Into Mordor with the hobbit-dogs

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Our fantastic trekking guide to Patagonia includes a hike we've had our eye on for months, in Parque Nacional Puyehue, a few hours north of Puerto Varas and straddling the border between Region XIV Los Ríos and Region X Los Lagos. There's only one problem: the trail passes almost under the nose of the volcanic eruption which has been spewing ash over Argentina's Lake District and causing global havoc - the eruption disrupted air traffic in Australia for several days, so we're not talking about an insignificant planet-fart here - since June 2011. We've seen for ourselves the state of Villa La Angostura, the small Argentine town which bore the brunt of the ash - can there be any hope for a hiking trail a few kilometres away from the source of said ash? After a rather time-consuming exchange of emails and phonecalls with the small ranch which manages the trail - conducted from the town of Valdivia where we've detoured to do this homework - it transpires, to our surprise and delight, that the trail is habilitado or open to hikers. "Open as in you can actually walk on it?", I repeated at least 3 times down the line - the man must have thought I had some sort of deficiency. Yes, yes, definitely habilitado.

So the trail around Volcán Puyehue is open. That's all very well, but can you get there? As we have found out already, Chile's rural public transport is excellent, but the network can have rather large holes here and there. The man at the bus company listed in the hiking guide is unequivocal: since the 2011 eruption the park gets so few visitors that they've cancelled their service to Anticura, the trailhead. But there is, apparently, un señor llamado Don Erwin who goes there every day from Osorno, a town a couple of hours south of Valdivia. Don Erwin, however, is not contactable...does he even have un celular? Who knows. Knowing full well our endeavours may end in disappointment, we opt to take the risk and under spectacularly torrential rain we make the small southwards hop from Valdivia to Osorno. Soaking wet simply from the 100 metre dash from the intercity terminal to the local one, we ask after Don Erwin - "yes, he usually passes through". Usually? I need better than "usually"! But the mysterious Don Erwin shows up like clockwork at 12.30, ready to take us to Anticura. Hoorah! Our fellow passengers clearly wonder what on Earth we are doing on this tiny bus to the middle of nowhere. The experience leaves me wondering how non-Spanish speakers cope - perhaps they do the sensible thing and don't go fo hikes under around active volcanos? Perhaps.

The first section of the hike - which should be 3-4 days long in total - is a relatively short 4-5 hours (albeit with a total climb of over 1000 metres) but with this rain there's no chance of starting. Or even the next day, which sees torrential rain fall for over 12 hours solid. Fortunately for us the small outfitter at the trailhead, Fundo El Caulle, has a lovely little cottage where we spend a couple of nights waiting out la lluvia. Thank goodness we didn't have to stay in the tent. If we had, you wouldn't be reading this as we'd have murdered each other.

The rain finally stops, and after perhaps a hundred games of iPod Freecell and Scrabble, we're ready to go. The sun's even out! We head off, loaded with all we'll need: sleeping bags, bedrolls, biscuits, salamis, cereal, powdered milk, the lot. But we are not leaving alone...Four canine friends from Fundo El Caulle lead the way. It really is a furry family: Cuperto, a lovely, playful youngster, his mother Canela and father Toby, and finally his sweet, stubby-legged grandma, the adorably-named Pinguina.

We head out through fields - all four dogs having some fun terrorising cows - and are soon climbing through groves of fragrant tepa and ulmo trees, the latter a source of a most scrumptious honey. A couple of hours in and and the climb is relentless, through denser forest of conifers, beech and quila cane. More unusual is what we're walking on: compacted volcanic ash, no doubt from eruptions past and present of the volcanic system we're walking to. The ash is deeply eroded by the rain, forming deep gullies. A fine layer of fresh ash coats most of the trees. Three or four hours in and the four dogs are still there, merrily running ahead of us (except for poor little Grandma Dog, as we now call her, whose short legs can only carry so fast) before looking back quizzically as if to ask why on Earth we're so damn slow. In the most strenuous spots we entertain fantasies of saddling the younger ones and getting them to carry some pots and pans. See how quick they are then!

Six hours in and we've climbed over a vertical kilometre. The dogs are still going strong. Stronger than we are, for sure. The heavens suddenly open but fortunately only a few short minutes before the refugio comes into welcome view.

It's certainly rústico as they say. Twelve bunk beds, (very) roughly hewn from logs, a table and an ancient wood stove. That's it. Everything is covered in a fine layer of ash, which takes the better part of an hour to sweep out - yes, there's a broom! The dogs curl up under the raised floor - they'll soon be heading off back to Anticura for their din-dins - won't they?

Darkness is almost upon us when we are joined, to our great surprise, by a young solo Israeli backpacker by the name of Gil. It'll be a good idea to head up the volcano together in the morning. Straight after dinner we ease ourselves into our sleeping bags, try to find a comfortable sleeping position (thin sleeping mats aren't much protection against the brutally hard wooden slats!) for the night. It's absolutely freezing when we wake up, having against all the odds actually managed to sleep reasonably soundly. I put off getting out the bag for as long as my bladder will allow...Eventually I have no choice but to extricate myself and rapidly pull on half a dozen layers (on top of the three or so I was wearing to sleep) before rushing out of the refugio. To be greeted by no fewer than four excited, barking - and hungry - dogs. I'm not quite sure whether it's loyalty or sheer stupidity, but they've spent all night up here in the freezing cold (sorry, they're not sleeping in the refugio, not while we've got salamis packed in the bottom of the backpacks...). They obviously can't wait to get going this morning.

We're planning to spend the next night camping at the foot of Volcan Puyehue by some hot springs, although the fact that the entire area is buried under feet of ash makes me wonder if a suitable campsite could possibly exist here. We pack all our gear nonetheless and - followed of course by our doggy friends - set off on the (apparently well-marked with bamboo poles painted red) trail. What follows is quite possibly the most surreal day of the trip so far.

The route first climbs up the lower slopes of Puyehue before turning levelling out as it rounds the volcano northwards. It quickly becomes clear that following this trail is going to be hard work. The first problem is that the ongoing ash eruption emanating from a fissure slightly to the north of the main volcano has all but destroyed most of the bamboo poles. Nearly all have been broken off near the ground, making spotting the next pole quite a challenge on all but the flattest of sections (of which there aren't many). Others simply lie flat on the ground, dislodged from their stone cairns, where they aren't very much use. Secondly, the weather today isn't brilliant. Occasional breaks in the cloud allow lovely glimpses of the valley we climbed up the day before, and of Lago Puyehue over to the west, but every once in a while a low cloud passes over us and rapidly brings the visibility down to almost zero. It's ever so slightly unnerving, seeing as we're walking over pretty much featureless ash on which the trail is very hard to identify at the best of times. More than once we have to put the packs down and simply wait for the cloud to pass before we can push on. And more than once I ask myself if this is really a very good idea. The dogs are unfazed, happily running ahead - they are in fact proving pretty useful little guides, indicating the path ahead for us. By the time we have lunch we're making pretty good progress, elated every time we manage to spot the next bamboo stake.

Pretty soon a third problem crops up, this one potentially more serious. Rain and meltwater run-off (for there is still plenty of snow up here, although you'd never guess as much from the ash covering it) have dug deep, deep canyons in the ash. Some are only a couple of feet deep and are easily stepped over. Some are a couple of metres deep and need a running jump. We can manage that. Others, however, are perhaps three or four meters deep and too wide to be jumped. Climbing down into the canyon and then out isn't a viable option as the ash is completely unstable and the edges of the canyons disintegrate the moment you step anywhere near them. Pretty soon, every canyon we meet is of this last variety, and we find ourselves having to walk along them, either up or down the volcano's side, to find a spot where they narrow enough to be jumped. It's quite amusing at first but quickly becomes a concern - progress becomes very slow. Things aren't made any easier by the dogs. The three younger ones are fine, jumping effortlessly across even the widest gullies. Pinguina, on the other hand, can't manage. With her little legs, she rapidly becomes very tired and too scared to cross the gullies. More than once we have to coax her to a narrow spot and cajole her, sometimes for ages, to hop across. Other times she won't even do that, and one of us has to cross back (not good: every time you jump across you erode the edge of the gully and make it that much harder to get home), pick up the dog and effectively throw her across. As I said, surreal...

Eventually the jumps are so perilous we take off our packs and fling them across before jumping ourselves, or even find ourselves clambering into the gullies and scrambling our way back out over continually collapsing walls. I am now properly worried - this was not a good idea. This is not a good place to get stuck, there are no streams and no flat places to camp if we can't go on. The mood takes a nose-dive.

And then, we round a small hill which had been obscuring the view to the north, and before us is a sweeping vista of one of the most awe-inspiring, other-worldy, take-your-breath-away beauty. A volcanic landscape the kind you'd expect to find on some distant planet. But not Earth. To the east, a small volcano belches a huge plume of grey ash, rumbling ominously every 30 seconds or so. This is the source of all the trouble in Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand! We are transfixed, watching it spew its toxic mix of ash and hot gases from only a few miles away, listening to it grumble. It feels like a dangerous, unfriendly place indeed. Looking westwards the landscape is dominated by puffing fumaroles and an extraordinary pitch-black river of solidified lava from an old eruption, like a huge flowing glacier of solid rock. Completely and utterly incredible. Incredible. All three of us gasp and say the same thing almost all at once: "Mordor".

It quickly becomes clear that we can't go much further. We hadn't realised how close we'd come to the ash eruption and continuing exposes us to the very real risk that the wind will change and blow the cloud of blisteringly hot gases and ash straight towards us. Camping anywhere near this place would be foolish in the extreme. Any grassy campsites would long since have been obliterated. After a short debate (very short: we've all realised that, if we'd been doing this walk alone, we'd have turned back miles ago) we decide to head back to the refugio. The dogs are getting tired and if one gets stuck in a gully and we can't get it out, then that's it.

The walk back is not quite as scary, the worst of the gullies coming first. Pinguina has to be thrown across the first couple, and even the athletic Toby misjudges one and plunges several metres down before managing to clamber out. Our four dogs - furrier versions of Frodo, Samwise, Merry and Pippin - have helped us get here and, although they are by now severely hampering our progress, we have to help them get back.

We make it back to the refugio before nightfall (but only just), some nine hours after having set off. We are exhausted, ever so slightly traumatised, but elated at having seen an absolutely flabbergasting sight not many people have got to see. So elated, in fact, that each of the dogs gets a slice of smoked salami as a thank you for not abandoning us. And instead of galloping back down to a proper meal and their home, the four hobbit-dogs curl up under the refugio for the second night before walking back down with us, staying by our side until we are on the doorstep of Fundo El Caulle.

"They must do this every time someone sets off up the volcano", I tell the owner before explaining exactly what the dogs did. Apparently, they really don't - we are the first.

And I thought I was a cat-person.

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Photos

On the trail to the Cordon Caulle
Con perros, of course

Trail to Cordon Caulle
Note the gullies made by rainwater in the ash