[jandrewrogers]

One of the things I appreciate about the Andes Mountains is that in this age of social media ruining everything most areas are still pretty wild. You don’t see long queues of people waiting to take selfies. You may not see other people at all. They are second in height to the Himalaya but in most other ways are more interesting.

I feel like the governments there low-key try to keep it that way.

[RugnirViking]

im sure that the Andes are far more remote and wild than anything I have experienced in my life as a European, and I would dearly like to be fortunate enough to see them some day, but I would note that "long queues of people waiting to take selfies" hasn't been my experience in nearly every mountain or hill ive been to save a couple extremely touristy spots in the height of summer (uk examples: snowdon peak, mam tor, stanage edge etc). Ive been able to go entire days without seeing another group of hikers many places in norway, sweden, uk, even while following hiking guide books

[samastur]

That's because there so much of them and most of the range is not very comfortably accessible (you usually need to endure some discomfort either getting there or staying nearby).

Where you can get nearby fairly easy like base Las Torres, you'll have plenty of people doing just that.

I don't think this is by intent. It's just that the countries themselves are relatively poor and have higher priority projects for their limited resources.

[hvb2]

> Where you can get nearby fairly easy like base Las Torres, you'll have plenty of people doing just that.

Are you sure it's the accessibility or the fact that Torres del Paine, which is very famous, is next door?

I get what you're saying though, maybe you just picked a bad example

[casumel]

I did Cerro El Plomo in January and it was a very blissful experience. Barely any people and no phones. Can highly recommend.

[kakacik]

This ain't true, even in many cca popular places in European alps you can be alone whole day. Just don't go into most popular hotspots on busy holidays days, traveling rule 101.

People just taking selfies and generally big crowds are not climbers/mountaineers, its everybody else but.

[AlotOfReading]

The higher Himalayas are largely unpeopled as well, especially above 4000m. The only time I met people above those altitudes were at night in camps/settlements. I'm sure the EBC route is more crowded, but that's one very small trek in an enormous mountain range.

[TFNA]

The industry that has sway over the Andes is mining. Against that, tourism income is negligible and in fact more tourism could threaten the mining industry.