Lonquimay, Day IV, Volcan Lonquimay 2726 metres

Yony Avalancha (Johnny Avalanche) is a tall, young, skinny guide who arrived with his German girlfriend to see whether anyone needed his services. She and I immediately started chatting in German (she's been here a few months and speaks Spanish, but still) and off we were to go to the summit of Lonquimay.

We got a ride with the lodge's four wheel drive, it took us even higher than the ski lifts do, saving us a long and tedious 3-hour trudge through the deep volcanic ash that is the base of the volcanoe. I personnaly wished the vehicle had dropped us off a bit sooner, it made me nervous to be on such steep hills on wheels. I wasn't the only one!

This high up, the climb is actually a short, but very thirsty and steep one.

It took us slightly over three hours of battling against the fierce, raging wind and lose ground to reach a truly spectacular landscape, that of the Lonquimay Volcanoe summit and main crater, and all surrounding volcanoes, among them Lanin, Villarica, Tolhuaca, Llaima etc.

At 2726m (or so), it is high enough to cause some shortness of breath.

Its huge crater is filled with snow, and our guide took us along the rim, half of which is more or less feasible, right into the crater itself. How impressive! Once on the other side, behind a huge rock, in the sun, protected from the wind and the beautiful Volcan Tolhuaca in front of us, we all sat and just took it in. No one wanted to leave. We ended up staying nearly two hours. I've never been in a summit for so long!

But as some point we had to leave. The first part of the descent was slow, with us having to pick our way carefully through the lose rock and steep hill. Once we got to the snow though, we tried skiing.


I am not very good at this (and I also don't downhill ski, which is very helpful in learning) but I did my best. You slide down standing, in your boots, and make sure you don't fall. If you do, you slide down way too fast with no way to self arrest as we didn't have ice picks, and usually stop only when you hit rocks. Not a soft landing. But the snow had been made soft by the sun, we sunk in, and this made manoeuvering rather easy. By the time we'd finished the second large patch of snow, I was getting the hang of it. The 3 hours up took about 40 minutes down. The vehicle came to pick us up and we got in rowdily, exhilarated by the beautiful day and the final adrenalin rush.

Back at the lodge, I met two new campers, a Brit traveling throughout this area for 3months and an Italian biologist who takes even more pictures of flowers than I do. Together with Pia, we all had a very enjoyable evening, even though the language barrier made for some spectacularly one-sided conversations that not everyone always realised were taking place. It was hilarious!

We agreed to all have breakfast together tomorrow. They were planning on staying another day, but I wanted to hit one last trail that would let me walk out of the park and back into town. Pia gave me a beautiful necklace made of Araucaria needles, and I gave her the rest of my chocolate. She'd loved it.