Our alarms went off at 5 AM today to start our volcano adventure. We met with the guide (Uber was his name) at our hostel, and he outfitted us with hiking boots and gators and gave us a backpack including waterproof pants and jacket, gloves, crampons, gas masks, an ice pick, and “nappies” (All to be explained later). We headed off for the 40 min drive to Volcan Villarica. On the way, we caught a pretty good view of the slopes we would be climbing shortly.
Once there, we pulled on our packs and started hiking. There were only three of us in the group- Alejandro, a guy from Germany, and myself- which was much smaller than the group of 17 that had gone the day before (lucky for us!). The first mile gained about 1000 feet of elevation, and the slope really didn’t level out after that, in fact, it felt like it kept just getting steeper! After those first 1000 feet, we put on our crampons, grabbed our ice pick, and headed onto the snow. Most of the groups were just hiking up in boots, but with our crampons and gear, we could cut off the main path and pass them. The views were fantastic!
When we finally made it to the top, looking inside the volcano was a little surreal. Unfortunately we weren’t able to see lava (our guide said it comes up and down based on the moon cycle and our day was unfortunately on low moon) but looking inside the crater was still really awesome. The sulfuric gases that it spews out constantly are a bit toxic so they also made us wear gas masks. It felt like the real deal!
It was tough to top the feeling of being at the top of a volcano, but, the way down gave it a run for it’s money. Neither one of us had climbed up a snow peak before so the idea of sliding down was novel for both of us, but it was awesome! In our packs we had waterproof pants that we now put on. Also covered up with the “nappy”, basically a tough plasticky big diaper that we put over our pants to cover our backside. And then we used that to sit on our butts, and just slide down the snow! There was also a plastic paddle thing that we could use to pick up more speed if needed. It was really awesome, especially since they also had these tobogan/ice luge tracks carved out into the mountain from the many people that had done this before us. We felt like we were racing down like in the Olympics!
We made it back really quickly and had the rest of the afternoon to chill out. Alejandro is now also officially hooked on mountaineering, it was a blast!
Travel Fun With Cassie and Alejandro 