F: Pucon with Volcano Villarrica

We had heard that Pucon is very touristy and not authentic at all. That's true. But after many days in the countryside, we were in the mood for good bread, a hot shower, shopping, a good restaurant, and other people. Especially since it rained steadily for two days and we didn't do much, it was nice to be in a lively and well-equipped hostel. Reading, playing games, cooking, making phone calls, backing up photos, paying bills, etc. And one day we went hydrospeeding, since you do it in a wetsuit anyway, it didn't matter if it was raining. It was really fun, so I can highly recommend it!

After the rain stopped on the third day, we each rented a mountain bike and Simon found a single trail track in the forest between Pucon and Villarrica Volcano. On the uphill section, we even came across a fox that we initially mistook for a dog because they are gray here instead of reddish, and it was standing on the trail looking at us completely relaxed. The trail was a stroke of luck! It was perfect for our skills and the rental bikes were quite decent too.

And finally, we decided to climb the volcano. We hesitated because it's a very popular and touristy tour and you have to go with an agency, it's not allowed to go independently. But who wouldn't want to climb an active volcano? That's exactly how we felt...

Villarrica Volcano

That was quite a different kind of mountain tour. The agency provides shoes, crampons, ice axe, even gloves - everything you need in a pre-packed backpack. It was quite heavy, and we wondered what we were carrying here..?

At around 7:30 am, we set off from the ski resort. One of the chairlifts (Soviet models) also operates in summer to save the climbers the first 400 meters of ascent. But we skipped these 13 francs.

At the mountain station, when putting on the crampons, I already got fed up for the first time: it was crowded. Everyone crowded in the same spot in front of the snow. It was more crowded than at a fair! I have never seen anything like this on a mountain before and found it quite refreshing.

I managed to attach the semi-automatic crampons that I took out of my backpack satisfactorily to my shoes, which are not crampon-compatible at all, and the size XL gaiters as well. Unfortunately, the marching afterwards didn't relax me much either. We were a group of 20 people and the guides wanted us to stay together as much as possible. So we marched uphill in single file, and it was like playing the accordion. One person would constantly stop and then hurriedly catch up again.

And at each break, there were definitely three people who comfortably settled down and unpacked their sandwiches, even if the guides said it was just a short break. So every clothing break dragged on indefinitely - and I'm usually one of the slow ones myself. I almost went crazy. And people everywhere! On the entire slope up and down, people were crawling like worms.

However, what I really liked was that I could once again trudge across a glacier - just mountaineering again was a very good feeling. The volcano is quite steep, so it's a bit exhausting, but you make good progress, and I like that.

Just before I would have gone crazy, I decided to change my attitude. Instead of imagining that I am now on a mountain tour, and expecting it to be similar to what I know, I leave all expectations behind and just take it as it comes. I see it as a leisurely outing in crampons with many long breaks, where you constantly stop and enjoy the view. That way, I could relax and simply enjoy the mountain, the view, and look forward to the crater. Eventually, I even found it amusing to see an estimated 200 people on the same mountain. One guide said that on peak days, there can even be 400 people.

The summit looks really cool. That perfectly uniform and completely separate cone from which steam bursts sporadically. At a certain height, you can also smell the gases in a wave-like manner.

I did not see a single piece of paper, not a tissue, and hardly any yellow spots on the whole way. The guides also instructed us to take everything back with us and cover our pee, of course. But I was pretty impressed that it worked so well, I had never seen that anywhere else in South America before.

About 100 meters below the summit, we left the backpacks behind. All the rocks that protrude from the glacier here are frozen on the lee side with horizontal icicles furrowed in the direction of the wind, which looks really beautiful! I had a little setback because I almost couldn't understand why some people don't understand that we need to hurry if we want to be ahead of the big crowd at the top, just like the guides had said. With only the ice axe and gas mask, we made our way to the edge of the crater.

I was amazed! The crater is huge! It has a diameter of 200 meters (but that's still far from the big ones) and then there is this literally bottomless hole with yellowish walls and steam gushing out of the cracks and even from the snow. And you can see the shimmering hot air with steam rising from the crater above our heads. Occasionally, a wave of gas also comes out, which smells of sulfur and other poisonous things. And sometimes the whole crater starts to rumble and almost tremble, a burst of hot air rises up from the inside with a mighty roar. We were quite surprised the first time. And a few times we saw black lava boulders being ejected from deep down in the hole.

I asked a guide how high the highest lava fountain he had experienced here was. "25 meters above the crater rim," including small lava stones that fell on their heads. But that was last autumn when the volcano was closed for two months due to increased activity (the guy still went up with a colleague for the spectacle, what a daredevil). And of course, he said that he watched from the valley when the volcano had its last eruption in 2015 and lava flowed down into the forest.

The view from the summit was great too: For us, it's strange when everything around, up to the horizon in all directions, is at most hilly, and you stand on such a solitary summit. It's truly a unique and very impressive panoramic view!

Then it was time to go down. First back to the backpacks, where we unpacked the overpants and overcoats that had made the luggage so heavy. We also had a special slide called "Füdlirutscher" (a piece of plastic that you put under your butt and slide down the slope on the snow). And that's how we covered 7/8 of the entire descent! The over clothing, as well as an additional piece of strong fabric that was stretched over the butt, served as protection because the stones in the snow can really tear the clothing. It was so much fun! I laughed throughout the entire descent! Because everyone was "sliding" down, a track quickly formed where you gained good speed. You hold the ice axe with both hands and use the end as a brake in the snow when needed. Why hasn't anyone come up with this way of getting down from a mountain in the Alps yet? ;-)