Dogs Rule Pucon

We’ve loved our stay in Pucon. The city is clean, friendly and easy to walk (Kate estimates that we’ve walked over 100 cumulative blocks in Pucon). There is an endless supply of outdoor activities surrounding Pucon. One could easily amuse themselves for an entire summer here without even scratching the surface.

Pucon is framed by Volcan Villarrica. We were lucky to have good weather that afforded many views of the volcano.

Pucon is filled with dogs, most appear to be relatively well fed, fairly healthy and not-too-mangy. Largely, they are street dogs, each with their own territory (usually a few blocks). On dark nights the dogs will escort you from one block to the next, probably in hopes of a scrap.

Many of the dogs are avid car chases. We suspect that the car-chasing gene has evolved along with the agility gene.

Rock dog eats rocks.

Rub-my-dirty-belly-dog.

My corner-dog.

Honey-badger.

Ecole Hostel corner dog No. 1.

Ecole Hostel corner dog No. 2.

Doormat dog does not want to be stepped on.

And a cat.

We had one last dinner at our favorite Pucon restaurant “Trawen.” Kate enjoying octopus risotto.

A Pucon ice-cream sign reminding you to “share happy.” I like that.

Pucon Boat Day – Saltos y Lagos

One of the primary reasons to visit Pucon was for the phenomenal boating. The town rests on the shore of Lake Villarrica and the nearby mountains are incised with countless river canyons.

Dan met up with Rodrigo of Kayak Pucon at 10 AM to kayak the Palguin, a Class IV river about 17 km from downtown Pucon. He came to find out that Class IV means something different in Chile than it does in Colorado.

Rodrigo and his driver Pepe cover up Kayak Chile stickers with Kayak Pucon stickers on a road sign at the putin. Nothing like a little local rivalry.

Dan at the putin, just below a natural bridge.

First warm-up drop. Time to learn how to run waterfalls. This would be Class V- in Colorado.

Nailed it!

Rodrigo in one of the many drops.

The character of the Upper Palguin is a lot different from anything in Colorado. The drops typically have Class III rapids lead-ins with numerous eddies, before plunging 10 to 20 feet into a very large pool.

One of the bigger ones.

My back hurts.

I choose to skip one waterfall and instead seal-launched into the pool below, still pretty fun.

Scouting a drop.

Classic guide and student photo.

The Upper Palguin left Dan with three clean waterfalls run of varying sizes, one portage and one swim out of a boxed-in river-wide hole. In Rodrigo’s words “your boof sucks" and "you took quite a few cycles in there before swimming."

We skipped the Middle Palguin, which features several 50+ foot waterfalls.

The Lower Palguin picks up where the Upper Palguin left off with some fun Class III creeking and a few big waterfall drops. Dan narrowly avoided a second swim by back-boofing another boxed-in river-wide hole. It was not pretty.

Mellow Chile creeking.

Stunning creek scenery.

The Lower Palguin picks up steam in the last half mile of the run with two beautiful water falls.

Dan airing out a 16 foot falls, which lands in a beautiful aerated pool that’s easy on the back.

Flying off the “autoboof”

Needless to say, the Palguin was one of the highlights of Dan’s 2011 boating year. He returned to Hostel Ecole on time for once after kayaking and found Kate relaxing with a book.

We enjoyed a nice hamburger lunch at Latitude 39 with local microbrewed beers, shipped some mostly-dry boating gear back north and headed down to the lake on a nice sunny spring Pucon evening.

The beach of Lago Villarrica is beautiful black sand, and on previous occasions we had noticed row-boats available for rent, but nobody there to rent them. This evening we had no trouble procuring a boat.

Skipper Dan on the oars.

Captain Kate on the oars.

Captain Kate on the grog.

Volcon Villaricca.

An hour of rowing was hardly enough time, the sun was low in the horizon and our bottle of wine wasn’t quite finished, we headed to the beach to request an additional hour on our surprisingly sea-worthy craft.

Back at the “Marina” we took in sunset.

Lazy dog wakes up late from his siesta.

Today on the bus ride to Puerto Montt Dan’s arms are a bit tired from paddling and rowing.

Thermas Geometricas

After skiing Volcan Villarrica, we enjoyed a few rounds of Crystal (Chilean beer) with Peter, a traveler from Wisconsin and Dan, a traveler from England. We had heard of a hotspring located about 2 hours from Pucon called Thermas Geometricas. Peter is fluent in Spanish and we enlisted his help in getting a collectivio (a shared taxi) to take us to Thermas Geometricas on Sunday for a relaxed soaking day after skiing the volcano. We had no idea how wonderful the Thermas would be.

The drive was about 2 hours. There is a small town on a large lake near the Thermas that looked like it would be worth a few relaxing days. Next time.

We wound up a dirt road for about 8 miles past goat farms and free-range domestic boar.

The trail in to Thermas Geometricas.

The hot springs were located in a creek gorge that had hotsprings pouring out from the canyon walls. Hot water was collected in wooden flumes and delivered to about 17 pools along a quarter mile of canyon.

Kate strongly approves.

Jungle leaves as big as Kate.

On our way out of the springs, Dan met a Finn named Mariah. He learned that he's been pronouncing and spelling his last name Niemelä wrong for about 33 years.

We napped on the 2 hour drive back to Pucon, went to the hostel and napped some more. A tough day relaxing so much!

Following our nap, we had a late dinner, consisting of an enormous pile of barbecued meat. Kate briefly fell off the veggie-wagon. As we type this, Kate is enjoying a home-made veggie-burger at Latitude 39, back to being a veggie.

Alternative Approach to Volcan Villarica

Many people from Colorado are ski bums at heart. When a ski bum walks up a snow covered slope, there is no alternative but to ski down. Why would one waste the vertical on any other pursuit?

When we walked into the AguaVentura office on Friday night, we knew three things: The weather was going to be fantastic to climb on Saturday. We'd need to hire a guide service to get to the top of Volcan Villarica due to Chile's amazing beaurocracy. We'd ski down.

AguaVentura offerted Dan a splitboard (a snowboard that splits in half and allows you to ski up the mountain with climbing skins and then snowboard down). Kate reserved a modified AT/Alpine setup. This seemed like a reasonable and approach to reducing weight on our back for the 4500 ft climb. The Alpine boots and skis turned out to be an unwelcome weight on Kate's feet.

When in doubt, take the lift. 1000 ft climbing accomplished with diesel assist. Steaming volcano in the background. 3500 ft vertical to go.

Skinning up the volcano. The snow surface was an odd mix of ice and slush as if someone had raided a hotel ice maker and spread it over the mountain. It did not inspire confidence while skinning up and along 30 degree slopes. Mental note, the boot pack is the way to go for icy conditions.

Our guide was not a big help. Here's Dan setting the skin track for him. Each step was 3. Stomp ice cubes, stomp again, step up.

Neato abandoned concrete lift house.

Summit crater, which emits a foul gas that makes you gag if you breath it. The volcano gurgled and groaned at the summit.

Do-not-slip.

Dan looking a little haggard at the top of the volcano.

Another volcano exploding in the distance.

The descent was fun. The snow had softened up nicely and was "soft and variable spring conditions." We got in a 4000 ft descent with some lovely open 25-degree slopes.

Kate at the bottom of her last spring skiing run for the season. The natural half-pipe behind Kate was good fun.

Another old ski house with the volcano in the background.

Tomorrow will be a rest day; we plan to head to a secret hotsprings...Thermas Geometricas http://www.termasgeometricas.cl/