Abstract ID: 3.11588 | Accepted as Talk | Talk | TBA | TBA

Patagonia is a hotspot tourism destination for hiking, attracting international, national and local tourists. In this region, Nahuel Huapi National Park (NHNP) is the third most visited park in Argentina, and the first National Park created in Latin America. It is surrounded by Bariloche, the largest tourist city in Andean Patagonia. The park has a vast alpine trail network with mountain huts and campsites that support activities including trekking, climbing, skiing, and paragliding. However, the growing number of visitors is placing increasing pressure on alpine ecosystems so managers have the challenge to conserve nature and to provide recreational opportunities. In Andean Patagonia, increasing human pressure and climate change, characterized by rising fires, droughts, erosion, and reduced precipitation, weaken alpine resilience and affect tourism patterns. Activities like hiking and camping increase pressure on high-conservation areas, especially on popular alpine meadows, including Frey Hut, which has been the most visited site in NHNP for the past 20 years. This has led to the development of informal trails, fragmenting the meadows, compacting and eroding soils, reducing vegetation cover, and altering plant composition. To address these issues, the Walk the Trail conservation project focused on the closure of informal trails and the redesign of a formal trail to minimize environmental degradation. This study assesses the effectiveness of this restoration effort in this highly visited alpine meadow. We used a socio-ecological approach, with the premise that effective conservation requires not only addressing biophysical factors but also understanding visitor behavior and recreational use patterns. We combined vegetation assessments with unobtrusive visitor observations to evaluate compliance with the new trail and vegetation recovery on previously closed informal trails, considering different levels of past degradation and microenvironmental conditions. Results showed that trail reconditioning effectively modified visitor behavior, with 80% using the new trail, and supported the natural recovery of vegetation on former informal trails. Additionally, observations helped identify spontaneous use areas, highlighting where trail design improvements are needed to minimize impacts and enhance the visitor experience. In conclusion, effective trail management can reduce mountaineering impacts and help mitigate climate change effects on sensitive ecosystems.