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Published: October 9th 2012
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Summit
Luke and Morgan on the summit of Vulcan Chillan Nuevo After 48 hrs of sitting in airports and on airplanes Luke and I were stoked to see Joe at the airport with our home for three months a small Suzuki Van. We were skeptical that the three of us and all of our gear would fit in the van comfortably but after loading up our gear we were surprised at the roominess of our van. Our original plan was to head to the coast for a couple days to surf and relax but after 48 hrs of traveling we were itching to get into the mountains and onto some rock so we decided to head to Reserva Nacional del Rio Cipreses to climb at Cordon Granito. We arrived at the park late that night and the gates were already closed, we found a side road and experimented with the three of us sleeping in the back of the van again skeptical that we'd all fit but lo and behold the van was again surprisingly comfortable. We awoke the next morning to clear blue skies and mountains towering above us, we drove into the park excited to get going on our first adventure. One of the rangers came out to greet us,
Joe Climb
Roadside crag we found in Chillan between Morgans little spanish and his little english we were able to communicate that the park was closed because they were working to expand the road further into the park and it wouldnt be open until November. The extension of the road bodes well for us allowing us easier acces to Cordon Granito but we'd have to delay our expedition for a month or so. With this information we decided to head to Lago Maule to attempt a possible first ascent on Cerro Companario, we drove 70km into the mountains again to be turned around by road construction only about 10 km from our destination. We were very disheartened but found a beautiful campsite by the river to spend the night, we crawled into the tent as soon as the rain started and when we crawled out 12 hrs later it was still pouring. We had found a roadside crag the day before on the way into the mountains that we had planned to climb on but with the rain it was impractical. We could see the snow level had lowered during the night so we decided to head down to the Lakes Region to climb and ski some volcanoes,
Nevados Chillan
Vulcan Chillan Nuevo and Viejo from camp our first stop was Termas de Chillan a ski resort and hot springs at the base of El Vulcan Chillan. It was still raining/snowing when we arrived and we hoped that the rain we were experiencing in the valley was snow up on the mountain. We found another great little roadside crag that we were hoping would dry out before we left and the hot springs, though they cost 4000 pesos per person, were a wonderful way to relax. When we were sitting in the hot springs a light snow began to fell and we decided that tomorrow we would climb Vulcan Chillan snow or sun. We drove back into town after the hot springs to pick up supplies and check the weather, it looked like we were going to get at least a day of nice weather to attempt the climb. We awoke at 0500 to a bright light shining in our van window, "turn off your headlamp" someone mutters from their sleeping bag. "Dude, thats the moon" everyone quickly gets out of their sleeping bags to a beautiful clear morning and the moon shining of the volcanoes. We drove up to the resort and left the parking lot
Rest time
Taking a break on Chillan, W/ Vulcan Antuco in the background en route to the summit around 0700, there was snow from the base which was wonderful for skining. About 500 m up the mountain Luke was complaining about his skins not working right, we quickly discovered that he had put them on backwards once we figured that out our pace began to pick up and we made much better time. As we reached the top of the resort we ran into a group of canadians who were slalom training we talked to them for a bit while we put on our shells to protect against the raging winds. Route finding to the summit was fairly easy with a couple steep sections, we dug a snow pit at about 2200m to check on avy conditions. With good snow we continued to the top, and summited (3120m) at about 1400. We had been watching weather moving our way for most of the day it was a relief to get our skis under us and headed down the mountain. The snow from the summit to about 2000m was wonderful but as we decended lower the snow got very wet and very heavy making skiing extremely difficult. We descended the last 500m by walking because the most of snow had melted since we started up, we arrived back at the car all exhausted from the days effort. From the parking lot to the summit was about 2000m, and it had kicked all our butts. We went to bed early that night. We woke up the next morning and did a little bit of climbing at the roadside crag we had found a couple days before but since weather had moved back in and it was super cold our climbing was limited. We packed the car back up and decided to head to Joes uncles house in Valdivia to plan our next adventure.
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Shawna
non-member comment
Love you boys!
I really hope you guys keep this blog up! I'm already so jealous of your adventures. I hope you enjoy every day and keep going with the flow...you have the luxury of time to explore and no plan for where you need to be. Love you all! Be safe, and keep writing!