August 28, 2007 Volcan Villarrica, Chile

After a windy, rainy day that reminded us of the PNW, we awoke to a sunny clear day with a great view of Volcan Villarrica from our room in Pucon.  We stayed at Hostal La Tetera which we also stayed at during our 2005 trip.  Our private room with shared bath and a great breakfast and real dark and rich coffee was about $38.  The pricing in Chile is quite similar to the US, whereas Argentina is about 30-40% cheaper.  Unless you are Silas and then there are different standards.    I picked up Silas at the bus terminal. I got lucky and selected the right bus terminal out of 4 possible terminals.  Did a few errands and picked up our reworked chains. Here’s something to remember if you ever ask for car chains for a rental. We made certain our rental car had chains before departing Bariloche. Plus, we actually had the folks at ABA Car Rental in Bariloche install one of the chains on our spare tire just to make certain they fit.  The only problem was that we did not check the size of the spare tire versus the tires on the car and we did not check that both chains were the same size.  Yeah, you know the rest of the story.  Our spare was smaller than our vehicle tires plus the chains were 2 different sizes.  So when I realized one of the chains was too large, I miraculously found a guy in a small backyard shop who would resize the second chain to match the smaller chain.  Unfortunately, when we needed to install the chains neither one would stay on the tires.  But that never stopped us.   We started up the 14km gravel road to Ski Pucon on Volcan Villarrica, and after 7km put on the chains which self destructed within 100 yards.  OK, time for a bit of luck and hope the road is passable.  We stop a few vehicles descending and everyone says we need chains.  As we ascend the road it is more potholed, slushy and rutted. Vehicles are stuck along the muddy banks. Somehow we reach the parking lot which has about 20 vehicles.  Its 2PM and we buy half-day senior tickets for $12.  Only 2 chairs and a poma and T-bar are operating with maybe 40 skiers.  The upper lifts are not open so Silas ventures off while Jill and I go for lunch.  We finally start cruising corn at 3PM and it’s unusual to see another person on a slope.  The terrain is all above tree line and typical open runnels on a volcano.  We get off the highest operating lift and follow a couple of teens towards a natural half pipe and listen as they roll over the lip; sounds icy.  We decide to stay in the sun and as we’re descending Silas yells down from the chair.  We wait for him, and he relates his ‘slide for life’ over the icy lip on unbreakable crust.  In his effort to catch up to us he gets a ski trapped in the unbreakable crust, ejects from his 1st edition Dynafit binding and his ski leash breaks one of his boot buckles.  His comment “it sucks let’s go”.  OK. We make a really short day of it, enjoying the corn on the shallow terrain which had warmed by 4pm.  The volcano is spewing smoke as we notice climbers descending the volcano. In 2005, the ski area was closed and Jill and I skinned to within 1200’ of the summit before a storm with high winds arrived and caused all the climbers to descend.  The attraction of skiing/climbing Volcan Villarrica is that it is a very active volcano and at the summit you can peer down to the molten lava. If you just want to ski here, it probably makes sense to arrive on a weekend when the upper lifts would operate.  Also you are above tree line, so a sunny day would be ideal.  It is a small ski area with a tough road so be prepared to chain up or get lucky as we did. After skiing we drove to Villarrica so Silas could visit an old German mountaineer he met in Patagonia years ago.

Photo 1 - Silas and Zap with Volcan Villarrica in background
Photo 2 - Volcan Villarrica smoking. Climbing route on left skyline