Day 80 January 28th 2007, Sulphur and Snow - Villarrica Volcano, Pucon

I have done some slightly crazy things in my time but climbing an active volcano may just top the list. Not content with just the view we joined a tour today to climb Volcano Villarrica. The day started with us collecting our gear and travelling a short distance via mini bus to the base of the Volcano. So whats required to climb a volcano? In our backpack we found the following

• Waterproof trousers and jacket
• Waterproof gloves
• Ice Axe
• Crampons
• Balaclava
• Helmet
• Gators

A kit list which seemed more at home on a Glacier hike but we soon found out that we would be walking up snow and ice for nearly 4 hours to reach the summit. With all this kit there was just about room for my lunch.

The start of the walk is at about 1,300m and we skipped the first 400m of the ascent by taking the chairlift on the advise of our guides. It was strange not having skies on and getting off at the top was rather interesting.

Shortly after arriving at the top of the chairlift the snow began and after about 20 minutes we arrived at the remains of an old chairlift that was destroyed during the 1971 eruption. We pretty much needed our ice axes from the start of the snow to keep ourselves upright, but as the sun warmed the ice and snow it got a little easier.

I had wondered what the helmet was for until shouting and whistling broke out from a group higher up the mountain, looking up a football sized piece of lava was bouncing down the mountain towards us. Impressively one of our guides manged to intercept and stop it. No mean feet given its speed and constantly changing direction as it bounced off the divots in the snow.

The view as we climbed slowly higher became more and more impressive as the clouds below us started to disperse, being this high brought back memories of the Inca Trail and the treks in Torres del Paine earlier in the trip.

After nearly 4 hours of slowly making our way through the snow we reached the summit to be greeted with wafts of sulphur fumes, one of the other groups had gas masks with them which certainly would have stopped the fumes burning your nose and throat. Luckily the strong winds were blowing towards us and we escaped most of the fumes. The wind was pretty cold as we had climbed to almost 3,000m but one of the benefits of sitting on top of an active volcano is that the grounds pretty warm. (Above: Shelley on the right warming up on the edge of the crater)

Above is a view into the crater from about as close as I was willing to get, you could hear occasional rumbling and one of the guides saw a jet of lava. Because of the fumes you could only really stay this close for about 20 seconds before the sulphur fumes became too much. The center of the crater was a quite eerie and almost a little spooky. It was also strange that no one was telling you not to get too close, with no disclaimer forms in sight you could pretty much do anything you wanted. In the picture above all of the smoke is sulphur fumes.

By the time we had reached the top myself and Shelley had all our gear on with the exception of the crampons which we didn´t need, very glad of that remembering the cramp we got after wearing them on the Perito Moreno Glacier. We were also sporting a protective sheet around legs and backside to slide down the mountain on.

It took us 4 hours to climb the volcano and about 20 minutes to get down again, sliding down almost out of control has to have been one of the most fun things I have done in years. If I hadn´t been so tired I would have climbed back up again for another run.

Several times I left the ground, manged a 360 and at the last minute before reaching a lava field had to use my ice axe to stop my descent. The experience brought back childhood memories of the first time I visited one of the water theme parks in Florida during a family holiday. Just like then I wanted one more go on the slide.

In an area of thermal activity there are numerous thermal springs and we visited the one above to sooth our aching legs.


No visit to a Volcano would be complete without a bottle of Crater beer served at one of the towns Italian restaurants.

Highlights: Climbing Villarrica Volcano and the 1,000m snow slide