Kate and Dan: 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.