Puerto Varas, Chile
Our wait paid off for us! We woke up to some blue sky and intermittent clouds. The forecast was for further clearing by about noon or 1pm. We were on the road by shortly after 8, and because it looked like the top of the volcano was mostly clear we decided to do that hike first. We were snapping pictures from the car whenever we caught good sight of it. Little did we know then how well we would see it for most of the day.
The drive from the main road up towards the volcano summit was "interesting". Very winding and constantly uphill. Lots of hairpin turns in places. And - lots of battered guardrails along the way. I would guess that it took about a half hour to get up that last stretch. Once at the end of road there is a chairlift to transport people almost up to the glacier (it is a ski area in the winter). But - it didn't start running until 10:30 and we wanted to hike up in any case. It was an interesting hike. Not much in the way of defined trails (that we could find), loose volcanic debris (it last erupted in 1869), and nothing to speak of in the way of vegetation. I'm guessing that the vast majority of people who go up there at all take the chairlift. There were still clouds coming and going, so it was not always clear where we should be headed. We were mostly above the clouds, though, so our views down to Lago Llanquihue and Lago Todos los Santos were often obscured. We eventually got up beyond the top of the chairlift and hiked up to where further progress was blocked by ice and snow. Joan and I stopped at the first one but Jill went back down a bit and found another route that took her up higher. I tried a bit of that one but the footing was really poor, so I headed back down.
I didn't take my poles today so I knew I would be even slower than usual going down. In fact it wasn't too bad. For much of it I walked below the chairlift for 2 reasons - (1) there was some good fairly deep scree that made the descent much easier on the knees, and (2) as the clouds came and went it would have been easy to get a bit lost if the chairlift was not in view.
The mountain really is beautiful! Shape, snow terrain, accessibility, and overall setting with the lakes below. It was hard to stop taking pictures!
We had tea and lunch in the cafeteria at the base of the chairlift waiting for Jill. While we were there we watched a cyclist come in - wow! What a grind that would be!! And a workout for the brakes going down..... Once Jill was back, fed, and watered we drove back down the winding road, retraced a few km back to Ensenada and turned up a valley toward Petrohue - another major tourist draw in the area.
That was a much milder drive and many more vehicles on the road. There was a set of waterfalls about halfway up - Saltos del Rio Petrohue. So crowded, even though there was a significant entry fee there. It seems there are waaay more people at a place where they have to pay to go rather than somewhere where you can just hike around at will. But then again I suppose it has more to do with the (lack of) physical effort involved. Nice falls, though. Very pretty water colour and very unique volcanic rock throughout.
The mountain really is beautiful! Shape, snow terrain, accessibility, and overall setting with the lakes below. It was hard to stop taking pictures!
We had tea and lunch in the cafeteria at the base of the chairlift waiting for Jill. While we were there we watched a cyclist come in - wow! What a grind that would be!! And a workout for the brakes going down..... Once Jill was back, fed, and watered we drove back down the winding road, retraced a few km back to Ensenada and turned up a valley toward Petrohue - another major tourist draw in the area.
That was a much milder drive and many more vehicles on the road. There was a set of waterfalls about halfway up - Saltos del Rio Petrohue. So crowded, even though there was a significant entry fee there. It seems there are waaay more people at a place where they have to pay to go rather than somewhere where you can just hike around at will. But then again I suppose it has more to do with the (lack of) physical effort involved. Nice falls, though. Very pretty water colour and very unique volcanic rock throughout.
Next stop - Petrohue. This was at the end of the road and another pretty and popular place. It was at the end of the lake (Lago Todos los Santos) where the river towards the falls started. There was a big lodge there, boat tours, restaurants, etc. It was about 4pm by the time we got there and we had some hiking we wanted to do, so we bypassed all the touristy stuff. The resident ranger told us that the hike we had wanted to do would take about 5 hours so we chose a much shorter loop. It was nice, although the footing was taxing. Sand of varying depths was underfoot most of the way. The vegetation made almost a bit of a tunnel at times, although we did have some fabulous views of the volcano along the way. The clouds had largely cleared but there were just enough to make the sky & volcano really interesting to watch. I was especially fascinated by the top - it was like the volcano was wearing a cap which continually just flowed over the top. At one of the dry creek beds we turned down towards the lake and then completed our loop by walking on the beach for about a half hour. Again - we had wonderful views of Osorno most of the way; sigh.........
It was well after 7 by the time we got back to Puerto Varas. Joan had a BBQ place picked out for dinner, and it was delicious! We finished up the car rental paperwork and it was a late night by the time we were ready to turn in. All in all, a great day!
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