4-20
Early in the morning, I took the bus over the pass Mamuil Malal into Chile. It was the coolest border crossing I have had yet. The was a dirt road and the frontier outposts were right at the base of Volcan Lanin, the tallest volcano in the area. Since we started so early, we got to see the sunrise on it as we were going through the Argentine border post. The rest of the bus ride was through Lanin NP with some nice lakes and then Villarica NP. I arrived into the town of Pucon, and explored it a bit including going down to a lake where I got a nice view of the famous Volcan Villarica. Also tried and checked out my gear for climbing Villarica. I´m staying at a really nice family hostel that has a satellite tv with movies, which I have to admit is nice. The owner of the hostel used to be on the Chilean national Kayak team and trained in Idaho during their winters while working and guiding out of Horseshoe Bend. He loves to talk about the Boise Broncos and when I asked him what his favorite things in Idaho were, he said McCall and Stanley were nice but it definitely had to be Dirty Little Roddy´s and Humpin´Hannahs. Haha...I think my brother might say the same thing.
4-21
Got up at the crack of dawn to climb Volcan Villarica. Drove up to the base of the Pucon ski hill where the hike starts before the sun was up. But it turned out to be very windy and also the gases from the volcano were being blown down the direction the route goes, so the guides called off the trek. Back down in Pucon we arrived at 845, and I just missed the 830 bus that goes to Parque Nacional Huerquehue. Not wanting to waste the day, I took a bus to the turnoff to the national park where it´s 15km to the park. From there I was able to hitch a ride to the next turnoff that was 7km from the park. There were no cars here at all, so I had to walk to the entrance. The Guardaparque (park ranger) there was very nice when I was asking about the trails, and he told me he had done a ranger exchange several years ago and had worked at Grand Canyon NP and Saguaro NP. The crazy thing is he speaks no English, but he said most people spoke spanish down there so it was no problem.
I ended up taking a trail called Los Lagos. A gorgeous loop like that went through some beautiful forests and passed 7 tranquil montane lakes (Lagos Tinquilico, Chico, Toro, Verde, Patos, Huerquehue, and Avutardas). The forest was a temperate forest and included the strange Araucaria tree (monkey-puzzle tree). It´s branches are just like very elongated tops of a pineapple. You could see how a monkey would be puzzled to climb it. Quite strange indeed. And from a distance it takes the shape of a palm tree. There were also some awesome views of Villarica towering in the distance over the lakes When I had decided to go to the park, I had wanted to do this loop plus an extension that goes up to a view point. If I had caught the bus that goes to the park, I would have arrived about 945, instead I got there at 1130 b-c of the bus, hitchhike, walk combo which was going to make doing the loop tough, let alone adding the extension, before the last bus left at 5pm. But when I got to the extension and the sign said 40 minutes, I was tempted. So I hid my backpack and ran to the viewpoint. Managed to do the out and back in under 30 minutes instead of the 80 minutes. I then pushed it the rest of the way back down to the entrance and managed to make it 10 minutes before the bus left.
4-22 Happy Earthday! and what a way to celebrate. Got up early again to try for the Volcano. This time we had luck with the weather and there was no wind. The first day we had tried, it was a group of 3, now it was a group of about 10. You had the option at the bottom of taking one of the ski lifts up which is what everyone wanted to do except myself, for a cost of 15 bucks. However, it turned out that the chair was closed so everyone had to hike up. I have to admit that the overall hike up all the way to the top was frustrating bc we had to go behind the guide the whole way and the pace was just so so so slow, frustratingly slow, especially when you are worried that maybe the weather will turn. It took 5 hours to go up, but I am pretty sure I could have done it in 2 hours. And the sad thing was how many people were breathing hard. I´m not even in that good of shape either. But the route is apparently dangerous (I didn´t think that dangerous unless you didn´t kn ow how to walk on snow, but 2 people did die in a fall this past march, but that´s not surprising considering how many novices in the mountains were doing it) About 1/2 way up we donned crampons, our helmets, and ice axes to climb up a glacier to reach near the top. THe last climb was back on volcanic rock to the top at 2847m (9340ft). The top had some sulfuric fumes, but nothing too bad, so we could hang up there for 30 minutes. At other times it´s really bad and you can only stay up there for a short while and must put on a mask. Villarica is famous because it is one of Chile´s most active volcanoes. It actually has an open crater, so there is a lava lake down there. The crater is too deep to see down to the lava and the sun to bright during the day to see a glow, but sometimes people see small lava eurptions. We just saw a lot of smoke and fumes, though the previous morning when we had first attempted the summit we could see a red glow on the smoke above. www.pavi.cl Of course from the top were amazing views, including of 6 volcanoes, the argentinian andes, and the lakes of the lake district. The way down was much quicker b-c we put on these butt protector things and then slid down the glacier using our ice axes as brakes. Bc such a large number of people go down and use the same track, there has actually been a little bobsled like track with a tube (similar to a bobsled track or waterslide) so that made things pretty fun.
Early in the morning, I took the bus over the pass Mamuil Malal into Chile. It was the coolest border crossing I have had yet. The was a dirt road and the frontier outposts were right at the base of Volcan Lanin, the tallest volcano in the area. Since we started so early, we got to see the sunrise on it as we were going through the Argentine border post. The rest of the bus ride was through Lanin NP with some nice lakes and then Villarica NP. I arrived into the town of Pucon, and explored it a bit including going down to a lake where I got a nice view of the famous Volcan Villarica. Also tried and checked out my gear for climbing Villarica. I´m staying at a really nice family hostel that has a satellite tv with movies, which I have to admit is nice. The owner of the hostel used to be on the Chilean national Kayak team and trained in Idaho during their winters while working and guiding out of Horseshoe Bend. He loves to talk about the Boise Broncos and when I asked him what his favorite things in Idaho were, he said McCall and Stanley were nice but it definitely had to be Dirty Little Roddy´s and Humpin´Hannahs. Haha...I think my brother might say the same thing.
4-21
Got up at the crack of dawn to climb Volcan Villarica. Drove up to the base of the Pucon ski hill where the hike starts before the sun was up. But it turned out to be very windy and also the gases from the volcano were being blown down the direction the route goes, so the guides called off the trek. Back down in Pucon we arrived at 845, and I just missed the 830 bus that goes to Parque Nacional Huerquehue. Not wanting to waste the day, I took a bus to the turnoff to the national park where it´s 15km to the park. From there I was able to hitch a ride to the next turnoff that was 7km from the park. There were no cars here at all, so I had to walk to the entrance. The Guardaparque (park ranger) there was very nice when I was asking about the trails, and he told me he had done a ranger exchange several years ago and had worked at Grand Canyon NP and Saguaro NP. The crazy thing is he speaks no English, but he said most people spoke spanish down there so it was no problem.
I ended up taking a trail called Los Lagos. A gorgeous loop like that went through some beautiful forests and passed 7 tranquil montane lakes (Lagos Tinquilico, Chico, Toro, Verde, Patos, Huerquehue, and Avutardas). The forest was a temperate forest and included the strange Araucaria tree (monkey-puzzle tree). It´s branches are just like very elongated tops of a pineapple. You could see how a monkey would be puzzled to climb it. Quite strange indeed. And from a distance it takes the shape of a palm tree. There were also some awesome views of Villarica towering in the distance over the lakes When I had decided to go to the park, I had wanted to do this loop plus an extension that goes up to a view point. If I had caught the bus that goes to the park, I would have arrived about 945, instead I got there at 1130 b-c of the bus, hitchhike, walk combo which was going to make doing the loop tough, let alone adding the extension, before the last bus left at 5pm. But when I got to the extension and the sign said 40 minutes, I was tempted. So I hid my backpack and ran to the viewpoint. Managed to do the out and back in under 30 minutes instead of the 80 minutes. I then pushed it the rest of the way back down to the entrance and managed to make it 10 minutes before the bus left.
4-22 Happy Earthday! and what a way to celebrate. Got up early again to try for the Volcano. This time we had luck with the weather and there was no wind. The first day we had tried, it was a group of 3, now it was a group of about 10. You had the option at the bottom of taking one of the ski lifts up which is what everyone wanted to do except myself, for a cost of 15 bucks. However, it turned out that the chair was closed so everyone had to hike up. I have to admit that the overall hike up all the way to the top was frustrating bc we had to go behind the guide the whole way and the pace was just so so so slow, frustratingly slow, especially when you are worried that maybe the weather will turn. It took 5 hours to go up, but I am pretty sure I could have done it in 2 hours. And the sad thing was how many people were breathing hard. I´m not even in that good of shape either. But the route is apparently dangerous (I didn´t think that dangerous unless you didn´t kn ow how to walk on snow, but 2 people did die in a fall this past march, but that´s not surprising considering how many novices in the mountains were doing it) About 1/2 way up we donned crampons, our helmets, and ice axes to climb up a glacier to reach near the top. THe last climb was back on volcanic rock to the top at 2847m (9340ft). The top had some sulfuric fumes, but nothing too bad, so we could hang up there for 30 minutes. At other times it´s really bad and you can only stay up there for a short while and must put on a mask. Villarica is famous because it is one of Chile´s most active volcanoes. It actually has an open crater, so there is a lava lake down there. The crater is too deep to see down to the lava and the sun to bright during the day to see a glow, but sometimes people see small lava eurptions. We just saw a lot of smoke and fumes, though the previous morning when we had first attempted the summit we could see a red glow on the smoke above. www.pavi.cl Of course from the top were amazing views, including of 6 volcanoes, the argentinian andes, and the lakes of the lake district. The way down was much quicker b-c we put on these butt protector things and then slid down the glacier using our ice axes as brakes. Bc such a large number of people go down and use the same track, there has actually been a little bobsled like track with a tube (similar to a bobsled track or waterslide) so that made things pretty fun.
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