I have concluded that there are three types of people. The first is the type that knows their physical strengths and weaknesses and makes appropriate activity choices. If they aren’t fit enough for some activity, they don’t do it. No drama. The second knows their strengths and weaknesses, but they don’t pay attention to them. They ignore that little nagging voice that tells them they aren’t fit enough for the activity they are about to do. The third type, well, they are just clueless—think Italians with purses.
We are in Pucón on Lago Villarrica. Pucón is the Jackson Hole of South America and a premier outdoor adventure destination. People come from all over the world to partake in the extreme activities available year-round. Sitting sentry over the town is the Villarrica Volcano, the second most active volcano in Chile and one of only five in the world with an active lava lake within its crater. Over 9,300 feet tall, the volcano last erupted in 2008, yet some say it has been erupting since 2010. During the day, smoke billows from the top. At night, the lava glows brilliantly red in the southern sky.
The ultimate activity here is to summit the volcano. Dozens of adventure shops will outfit you with the required clothing and gear—wind pants and jacket, helmet, crampons, ice ax, and pack—for a climb to the top of the volcano. The shop owner reassured us that “Many, many people make it to the summit, but if not, no problemo, you can turn around at any point, and a guide will take you back down. There is a guide for every three climbers”. With a nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach, we, of course, signed up. Pretty clear which type I fall into.
After safely arriving at the bottom, I realized that the guides had probably identified within five minutes of hiking who had the potential to make it and who definitely would not. They probably also had picked straws beforehand to determine which guide would take people back down as needed. Depending on how many climbers there were and when they bailed, the guide who had drawn the short straw might end up making multiple trips up and down the volcano.
After a fretful sleep, we were up at 5:30 am and picked up for the short drive to the office, where we were appropriately “outfitted”. There were nine of us on the trip: Kevin and me, two couples from Santiago, and three Israeli men who turned out to be royal pains in the rear ends. Kevin and I were about 25 years older than anyone on the trip (another clue ignored). Our guides were Rodrigo, Andres, and Jorge, all seasoned guides.
Along the 40-minute drive (windy and rough, but of course) to the national park, we passed alongside a car stopped not quite in the middle of the road, but close. The driver was lying across the front seats, with the driver ‘s-side door wide open. Turns out this was a friend of the guides who had had one too many the night before and passed out in the car. The guides woke him up. He got out of the car and stumbled around a bit, hugging and kissing everyone. They got his car started and turned around to head back down the mountain. Amazingly, the guy got back in the car and drove home or to the bar. Who knows. All in a day’s guiding.
Damn Dangerous
The starting point for the climb is the ski area. If the wind is not too strong, you can take a chair lift a quarter of the way up the volcano. Unfortunately, the wind was too strong, so we hiked for about an hour to the top of the ski lift. Actually, the wind gusts were so strong that at times, if we were not balanced when we stopped, we would be blown backwards. Stepping in any direction not intended was just damn dangerous. The slope is so steep that a misstep in any direction could send you hurling down the volcano’s side.
In the first hour, the nine of us had already broken into three groups—Kevin and the Israelis in the first group, one of the Chilean couples in the second group, and me and the other couple at the back. I had already settled into walking directly behind Andres, who had set a pace just for me, it seemed. I would step into his footsteps immediately after he took the next step, keeping my head down and rarely looking up. To do so was frightening with steep drop-offs in all directions. More, to look up at the summit was overwhelming. Andre knew the exact pace we three needed to make it to the next resting area, all the while talking encouragingly and ever so gently.
At the top of the ski lift, we caught up with the rest of the group and rested for about 30 minutes. Before starting up again, we put on our helmets. From that point up, helmets are required due to potential rockslides and the frightening possibility of a slide to the bottom. All the men in the group kept pace with Rodrigo and Jorge, while Andre kept a slower pace for us three women. Do all women fall in love with their guides? I think so…
Not more than 10 minutes along, one of the women decided to bail. We had reached the remains of a ski lodge destroyed in the last eruption. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, the guides had already identified who was not going to the summit. They knew that we three women at least would not be crossing the glacier and that we would be back down to this point in another two and a half hours. The one woman remained at the lodge ruins while Andres, Maria, and I continued. Maria was beginning to lag, needing to stop every ten minutes or so. I kept following directly in Andres’ footsteps. He was the lifeline that I was not about to let get too far ahead of me. An hour and a half later, we finally made it to the base of the ice and met up with the remainder of the group.
From here on up, it would be walking on the snow with crampons and ice axes at the ready. What we had climbed thus far was steep but nothing compared with what was to come. There was no question of either Maria or me making it further. Turns out that two climbers died the week before, having fallen down the ice without being able to stop themselves and slamming into the rocks below. Of course, the shop owner never mentioned that the night before.
Kevin and the men strapped on crampons and headed up for another hour and a half, zig-zagging up the glacier and then a 50-minute scramble over lava boulders to the summit. Kevin will regale you with his story upon our return (and thank the heavens he did return), but suffice it say that it was probably at the end of his endurance. After 5 hours of hiking straight up, exhausted with legs cramping and wobbly, crossing a patch of snow on the way down, he had to do an ice ax saving move—flipping over onto his side and jamming his ice ax into the ice—saving himself from a potentially hurtful slide.
And His Private Parts Were Frozen
Because of the weather moving in, the group had about 15 minutes on top before heading down. Kevin said he could hear the caldron burp and bubble. Some in the group saw a lava bubble. Walking back down the glacier would be untenable, and hiking back down the trail would be excruciating after so many hours of hiking up. Fortunately, instead, they put on this canvas diaper thing, sat down and used their ice ax as a brake, glissading down the ice. What took almost two hours to climb up can be descended in 30 minutes of sliding down on your butt. Kevin’s diaper had a hole in it, and his private parts froze by the time he was down, but what the hell. Andres actually had Maria, and I do a bit of this on our way down. It was a blast if you forgot about the boulders waiting for you at the bottom if you failed to use enough brake pressure.
Instead of walking on the trail once off the ice, we walked straight down the lava flow. The technique is to sit back on our heels and walk like a duck—using our ice ax to keep us from tumbling head over heels. With each step, we planted our heels first, slid about 6 inches, disturbed a ton of dust, and then repeated. 10,000, 100,000, or 1,000,000 steps more, and we reached the bottom.
Andres kept in touch with the group at the top, letting us know that they had reached the summit at about 2 pm. I met Kevin in the early evening at the shop, gave him a Gatorade, two ibuprofen, and escorted him back to the hotel.
