On Easter Sunday we headed North out of Bariloche through the picturesque Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi, with its autumnal colours and attractive lake and mountain backdrop on our journey back into Chile.  The border crossing was busy, with all the holiday traffic, so was the longest of the 10 border crossings to date on our journey.  Entering into Chile is always the lengthiest border crossing of all the South American countries, as they insist on emptying out the whole bus and scanning everyone’s luggage for fresh produce.

The town of Pucón is dominated by the 2,847 metre high Volcan Villarrica, Chile’s most active volcano, and is totally geared to supporting the tourist trade.  Essentially there are two principal seasons:

• The summer months, where the activity is centred around hiking the volcano and walks around the surrounding lakes and national parks.  This season essentially finishes in mid April, when the weather changes and in particular the wind and onset of show and rain make the volcano trek unsafe.
• The second season starts around June / July when the skiers flock to the nearby ski slopes.

On the Monday the weather in Pucón was totally clear and our group hiked up the volcano.  The hike starts at the base station with a rickety chair lift, that would not pass European Health and Safety criteria, which  takes you up the first 500 metres.  The chair lift had no safety barriers so you had to cling onto the side poles with your pack in front of you.  The chair lift covers a fair bit of fairly mundane ground and takes about an hour off the full climb, so is well worth taking so that more time can be spent on the more interesting parts of the trek.

The end station of the chair lift bears the scars of earlier eruptions of the volcano and from there, the final 1,000 metres of the hike to the summit begins.  The volcano starts to get steeper and the rocks underfoot are quite loose, so the hike zigzags up the volcano to minimise the risk of rock falls and slippage.

After about 400 metres of climbing we reached the snow line and needed to put on crampons to continue the climb.  The ice under foot was very solid and glistened in the clear sunlight.  The crampons made walking on the ice quite comfortable and much more stable than on the previous rocks.  Again the climb zigzagged up the volcano, and at each switch back you moved your ice pick to the mountainside to help give you purchase and extra stability.

At about 100 metres to go before the summit we left our backpacks on the mountainside, took off our crampons, put on our jackets and gas masks and continued to the summit. The summit was free of ice and the crater was an array of yellows and greens, with an active molten lava lake about 300 metres below.  There was a persistent smell of sulphur, which also made your eyes water.  You are only allowed 20 minutes at the summit, in order to both manage the crowds and also to minimise the exposure to sulphur.

On the way down we picked up our backpacks and changed into the waterproof trousers and “diaper” to prepare for our slide down the snow and ice.  A couple of “toboggan runs” have been carved out in the ice and the journey down where we were sliding sitting down was a bit like the Winter Olympic Sport of the luge, as we were body surfing down the mountain.

At the end of the snow line, the trek down to the foot of the volcano was a relatively steady journey down, as the loose lava gravel made walking down significantly easier on the knees than the previous treks in our travels.

The whole trek on the volcano was very busy, with guides limited to managing groups of no more than 12 trekkers. There are many companies in Pucón that offer guided treks up the volcano, and the fully equip you with all the necessary gear.  The guides ensure that each group is tightly kept together on the volcano and manage the groups so that they do not string out or intermingle with other groups. Our group of 12 split into two separate groups on the way up to cater for different abilities and speed, and all but one made it up to the top.  The guides were very firm and controlling on the climb, but given the fact that active volcanoes can be extremely dangerous places, that is no bad thing.

The volcano last erupted in March 2015 and the mountain was closed for some time.  The previous big eruption was back in 1971 when the upper chair lift, amongst other things, was destroyed and at least 15 fatalities recorded.

Our second day in Pucón, was a much more leisurely affair, as we simply enjoyed the end of season feel of the town.  Indeed the weather was overcast and the cloud cover and mist very low all morning, which would have made climbing the volcano impossible.

Date: 01/04/2018 to 04/04/2018