El Sosneado

El Sosneado is high Mendoza country up a rough mountain road: a 1930s thermal hotel stands ruined beneath snow-marked peaks, hot springs still flowing beside the shell, the surrounding steppe entirely empty. And above the valley, in the cordillera, lies the district's heaviest history — the 1972 crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, whose sixteen survivors endured seventy-two days before walking out.

The Hotel Termas del Sosneado opened in 1937 and closed within decades; its shell survives largely intact, thermal chamber still readable inside — viewed from safe ground, because ruins this old demand restraint, and any use of the thermal water wants current local confirmation first. Higher, in the Valle de las Lágrimas, the tail of the Fairchild and the maintained graves of those who died mark the most documented survival story in aviation history, told in Alive and La Sociedad de la Nieve — reached only on guided multi-day horse expeditions in the summer window, a pilgrimage in the original sense. Everything about the district runs on preparation: road and access notices checked before leaving the valley, all supplies carried from San Rafael, no catering, power or signal assumed anywhere near the ruins, and recognised local excursions preferred to solo improvisation.