Villarica Volcano
Pucon is a small village on a beautiful lake, surrounded by several volcanoes. I had heard that you could climb one of these volcanos through some tour agencies and that it was a reasonably easy climb. I arrived in town and found a hostel to stay at, the owner of the hostel also ran one of the tour agencies so I was able to book my climb through him.
When I arrived at the hostel I found that I would be sharing a room with Anna, the girl I had met at Puerto Madryn.... she was also climbing the Volcano the next day, but with a different agency.
The next day was a very early start at 6am when it was still dark. I had to get dressed in special clothing to protect me from the cold as we would be climbing to 2900mtrs above sea level.
The Volcano in the background
We arrived at the starting point of the climb and it was still dark.... and it was pretty cold, but that didn't last as once we started walking with all the layers on we quickly warmed up.
We followed a path beside where a chairlift went up the side of the Volcano. During winter the volcano is used for snow skiing.
The chairlift wasn't operating when I was there as they were maintaining it before the ski season started and it had ice all over it.
Every 30 minutes we would stop for a ten minute break to catch our breath and to have a snack for energy.
Between the first and second stop the sun came over the horizon, it was very beautiful to watch and we got to stop briefly to take pictures. At this stage we were already walking in snow.
At our third stop we reached an old chairlift station. It was originally built between 1962 and 1969. It then operated for two ski seasons until in 1971 the Volcano erupted and swallowed half of the building and snapped all the cables that used to carry the skiers to this spot.
When we got to our next stop the sun had finally started to shine and we got a chance to take some very cool pictures above the clouds. We were already at 2000 mtrs above sea level.
When we got to 2200mtrs above sea level we had to put crampons onto our boots. At 2300mtrs the Volcano becomes a glacier and you need the crampons to grip the ice.
The view from 2200mtrs
The wind had picked up at this stage and when I got about 100mtrs further up the Volcano we had to climb onto a narrow ridge to start walking across the glacier part of the volcano.
Thats me, the last one in Yellow
I was the last person in the group and in front of me was three girls. The first girl stumbled a little so the guides told her she would have to stop climbing as they didn't think she would be able to make it to the top of the volcano. The two other girls decided to also stop climbing and the three of them turned around to go back down to the ledge at 2200mtrs. I continued on and started walking across the glacier. The wind off the glacier was very cold and it made breathing very difficult, after about 200mtrs more climbing I decided it was probably better if I stopped too.
That is the top of the Volcano, 500mtrs but still 1.5 hrs away
The guide told me that we still had 1.5 hours of climbing to do if I was to continue and I knew that I did not have enough energy and could not breathe well enough to continue to the top. So the guide who was waiting with the girls had to come up to me and help me back down to the 2200mtr ledge where the girls were still waiting.
So after I had a few minutes to catch my breathe the girls and I started our decent with our guide. As we started our decent Anna's group came up past us. They continued on up the mountain.
The rest of my group only made it another 200mtrs up the Volcano before the other guides told them it was too risky to keep going due to the wind. Anna's group however went a slight different way and ended up making it to the top.
She told me later that they got to see Lava spurting up inside the crater of the volcano, but it was very windy and there was alot of ash smoke... Anna told me it was very difficult to breathe up at the top of the Volcano.
When we got near the bottom of the volcano we got to slide down the snow on our backsides, it was a lot of fun...
And at the bottom there was a ski lodge that was being renovated. There were toilets sitting out on a deck, I couldn't resist.....
The following day Anna and I decided to spend the day wandering around the village of Pucon and seeing the sights.
We went down to the lake where we took some funny photo's before going for lunch.
I had a very yummy sushi lunch.
One of the strange things I saw in Pucon was at the supermarket. They had pigs heads for sale... they were a bit spooky all looking out of the glass window at me!
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