Aluminé Lake (Spanish: Lago Aluminé) is a large and deep lake located in the

Andes The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S ...

in the western part of

Neuquén Province Neuquén () is a province of Argentina, located in the west of the country, at the northern end of Patagonia. It borders Mendoza Province to the north, Rio Negro Province to the southeast, and Chile to the west. It also meets La Pampa Province a ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, near the border with

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. Aluminé Lake is fed by the outflow of Lake Moquehue and is the source of the Aluminé River whose waters ultimately reach the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. The tourist town of

Villa Pehuenia Villa Pehuenia is a village and municipality in Neuquén Province in southwestern Argentina. The town is located on the northern shore of Aluminé Lake and its economy is primarily based on tourism. The village is in the Andes and is located about ...

is on the northern shore of the lake.

Description

The western shores of Aluminė and Moquehue lakes are the most northern parts of Argentina in the ecoregion of the

Valdivian temperate rain forest The Valdivian temperate forests (NT0404) is an ecoregion on the west coast of southern South America, in Chile and Argentina. It is part of the Neotropical realm. The forests are named after the city of Valdivia. The Valdivian temperate rainforest ...

featuring forests, lush vegetation, and heavy precipitation, especially in the winter season of the southern hemisphere. Northward from Aluminé lake the climate becomes drier and more characteristic of

Mediterranean climate A Mediterranean climate (also called a dry summer temperate climate ''Cs'') is a temperate climate sub-type, generally characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, fairly wet winters; these weather conditions are typically experienced in the ...

s. The endangered monkey-puzzle tree (

Araucaria araucana ''Araucaria araucana'' (commonly called the monkey puzzle tree, monkey tail tree, piñonero, pewen or Chilean pine) is an evergreen tree growing to a trunk diameter of 1–1.5 m (3–5 ft) and a height of 30–40 m (100–130 ft). ...

), locally called the "pehuen", is found here in the southernmost part of its range. The north shore of Aluminé Lake is dominated by the Batea Mahuida

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...

, elevation , which slopes gently down to the lake. Aluminé Lake is connected with Moquehue Lake, long and wide, via a narrow channel about long. Unlike many of the lakes in Argentina's lake district, the area of Lake Aluminé is not protected in a national park and deforestation through logging and wild fires has caused the deterioration of much of the natural forest cover near the lake. The Lake Aluminé area has a warm-summer oceanic climate, Csb in the Köppen climate classification system and Crlk (mild summers, cool winters) in the Trewartha climate classification. Most precipitation is in the Austral winter.

Economy

Lake Aluminé has a developing tourist industry near its banks with

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salmoni ...

fishing, boating, and sight-seeing. Roads run along the north bank of Lake Aluminé and the west bank of Lake Moquehue with many lodging places and private residences. A road leads onward to

, a few miles distant from the lakes. A small ski resort is located on the slopes of Batea Mahuida volcano, operated by the Puel community of

Mapuche The Mapuche ( (Mapuche & Spanish: )) are a group of indigenous inhabitants of south-central Chile and southwestern Argentina, including parts of Patagonia. The collective term refers to a wide-ranging ethnicity composed of various groups who sha ...

people who inhabited this region prior to the arrival of the first European settlers in the 1890s."Cerro Batea Mahuida", http://www.cerrobateamahuida.com/, accessed 10 Apr 2018

References

{{reflist Lakes of Neuquén Province Glacial lakes of Argentina