks from an old fire. At our highest point we were at about 3800 feet, and it ws dense nire/bamboo/chaura. Lots of Chelemys diggings in some spots. The senora at the hotel said the fire was a long long time ago; maybe before the twenties. Her husband, 62 years old, was very young at the time of the flowering and does not remember it. She thought it was in the thirties. She said that they used to say that there was a cycle of 20 years, then 30 years; now they say 50 years. The Veerenbruken family seems to have owned the hotel forever. The contrast with Puerto Blest is dramatic. 12 November- Lago Mascardi. Fresh snow on the trees up high. Scattered clouds. Hiked to the Aforo next to the Suspension Bridge over the lower end of the Rio Manso. Nire clumps, bamboo, meadows, etc., sort of like Pampa Linda but not as heavlily grazed. The bridge is impressive, built by Club Andino, and the water level measuring device was automatically recording. Then we started hiking up the trail to the mirador, through nire, a few maiten, a mature cipres forest, but did not go all the way to the lookout. Then drove on toward Tronador and stopped at the old Aforo between Suspension Bridge and Pampa Linda. It is 6.8 km by road WNW of the west end of Lago Mascardi, or 1.0 km by road west of the abandoned chacra at the bottom of a long grade. There is a cable car (abandoned) across the Rio Manso there, as well as the remains of a water-level-measuring well made of 55-gallon oil drums welded together. The vegetation is clumps of nire and bamboo, Berberis, a few scattered and grazed clumps of pampa grass. Located a good campsite 2.0 km by road farther west, across the road from the big basalt columns: nire, bamboo, berberis. Then started home after 4 pm when the road opened for east-bound traffic. Saw and heard parrots once, near Hotel Tronador. Talked with Don Pepe from the hotel, who was bulldozing gravel from the river. He says that there was a ratada last winter that had nothing to do with bamboo flowering. There were wild mice in the hotel buildings; they chewed the insulation on auto wiring and other plastic items. Home about 6:30. Minimum temperature at our apartment had been 41.