El Bolsón area's first non-indigenous inhabitants were German immigrants that arrived to the valley from Chile as an offshot of the colonization of Llanquihue. In the 1970s hippies from Buenos Aires migrated to El Bolsón; some of them practiced horticulture and made handcrafts. North of El Bolsón, the Rio Azul Natural Protected Area forms a part of the world's largest UNESCO Temperate Forest Biosphere Reserve. Tourists have access to trails throughout the mountains linking refugios
