Tupungato Park

Tupungato Provincial Park shares its territory with the departments of Tupungato, in the Uco Valley, and Luján de Cuyo, in the so called Gran Mendoza. It is possible to have access to the park from the town of Tupungato, following the road to Las Tunas and Santa Clara ravines, or from Punta de Vacas, in the north.

The park covers approximately 150,000 hectares and it protects a high mountain environment in the Frontal and the Frontier Mountain Range of the Central Andes. It is the home of one the least visited high peaks of Argentina, Tupungato Volcano (6,550 meters), which is the highest volcano of the Central Andes and the second highest peak of the province. A large number of snowfields and glaciers that provide fresh water to the province are found in this extinguished volcano. Besides, the park is in charge of protecting the major ice reservoirs of the Mendocinean mountain range: the system of glaciers of Mount Plomo, which includes the Plomo and Juncal snowfields, the Chorrillos mountain chain, Alto del Río Blanco, León Blanco, and the great ice currents of Alto del Plomo and Bajo del Plomo.

In this area you can observe typical mountain animal species such as condors and guanacos, as well as black-chested buzzard eagles, foxes, mountain mice, and “agachonas". There is also one type of frog and lizard that live only in the mountains.