Cerro Manquehue

This guide to Cerro Manquehue in Santiago opens with the sound of trail runners repeating the same climb before breakfast, on a peak whose Mapudungun name recalls the condors that once nested on its cliffs. Two summits share this ridge: Manquehuito, gentle enough for a child's first climb, and Manquehue itself, steep enough that runners treat it as an interval workout. The slope also carries sclerophyllous scrub, tough and leathery-leaved, that once covered most of central Chile.