Traversing Around an Active Volcano? Hell Yes!

09/01 ~ 15/01

Chile

Villarrica Traverse – Introduction

Although the summit climb is a popular choice here, I chose to hike around 3 of the volcanos in the region to save money ($180!) – it was worth it! On a nerdy side note; when I hike, I feel like I’m in Lord of the Rings, and I like to relate to the regions from it – excuse the references 😛 Below is the route I took on the Villarrica Traverse, and places I camped. The entire hike was about 80km.

Mon (09/01)

‘When will the rain end?‘, I think. Another rainy day it seems as I started to pack my gear up. My gear was strewn over the bed and it took awhile to organise. All freshly cleaned and ready to… ‘oh no… my poles! That feeling you get when you just realise you screwed up hit me. I left them at Huerquehue NP leaning against the mound when I was packing my gear in car. ‘Fuck!‘ – I think everyone heard me in the place. I ended up ringing the national park… or rather having someone else from the tourist office do it, as I cant speak Spanish well enough.

Thankfully they were there and they were sent back on a bus to me. I had to wait all day there though. I ended up having to book another night before I could leave. The hostel was quaint and the people were nice. I made burgers for dinner in the kitchen there. The last job of the day was buying food for my 5-6 day hike tomorrow.

Tues (10/01)

I packed my gear and set off for Volcano Villarrica, probably the most active volcano in Chile (it has erupted twice in the past 3 years). To get there, I needed to hitchhike. I walked about twenty minutes to the main road and within ten minutes, a couple picked me up (along with two Argentinians further up). They dropped us off at the national park office.

I paid $7000 pesos (about $14AUD) to do the hike and set off again to hitchhike s further 8km to the ski resort half way up the volcano. It was then I realized I left my hat in the car. ‘Fuck‘. First the poles, now the hat! It’s ok, I think, the hat isn’t expensive or needed, as I still have my buff (a tube shaped bandanna).

I proceeded to walk up the hill to a steep corner, and after three full cars passed, a ute with a tray pulls up and they offer a ride in the back. I jumped in and proceeded with last few kilometers up the hill. At the top, I thank the family for the ride (and appreciate not having to endure any more corrugations on my ass), and head off to the start of the trail.

I set up my solar panels on top of my pack to charge my power bank as I often burn through power when writing or reading. I did this using two shoelaces attached to pack straps. It seems to work for now. They worked well, even with clouds present.

The walk starts out on a rugged rocky terrain some 700m above the base, with Mt Villarrica to my left a further 1400m to its peak. The trail does not summit the volcano, but meanders around its lower limits and onto the next volcano in the far distance, Mt Quetrupillan. The first thing I notice is the rocks. A lot of them seemed to be an air pocketed glassy black colour, filled with blue oxide minerals which I can only guess as being Azurite. I pocketed a small sample… for science. There were multiple lava flow remains, including the 1984 flow which I’m pretty sure was one of the biggest eruptions in recent times.

Within a few kilometres in a stopped for a toilet break and some lunch, when the French hiker whom I saw earlier appeared. We said hello and had a brief chat before setting off together. We passed through numerous dry ravines in which water would flow after a large rain. It was a series of small ups and downs. Villarrica was breathtaking on the left.

You could see the giant glacier below its summit at its best here, and smoke bellowing out of its caldera. ‘It’s hard to believe I’m hiking on a volcano!‘ I think, as I traverse the rocky terrain.Excitement was high at this point, being a lover of geology. I noticed many rock types, of which I could identify included: andesite, rhyolite, gabbro and obsidian.

After about 8km in, we arrived at the first forested area. It was about 5pm and we were about 1km away from the place we were going to camp when we came across two (more) French hikers, a couple, who were looking for their lost friend. We tried helping but she was nowhere in the area. About 20 minutes later, she arrived from a different trail leading South, as she had taken a wrong turn.

We all agreed to camp there that night in the forest, even though a little short of our planned site. We set up camp, then went to look at the volcano on the edge of the forest whilst snacking and chatting as daylight turned to night.

We tried to light a fire but it was quite tough due to the heavy mist and recent rains. We ate dinner, in which I had pesto pasta. However my ziplock of pesto had leaked all through my food bag. ‘Fuck!‘ I think to myself (again), ‘looks like its pesto biscuits, pesto chocolate and pesto everything for the rest of the hike!‘.

Wed (11/01)

In the morning we packed up and parted ways, as the other group came from the opposite direction, and Adrien (whose name I worked out that night) and I set off. The day was bright and sunny without a cloud in the sky. The terrain after the small forest  was very barren and rocky, even more than before. We passed huge pillow lava flows and even some that looked like noodles!

After numerous stretches of this rocky barren landscape (I called it Mordor 😛 ) which took most of the day, we arrived at a fork in the road to the mirador (lookout) of all the five volcanos visible, including Villarrica, Quetrupillan and the almighty Lanin. We met day hikers from Korea here, and soon after a few other day hikers coming from the forestry road a few kilometers away.

We set off again and started to enter the forest again. It was nice to see trees again. It was a steep descent and the switchbacks downward were hard going. We came to the bottom with a raging glacial water river. There was a small clearing on the edge of our side, enough for two tents only, and another clearing on the far side that was a bot larger.

We chose the side we were on as to get the morning sunlight to dry condensation off the tents. My tent openings faced both a spiky bush and the cliff of the river bank! It was the only way the tent fit. ‘If you hear a splash, it’s probably just me trying to get into my tent!‘ I said jokingly to Adrien with a laugh.

A wash in the river was decided, as I smelled bad. Going up the river as far as I could get away from the bridge, I started to strip off my clothes. It was right then that time, some of the day hikers were making their return trip back over the bridge. They decided it was a great time to take some selfies… ugh! At first, I was self-contious of my whole nude situation, but then I thought ‘Fuck it, I don’t know them, not will see them again‘ and continued to wash. The clothes I was wearing that day too even got washed.

I checked the forecast on my InReach satellite GPS and it didn’t look great for the next day, oh well – that’s just hiking for you! Ramen noodles for dinner, and (pesto… haha) chocolate for dessert, then we went to bed, exhausted from the days effort. The sound of the rushing river was calming and sleep came fast.

Thurs (12/01)

The sun didn’t make much of an effort to shine in the morning, and it was getting more and more overcast as time passed. Luckily, we packed up dry and made our way up the other side of the river. It was a steep climb, the opposite of the downhill trip to the river. Within minutes, the rain came. It was only light, and patchy at first, but enough that the pack cover, rain jacket/skirt came out.

The trail led onto an out of shape dirt road, not fit for vehicles at all! It led us to a park ranger (Guardena) house which was unoccupied when we arrived. It was here we had to climb some 750 metres to reach Los Pinos, a tough section! During this climb we passed several different grasslands and forests – it’s amazing to see such swift changes in vegetation.

As we gained altitude, we entered the misty cloud region, and the moisture became heavier. It was hard to see through the cloud rolling over the mountain. It was also very chilly! Much of the plants in these higher area were a thick gnarly plant with serrated oyster shell shaped leaves  which often held water – maybe a good adaption for the plant, but one I came to despise! This plant sticks out onto the trail and was quite annoying!

We arrived to the summit of Los Pinos, in which is meant to be a spectacular lookout, however, we couldn’t see a thing. Such is luck when on mountains. It was quite cold and windy, so we descended quite promptly. We were hoping to have made it to Laguna Azul (Blue Lake) by the evening, but it was 5pm already and it was out of the question.

We camped at Camp Mocho instead, or at least, what we thought was the camp as it was very small and not very flat. It was good enough, and near a burbling stream which was convenient, so we set up there. The only really flat spot that wasn’t rock was right next to the stream on the path. Flavoured rice for dinner – I honestly couldn’t say what the flavour was!

Fri (13/01)

Today involved a steep climb again in barren terrain. Not far into the day, I came across a waterfall spring not far off the track. I went to fill up my bottles and was blown away. It was so green, when all around was gravel, sand, or yellow grass. It was like an oasis in the desert.

I eventually caught up to Adrien who was having a break atop the highest peak of our entire trek at around 1925m. The view of Laguna Azul (Blue Lake) came into view, and it was spectacular!

We started to pass pockets of snow and even had to traverse through sections. I was tempted to pull out my microspikes, but they weren’t very long sections.

It’s crazy to turn and look back at Villarrica and see just how far we’ve come! After awhile, we reached the lake and had lunch. We were tempted for a swim but the chilly breeze was enough to go against that decision. It was nice here for a campsite, with good protection from a pocket of trees.

We set off again, a relatively flat hike for the rest of the day with only small hills (a sigh of relief emitted from us both). Back in Mordor territory – rocky lava flows and a gravel rich sand. We traversed around Mt Quetrupillan on this terrain for several hours. It was very dry and hot, bit sometimes life showed itself. There were some Argentinians we wet, before having to wade across a brown stream coming from Laguna Blanca.

We passed Laguna Blanca (White Lake) on the left, but it was more a terracotta brown colour and not very appealing. There was a campsite there, but we figured it was only 3pm and had time to press on. We wanted to get to Laguna Patos for camp, but it was far off.

We passed the site of a small meteorite crater and reached one final peak. Eventually we came out of Mordor and into The Dead Marshes – a water logged grassland. I did well to avoid wet feet here by walking on tufts of grass. There were many gliding streams to fill our water bottles and we came to a huge rocky cliff which we had to hike around.

At the bottom was more marsh and eventually we came to a largish river with a waterfall and a tiny campground nestled in a thicket of bushes. We decided it was far enough for the day, and see up camp here. Adrien’s makeshift alcohol burner was getting painful to watch at this stage. It took him about 20 minutes to boil water! I offered him my jetboil, and he used it to cook his pot.

The problem was is that his pot doesn’t offer much airflow like my proper jetboil one does, and it caused the side of my cooker to melt a bit. It’s not too much of an issue, but it doesn’t fit in canister now, grr! ‘Shit happens‘, I say, and we eat dinner. I had ramen noodles again and a pack of biscuits.

Sat (14/01)

We set off around 9am, aiming to make it to Puesco – the end of the trail. We were both light on food, Adrien more so than me, and it didn’t appear to be overly hard. Some small uphills, but mostly downhill. I actually prefer uphill I decided.

Downhill takes it out on you knees more, and I find trekking poles help a lot more for pushing yourself uphill. It turns out it wasn’t as easy as we expected, as the path was in the worst shape of the entire trail here. It frequently was washed out, or just filled with mud and water, and we often had to bush bash off to the side. We met a Belgian guy also going the same way and chatted for awhile. He was faster though and left us behind.

Eventually we passed the lake in which we originally intended to camp. There was one other tent here.

After the lake it was all downhill, but not overly tough. It was interesting to see the vegetation change from mountain flowers and grasses into the annoying oyster leaf trees into the lichen covered trees into bamboo thickets and finally the regular ground level vegetation. After several hours we made it to Puesco some 80km from the Villarrica ski resort where we started.

We reached the main road in which a lookout was located. The Belgian guy was trying to hitchhike here. I quickly ducked behind some trees to get into a clean, non-stinky set of clothes and attach my poles to my pack. We flagged a fancy utility truck and the guy told us to jump in the back. This truck was awesome, and the guy was not shy in demonstrating it’s power by flying around corners (frequent tyre screeches!) and straights. I think we overtook twenty cars!

He dropped us of in a small town about half hour away in which we got a bus back to Pucón. Adrien and I found a hostel and stayed two nights as to have a day of chilling and washing our clothes. For dinner, we decided to go to a popular gourmet burger place called Latitude 39. I had the stout burger and chips with a pint of Kunstmann Pilsener – delicious!

Sun (15/01)

It was Ironman weekend in Pucón. It felt strange being there  as Ironman is also held in my hometown of Port Macquarie. We squeezed through the hoards of people to do some shopping. Other than that, it was a day of relaxing and planning at the hostel. We had a kind of granny flat part that only had a few people, which was nice. We could prepare our own meals and chill out. I bought a bottle of Havana rum for $11AUD which is insanely cheap. Whilst most things here are pricey, alcohol from a shop isn’t.

I ended up deciding to go into Argentina tomorrow, and booked a bus to San Martin de Los Andes, a town a few hours away. It made more sense to do this section and come back into Chile after I visit Bariloche.

Hike Summary

The good:

• Seeing diverse landscapes on the Villarrica Traverse change so rapidly, offering a great variety.
• The remoteness and feeling of empowerment trekking on and around an active volcano.
• Hardly any other hikers.
• Fresh water everywhere!
• The ego boost from the accomplishment.

The bad:

• The trail was in bad shape in the wet areas, and needs work. Bush bashing isn’t that fun!
• Losing my hat and burning my jetboil.

~ Continue my Patagonian travels with ‘Mountain Towns in Argentina – San Martin de Los Andes & Bariloche – Patagonia‘ ~

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