bosque petrificado la leona (la leona petrified forest)

In addition to the glaciers and peaks, this is a different way of seeing the area. This petrified forest is a remarkable landscape. I held petrified dinosaur bones in my hands! Also, petrified dinosaur dung! Wow! Unusual photo opportunities that this dry, eroded landscape affords. This is a desert, though, and in a low area, so if peaks and trees are what you want, this isn't the thing for you On the day we went (early January) it was sunny, but very windy and cold. Still, a very good experience. The hiking isn't very difficult, but there are some narrow cliffside trails and ups and downs. I was glad I had my trekking poles, boots, and wind-protection clothing on me. You can't visit this on your own, you have to do a guided tour since it's on private property. We had our own car, and we did the tour on the day we moved from El Chalten to El Calafate. We met up with the tour at La Leona at about 10am. We left our car at La Leona (good idea, since the road to the Bosque trailhead is very rough) and the bus brought us back there when we finished (about 3pm). We booked online through Walk Patagonia (but I think all the tours here are run by one company) about two weeks in advance. Good idea, since these things are pretty booked up. Marcello, our guide, spoke English very well. He was very knowledgeable!

I booked via email in September for a December tour. The guide doesn't speak great English, but it doesn't matter that much since mostly a visual place. You get to see petrified wood, weird seabed formations, and fossilized dinosaur bones. Feel like in an ancient desert. Very cool scenery. Probably about a 6-8 km hike I'd guess, not too much uphill. Stop halfway for lunch, which I believe is included.You have to pay in pesos in advance once you arrive in El Calafate - important to do this as soon as you can so you don't lose your place. Not sure if they take credit card, but I was told to bring pesos. Need to present receipt you get when you pay on the bus. The office is a little hard to find but its basically a block from the supermarket on the main street, and just around the corner - look for glass door and on the inside it says "Morresi Viajes". They are open until 9 pm I believe.This is also an excellent and cost efficient way to get from El Calafate to El Chalten. They will pick you up at your hotel and for those not returning to El Calafate, a private car picks you up at the halfway point (included in price) and this is cool because you can ask the driver to stop and take pictures of guanaco, Mt Fitz Roy, Route 40 etc.

Small group, informed bilingual guide. lots of examples of petrified trees in a wind sculpted setting the is other worldly. Well worth the time and money.

In Calafte few agencies will suggest you the petrified Woods, why not go to this bosque petrificado? The place is great, a paleontological site packed full of large petrified tree trunks and heaps of fragments of dinosaur bones.

A fabulous trip out into the desert. Our guide Eduardo was informative and amusing. We learnt about the history, geology and politics of this vast area. He was so interesting that the 114 kilometres to Los Hornos Hill situated on an estancia flew by. Standing at the top of the depression the view was breathtaking. The walk was not terribly taxing but you need to be fit enough to travel up and down for about 3 hours. Learning about fossilized dinosaur bones and petrified trees was fascinating. The flowers that grow here are also astounding and you might be lucky enough to see one of the flowering cactus. Along the way we saw a fox, guanaco, a rhea with about 10 young chicks and the remains of a guanaco which had been killed by a puma. This was a unique experience and not to be missed. The lunch which was included was delicious.

We had the pleasure to have Flor as a guide and explain to us all the details of the geographic plates, ancient volcanoes that produced the petrified forest that you see and discovered the femur bones , and others of the dinosaurs that are being washed by the rains.The sight of this landscape is magic, and so different from Lena forest and glacier views .Is is not so windy nor too hot.They preserved the place without toilets or souvenir shop , which is great.....if not it feels all Patagonia sights as a supermarket ! I loved the uniqueness of this place...and highly recommend it .My teen kids also had many questions , that got answered and learn so much.

En este caso creo que el viaje no resultó lo que esperaba por mi falta de experiencia en el tema.Siendo un bosque petrificado de deshielo, los especimenes que se pueden observar son pocos y distribuidos por el piso. Todos son muy imponentes, y se nota que cumple con las expectativas, pero no supe apreciarlo.La guía fue muy atenta y se nota que posee un amplio conocimiento en el tema.In this case I think that the trip was not what I was expecting because of my lack of experience on the subject.Since it is a petrified forest formed by glaciers , there were not too many specimens to watch and they all where scattered throw the floor. All of them are impressive but I was unable to appreciate it.The guide was very attentive and showed a lot of knowledge on the subject.

pity is not advertised enough, I foudn otu about this on tripadvisor, in Calafte few agencies will suggest you the petrified Woods.The guide was very nice, the place is great, the hiking is not demanding at all, therefore it's feasible for almost everybody.

If you spend many days in El Calafate, why not go to this bosque petrificado? The landscapes are different from the other places around...very interesting! And I visited it with a guide who really knew what he was talking about!

A tour organized having in mind all of us that like to walk the wild open outdoors of Patagonia, exploring a paleontological site packed full of large petrified tree trunks over 1,2 meters in diameter and heaps of fragments of dinosaur bones as well as big whole dino pieces. Really amazing experience !!! We travel trough open steppe with magnificent views of the valley of lake Argentino, with a panoramic background of the Southern Andes, cross mighty Santa Cruz river, and coast along the valley of La Leona river with (according to cloud cover) chances to sight mount Fitz Roy. We reach the foothill of Cerro Los Hornos, where we start our tekking, and most of the fossils can be found !! The guide was very infomative and kind !!! If you are planing to go to Chalten from Calafate, its a unique experience with an indescribable landscape.

Rather than catching the bus from El Chalten to El Calafate we chose to combine the journey with a visit to the Petrified Forest. We left El Chalten by car, drove to the La Leona roadhouse where we could have a coffee and use the bathroom and then we joined some others, a driver and guide and went to a site on private land. We parked right on top of a massive escarpment and looking down it resembled a lunar surface. Our guide Christian was very informative and for the next two hours we walked right down to the valley floor and en route he pointed out a couple of dinosaur bones and some very large petrified trees dating back about 100 million years. We were given a very adequate boxed lunch and sat amongst the strange formations before starting the walk back up.We found it a fascinating way to spend a few hours. A couple of hints, use the bathroom at La Leona because apart from that you have to find a piece of rock to hide behind! Obviously sturdy shoes and we found our walking poles were quite useful to navigate some of the narrow or steep paths. If you haven't got one of your own, you can borrow one. We did have some people on our tour who were not that fit but they took their time and did not have any issues. We were then transported on to El Calafate and taken to our hotel. This trip can be done in reverse.

The trip wasn't quite what i expected but it was certainly different and interesting. It was great to be in a smaller group and away from the main tourist attractions, I feel it made my visit to Calafate more unique.

we did La Leona on our way to Chalten! we called MORRESI VIAJES and we arranged to meet guide in Parador La Leona! that is where we met our amazing guide MIGUEL ALONSO who was informative & very fun!we drove for 30mins with some great faraway views if Mount Fitz Roy until we crossed into a private ranch! then..THE MOON! we walked for 3 hrs across THOUSANDS of huge dino bones & fossil araucaria trees! if you are hoping to see reconstructions (like one if the previous reviews) better go to a museum! it is a wonderful hike with just 1 mild climb! my 8 year old was in front of the group of the time so it is doable for anyone willing to experience the most amazing excursion we've done in years! and we've done many!!! Do NOT miss it!

This petrified forest almost makes you feel like you are on a moonscape, but then you see the petrified wood and bones and think differently. Can spend as much or as little time as you like here. Do not visit after a rain or during rain storm or you will be in mud. It is private property so you make arrangements to be allowed on the property.

We recently took this tour which we booked through Morresi Viajes next to the big supermarket on Libertador Ave. in El Calafate. On the day we went there were no other bookings so we had a private tour. We give them credit for not cancelling it as we are sure they would have lost money providing a car, driver and guide for only 2 people at no extra cost. The tour included transportation directly from our hotel and a good boxed lunch. Our guide Eduardo was very informative and he spent the entire drive to the site telling us about life in Argentina. Although he is Argentinian he was educated in America so he spoke perfect English. Once we arrived his excellent knowledge of the site was obvious. The site is best described as badlands and takes about 3 hours to see. The landscape in this valley is totally different than the surrounding area. For us the best part was the petrified trees scattered throughout. Some are broken up into pieces as if cut with a saw, with very visible rings while others are more intact like a whole tree trunk, bark and all. They have all turned to stone however and along with a few dinosaur bones are pretty well the only rocks in a predominantly dirt-clay landscape that is constantly eroding around them. We would recommend this tour for anyone as long as they don’t have mobility problems but it is easier than some of the hiking trails around El Chalten.Overall we thought the tour was very interesting and well worth the money.