The San Francisco Pass is a pass over the Andes mountains which connects

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 ...

and

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 ...

. The highest point of this pass is at AMSL.

Location

The pass is located at and connects the Argentine province of Catamarca with the Atacama Region in Chile. In the Argentine side, route N 60 ascends from Fiambala at AMSL in a deep valley formed by mountains. In the last sinuous , the route climbs from about in Las grutas to more than at the border. On the Chilean side the route CH-31 connects

Copiapó Copiapó () is a city and commune in northern Chile, located about 65 kilometers east of the coastal town of Caldera. Founded on December 8, 1744, it is the capital of Copiapó Province and Atacama Region. Copiapó lies about 800 km nort ...

with the ChileanArgentine border. On the way it passes next to Maricunga's salt flat on the Nevado Tres Cruces National Park and Laguna Verde. The area is surrounded by

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the Crust (geology), crust of a Planet#Planetary-mass objects, planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and volcanic gas, gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Ear ...

es and high peaks as the Cerro Falso Azufre (), the volcano

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

(), the

Incahuasi Incahuasi (; possibly from Quechua: ''inka'' Inca, ''wasi'' house) is a volcanic mountain in the Andes of South America. It lies on the border of the Catamarca Province of Argentina and the Atacama Region of Chile. Incahuasi has a summit elevat ...

() and highest volcano in the world, Nevado Ojos del Salado (), among others.

Gallery

File:Paso San Francisco 2.jpg File:Paso San Francisco 3.jpg File:Ruta 60 Argentina Paso san Francisco.jpg

References

Argentina–Chile border crossings Mountain passes of Chile Mountain passes of Argentina Mountain passes of the Andes Landforms of Atacama Region Landforms of Catamarca Province {{Atacama-geo-stub

Location

Gallery

See also

References