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(April 06) Considering that I wasn´t going to do this trek for another few weeks I can only say: GOOD ON ME that I postponed the other stuff, packed up and set off in a matter of half an hour that day. I hopped on a bus towards Osorno and asked to get off et Fundo El Caulle, the trailhead to "Los Baños", a series of natural hotsprings in an unwordly setting (and that for FREE!) PLUS a beautiful mountain to climb right next to it.
When we came down from the Pass near the Argentinean - Chilean Border I saw the Mountain from the bus and already got so excited I could hardly bear to be INSIDE the bus! The weather was perfect, not a trace of a cloud...well, until we hit the lower lying valleys of Chile, on the western side of the Andes. One can tell straight away that it rains a whole lot more on this side of the mountain range: Everything is covered with moss and lots of ferns are poking out of the dense forest that lines the road. Well, I thought, I´m gonna be above the clouds in a few hours, not to
El Refugio
on the foot of Volcán Puyehué worry....
The first couple of guys that I bumped into told me that the refugio was NOT above the clouds anymore; The fog had moved in early this afternoon and they thought the period of good weather had come to an end they told me. No, they said: "It MUST be over now with that great weather". Oh, good then. That really motivated me! But I trusted my own gut, and that promised a GREAT time!
The ascent was rather unpleasant and extremely steep, muddy and slippery. On top of that I was by myself and didn´t really know if there actually was going to be anyone up there since it was already fairly late in the season.
The good news were that there WERE other people in the hut, the bad news were I didn´t like any of them:-) NO, JUST KIDDING!! The bad news were that I still couldn´t see a thing, meaning the 2 chaps I met earlier WERE RIGHT! Ah, well, too bad. I kept my good spirits and enjoyed that night in the hut amongst a Canadian couple, an Irish-Swiss couple, a bunch of Israelis and another couple from Alaska.
The
The Ascent
Close to the top next day we seperated as all of them apart from the Alaskan couple were actually on the way down. So Scott, Sue and I set off on our own to climb Puyehué. It didn´t look too tough from down there, however, there was no real trail. Ah well, said Scott, it´s easy enough: We´d go straight up. Okay...I followed.
The ascent was spectacular and made up for the rather dull climb the day before: We were able to enjoy the most fantastic views! It wasn´t going to get much better than this. Oh yeah, and the weather: Marvellous!! We were ABOVE the clouds!! YESSSS!!!
Adventurous Scott suggested to explore the rim a bit further (it was huge, guess about 2 or 3 km´s in diameter): I didn´t need to be asked twice and Sue was convinced pretty easily too. So off we went across some meanwhile soft enough snowfields so that we didn´t need crampons (which we didn´t have anyway). It did take us slightly longer than we had anticipated and due to a total lack of wind and a spotless sky we ended up spending hours on top of this great mountain. (Scott and Sue said that
On the moon
View from the Pass to the north on the way to "Los Baños" the view was even better then from Lanín or Villarica, which are the ones EVERY BACKPACKER seems to climb. Good then because I wasn´t gonna do THAT)
Due to that delay we spent another night at the refugio (which we hadn´t planed, but well, who cares?). The next day we had those legendary Baños on the list: What could be better than a day of hard trekking spiced up with a bath in totally natural hot springs at the base of a beautyful mountain in a totally deserted setting??
The first few km´s were nice, but not all that spectacular; until we got to the low Pass from where the view opened up to the north west: We were dumpfunded when we saw what lay before us; a moonscape like I had never seen before (I´ve seen a lot!): No tree, no bush, nothing. Only lava and volcanic ash. Sounds horible you think? Well, think again (or check out the pic´s). Once again we were above the clouds, in a desertlike setting as good as it gets with loads of snowcapped mountains in the backdrop. What totally amazed me was that there was absolutely no sound at all;
View from the top to the north
with smoking Volcan Lanin in the background no wind, no flies, no birds, nothing. We remained motionless for minutes just in order to grasp what this actually WAS.
After a good 4 hour walk we finally reached them: Los Baños. Off I took my cloth and in I jumped in a matter of not even a minute. The other two (couldn´t believe it) pitched their tent and cooked lunch! But guess I don´t have to say much more, the pictures say all there is to it.
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chadia
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mann o mann
altobelli, alter schwede....atemberaubend!! hab' das erste mal dein journal gesehen....faszinierend!! wusste gar nicht, das du deine reise nach deutschland fortgesetzt hast....super tina!! kann gar nicht abwarten, bis ich wieder etwas von deiner reise hoere! wie geht's dir? die eindruecke sind bestimmt berauschend und ich hoffe, das es dir innerlich auch so schillernd geht! danke, das du mich rteilhaben laesst an deiner reise.....ein teil von mir ist mit dir auf abenteuer! lass' es dir gut gehen und looking forward hearing from you again.lots of love chadia