Playing in the shadow of Volcan Osorno

I spent three days in Puerto Varas with my friend Beth exploring the area around Lago Llanquihue and admiring and experiencing Volcan Osorno from every angle. Beth arrived from Costa Rica on the morning of January 6 and we went rafting on Rio Petrohue with the cool folks at Ko'Kayak that afternoon. The Ko'Kayak guys picked us up at 2:45 in a little white Mitsubishi mini-bus and we piled in alongside three Brazilians, two Belgians, and a German. Beth rode in the back and yucked it up with two of the Brazilians.Ira and Nele, the friendly women from Ghent, were just beginning  an 8-month adventure traveling South America. The 19 year old girl from Germany had 9 months left of her year and a half in South America. The Europeans do it right! Everyone was full of positive energy and excited to hit the water.After gearing up at Ko'Kayak's well-appointed base camp in Ensenada, we headed to the river clad in wetsuits and dry tops. The hordes of biting horse flies (tabano) were larger than anything we had seen anywhere else in the world, but we were covered practically head to toe, limiting their possible attack surface. Beth and I shared a raft with the Belgian women, the German girl, and another young German woman who was completing her studies in Santiago before heading home. Matias served as our excellent guide, and two other rafts full of Brazilians completed our river party. After some quick in-river practice (paddle forward, paddle back, get inside the boat, etc), we headed into the first rapids. The river was flowing nicely and had several fun Class III rapids, largely consisting of big waves. This video (not of us; still waiting for Ko'Kayak to send us the GoPro footage) gives you an idea:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcGd58a7pvgIt took less than five minutes to get a huge wave of cold river water in the face -- it felt great! The water was so clear you could see the bottom most of the time, even though it was fairly deep in parts. We could see Volcan Osorno looming around most of the bends in the river. After tackling a couple of rapids, we pulled the rafts into a bank and climbed up on a rock to jump about ten feet down into the river for a short swim back to the boats. Some of the Brazilians went for rotating backflips, producing some epic bellyflops. We headed back down river, accompanied by the hordes of horseflies, hit a few more rapids, high-centered the raft on a big rock and had to pile everyone into the very front of the raft to free it, and swam an easy rapid. After a short stretch of flat water, we pulled the rafts out, shed our gear, and headed back to Ko'Kayak's base for Pisco Sours, some snacks, and good kinship with our river mates.We arrived back at our beautiful hotel at 8, which meant we were already late for our dinner reservation at La Marca. After rapid showers, we dashed across Puerto Varas (doesn't take long) and were greeted with the sights and smells of a proper carnivore establishment -- a wood burning grill cooking delicious meat. We over-ordered and over-ate piles of excellent meat, paired with a   tasty Chilean Carmenere. Beth had been eating vegetarian for the past week at her yoga retreat in Costa Rica, so she particularly appreciated the meal.The next morning we set out towards Ensenada on bikes along the lake. We found one stretch of accessible beach down a steep road just past this little church:After huffing and puffing back up the hill, we pedaled back to Puerto Varas past many happy looking cows and lovely pastoral scenes.We explored the Puerto Varas lake-front promenade, and then headed back to our hotel. Details of the ride are on Strava.After our ride we decided to drive to the base of Volcan Osorno and take the lift to the top of the ski area. The drive to Volcan Osorno from Puerto Varas couldn't be prettier. The road hugs the shores of Laho Llanquihue for much of the way, before turning off and snaking its way up the approaches the mountain.We arrived at the base of the ski area in time to catch two lifts closer to the summit, where we found some clouds playing on the edges of the volcano.The contrast between the dark volcanic rock and ash, the deep blue sky, and the wisps of blowing white clouds created memorable scenes everywhere we looked.You can see Beth in the photo above and the one below to give you an idea of the scale of the mountain.We hiked up as far as we could without proper climbing equipment (basically, the snow/glacier line).We soaked in the views for a while before walking back to the top of the lifts and riding back down and heading to dinner at the super cute and excellent La Gringa.The food was delicious. If you're visiting Puerto Varas, you need to go to La Gringa!

Driving the Panamericana Highway

A nice guy from the Europcar office in Temuco dropped a Nissan Xtrail off at my hotel in Villarrica this morning, and I made my way to the famous Panamericana Highway and headed south towards Puerto Varas. The drive passed mostly through farmland, with volcanoes looming in the distance. I arrived in Puerto Varas, another lakeside town, and found my hotel, which has fabulous views of two volcanoes across the lake.Google Maps said the drive would take nearly six hours, but it was closer to three and a half. That left me plenty of daylight -- the sun doesn't set here until 9:30PM this time of year -- to wander around Puerto Varas. The beach in the center of town was packed, with lots of folks in the water despite the sign declaring that the beach was not safe for swimming. The lake water is very clear.I'm looking forward to exploring the surrounding area over the next few days with my friend Beth. There are piles of awesome activities to choose from here: rafting, canyoning, mountain biking, trekking. It is going to be hard to choose how to spend our days!

Sledding down a volcano

I climbed an active volcano today with the excellent folks at Summit Chile and then sledded most of the way down. It was an incredible experience. Claudio, the owner and lead guide, picked me up at 615 and we headed to Pucon to gear up for the climb. The top part of the volcano is still covered in snow, sits on a glacier, and is sometimes quite windy. I wore most of the clothes I brought -- a good test of my light packing. There were nine other friendly folks in the group: 2 from the UK, one from Germany, and the rest from Brazil. Two other guides accompanied Claudio and the group. We drove to the base of the ski area, about a third of the way up the volcano, and then hiked a short distance to the one ski lift that operates in summer to skip over a very soft, sandy (volcanic ash) section at the beginning of the climb. We walked down it later and it would have been a calf screamer to walk up, especially at the beginning of the climb. None of us were particularly bothered by taking the lift. After all, if you really want to "conquer the mountain", you would need to start hiking from the base in Pucon.Here's a shot on the old double chairlift, with my seatmate Bea from Germany:That's the lake that abuts both Villarrica and Pucon. When we got to the top, it was time to strap on our crampons, grab our ice axes, and start climbing.You can see the volcano "breathing" in the top left of the photo. Here's another view back towards the lake:We would climb for 45 minutes or an hour and then take a break to eat, hydrate, and admire the views. This panorama, shot with the Fuji XE-2 and 18-55 lens -- both of which made the climb along with the iPhone 4S responsible for many of the other photos, gives an idea of the views back towards the lake from the first third of the climb.The wind was blowing quite hard all day -- up to 65mph on the summit approaches and summit itself, according to a weather device Claudio carried -- and it was amazing to watch the clouds roll up the mountain, almost like waves breaking on the beach. Here you can see one of our guides, Osiel, with the clouds racing up the mountain behind him.It really was fun to watch the clouds blow in and then envelop us.One more, just because it was dramatic.Soon it was time for a break, and I devoured the first of two PB&Js I made for the climb. Aside: it is indeed possible to buy peanut butter in Chile!And then we kept going. We had to step carefully on the varying surface conditions -- sometimes very soft, sometimes a bit icy. The wind was strong enough to knock us around if we didn't maintain a good grip on the mountain with our crampons and ice axes. The black volcanic rock was really cool looking. And the clouds kept building below us.The volcano "breathing" makes it look like my head is steaming, but I was too cold to sweat.The wind was really blowing hard, and I was very glad I packed the windproof softshell at the last minute! We kept going up and we could tell that the summit was not far off.And soon enough we made it to the edge of the crater at the top of the volcano. The wind was nearly strong enough to knock us over up here, and the blowing ice bits and dust from the volcano made it hard to see when moving into the wind.At this point, I had donned a pair of heavy-duty waterproof trousers in preparation for the descent. As the title of this post suggests, we sledded most of the way down, either on our butts or sitting on little plastic shovels, using our ice axes as brakes and to steer. It was an unbelievable experience. Claudio took some video with a GoPro camera: Sledding down Villarrica. It was amazing and everyone had a blast.Eventually we ran out of snow and had to walk down the sandy volcanic ash we had sailed over on the chairlift earlier in the day.And then we emerged back below the clouds, walked down the path you can see snaking through the middle of the picture below back to the base of the ski area, and hopped in the van and headed back to Pucon after an awesome experience.Details of the hike here on Strava.