El Bolsón is a town situated in the southwest of Río Negro Province, Argentina, at the foot of the Piltriquitron Mountain. Due to a series of valleys through the mountains of Chile to the Pacific Ocean, El Bolsón has an unusually mild climate for its southern location.
El Bolsón area's first non-indigenous inhabitants were German immigrants that arrived to the valley from Chile as an offshot of of the colonization of Llanquihue. In the 1970s hippies from Buenos Aires migrated to El Bolsón, some of them practised orticulture and made handcrafts.
El Bolsón has a tourism economy based in their outdoor artisan market, fly fishing, trekking, rafting, climbing, and other outdoor activities in the surrounding lakes and mountains. The nature tourism offers are complemented with the production of cheeses, smoked trout, special brew beer, regional chocolates and ice cream, as well as its organic & wild crafted jams and preserves, particularly elderberries, amongst others.
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.