El Bolsón is a town 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 Chilean farmers Lucas Cárdenas and Elcira Estrada, a couple who came in 1885 from San Pablo, near Osorno, and established themselves in the then known as "Valle Nuevo" (New Valley); in 2018 El Bolsón inaugurated the new Public Clock Square after the couple's names. In the 1970s hippies from Buenos Aires migrated to El Bolsón; some of them practised horticulture and made handcrafts. El Bolsón has a tourism economy based on an 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 organic and wild-crafted jams and preserves, particularly elderberries. Communication El Bolsón is located approximately 120 km south of the major city of San Carlos de Bariloche and is served by El Bolsón Airport. Climate El Bolsón has a cool Mediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification Csb) owing to its rain shadow location. Winters are the coldest time of year with a July mean of with nighttime temperatures regularly falling below . During cold waves, temperatures can occasionally fall below . During the winter months, precipitation is abundant (mostly rainfall and occasionally snowfalls), resulting in most days being overcast, averaging 15–17 overcast days per month from May to August. Spring and fall are transition seasons featuring warmer temperatures than in winter. Summers are warmer and sunnier with temperatures during the day averaging in January and comparatively high diurnal ranges, with lows averaging . Frosts can even occur during the summer months. Owing to its location in a valley, wind speeds are lower ranging from a low of in May and June to a high of in January. History There have been many different inhabitants in the Bolsón region. However, the first settlers of the region were the tsonek. By custom they were hunters/gatherers and seasonally nomadic. It was normal for them to stay in the more sheltered regions of the forests and lakes during the winter and to hunt Guanaco more intensely during the summer