Volcan Villarica

Last week I hiked this

Aren´t I tough? I know that I think that I am, especialy after making it to the top of this beast. You are looking at the aweinspiringly beautiful Volcan Villarica located in central Chile near to the picturesque overpriced tourist destination city of Pucon. Last week my brave and valient cousin Rick finished up his trip to the southern hemisphere by meeting up with me in Pucon for a wild 32hour visit. We arrived in the evening and hit up a hot springs, that turned out to be not so hot, but hey it´s summer so we survived. Then we went to bed early preparing for the grand adventure the following morning.

At 7am we reported to our tour guide group to be outfitted and brought to the base of the Volcan Villarica, and the picture above was from our approach to the mountain, a bit intimidating eh? We arrived at the base of the chair lift, which for $8 would bring you up 600meters to the base of the snowcap, but hey Rick and I are tough, and cheap, and we said we dont need no stinkin lift, we´ll hike up. Well, we surivived and I still feel good about saving $8, but my blisters one week later might disagree with that statement.

Interestingly that first part was the hardest, and once we started up the snow with our crampons, it was actually easier. But easy is relative of course, as we hiked up the Volcano in about 3-4 hours, lead by a fearless leader. Our guide was great, she was this badass lady who was in the Chilean army for 5 years and has spent the past 15 years employed guiding people up really big mountains. She informed us that we MUST keep up and that she would tell us when to stop, when to eat and when to take pictures, yeah she was hard core, but with the altitude and the developing blisters I was glad to have someone kicking my ass up the volcano.


But we made it to the top. I can tell this story now, since I survived to tell the tale, but one might argue that this was perhaps not the wisest adventure given that there are many beautiful Volcanos in the regions, one pictured here was a neighboring volcano, but Villarica is special because it is active, yes thats right folks I climbed up a volcano that is actively spitting lava and liquid hot magma all the time and is just waiting for an unsuspecting tourist group to spew all over. But the upside of tempting fate is that you get some great pictures. Rick and I hung out peering into the addyss of the crater trying to catch the burps of lava and Rick caught to best one pictured here, but rest assured we both inhaled the toxic sufur in the name of proper documentation of such an event.

Hiking up was hard, and I was tired and my feet hurt, but in case witnessing spewing lava was not worth it, the descent was worth every peso I paid and every blister that formed. We suited up in the water proof gear they gave us and we literally sled down the entire snowcap on our buts, using a small axe to steer and brake. It was AWESOME!!! Sledding has never been so great, and never felt quite so well deserved. Our fearless leader is the one pictured here, in the final stretch where we had a sledding race.

All in all it was freakin awesome. I was pretty tired after the whole thing, but surprisingly able to walk around Pucon and still check out the sites, wearing flip flops of course, a week later I am still stearing clear of close backed shoes. It was wonderful to see family and great to have such a great adventure to complement the good company. More of you should come visit to give me excuses to go on more adventures.