Argentina
El Sosneado
Sixteen survivors of a 1972 Andes crash spent 72 days in this valley before walking out.
El Sosneado in Mendoza Province marks the spot where Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crashed into the Andes in October 1972 — the mountain valley where 16 of the 45 survivors were found 72 days later, after walking out through the cordillera. The crash site at 3,570 metres above the Sosneado Valley is reachable on horseback from the estancia below, and the tail section of the aircraft still sits on the slope, preserved by the altitude and the cold. The story of the Andes survivors is the most documented survival narrative in aviation history; the valley that held it is still largely empty.
El Sosneado in San Rafael Department of Mendoza Province is the entry point for the Andes crash site of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, which on 13 October 1972 struck a mountain ridge at 3,570 metres and came to rest in the Nevado mountain glacier system. The survival of 16 of the 45 passengers and crew across 72 days of a Andes winter — documented in Piers Paul Read's Alive (1974) and later the 1993 film and 2023 Netflix film La Sociedad de la Nieve — has made the site a significant location for travellers who know the story. The tail section of the Fairchild FH-227 aircraft remains at approximately 3,570 metres, and the graves of those who died on the mountain are maintained by surviving passengers and their families. The Estancia Los Maitenes at El Sosneado organises horse treks to the site; no other access infrastructure exists.
Solo
The El Sosneado approach — the ride through the Sosneado Valley, the altitude gain to the crash site, the tail section visible in the snow field above — is a pilgrimage in the original sense: a journey to a place where something extreme occurred and the physical encounter with it is the point. The story is required reading before arriving.
Couple
El Sosneado provides one of those rare travel experiences where the historical knowledge you bring to a landscape changes what you see in it. Two people who have read Alive arriving at the crash site together, on horseback, in the Andes silence, have an experience that is impossible to adequately describe to people who weren't there.
- Hotel Termas del Sosneado opened in 1937 and closed after flooding — the shell stands largely intact.
- The thermal pool chamber is still visible inside the ruins — the hot springs beside the building still flow year-round.
- The access road requires 4WD and 80km of dirt track from San Rafael — no power, no signal.
- The surrounding Mendoza steppe is entirely empty — the ruined hotel and volcanic lagoon exist in complete isolation.
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Mendozan Malbec from Valle de Uco fills thermoses for the dirt-road drive to the ruins.
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