Blog 19: Climb Every Mountain

3 December 2023

Well ok, I only climbed one mountain, two if you include inti punku, three if you include Humantay. And this one was technically a volcano not a mountain.

Today, Sunday, dawned bright and sunny, the only whispy clouds draping themselves picturesquely around the mountain tops. And THE MOUNTAIN TOPS! I could see them at last. I already thought the farm was awesome and beautiful. Now that the volcanos were clear, it was beyond awesome, every view was good enough for a jigsaw puzzle.

Today was the day for the One Day Tour to Mirador Glacier on Mt Osorno that I had booked through Airbnb. Reading the reviews people said that the views were sensational, and today was fine and clear. Woo Hoo.

After the fun and games getting an uber out here, I decided to meet the tour leader at the farm gate, on the main road. That was a 2 kilometer walk, but a sensational one, especially now the volcanoes were gracing me with their presence. I walked through the forest with a spring in my step, the birds were singing, the sun was out, everything was green and beautiful, flowers everywhere and snow capped volcanoes in the distance. Enough to make your heart sing.

Farm pics

I reached the front gate with 15 minutes to spare, and exactly on time Lorena the tour guide arrived, with a fellow climber, a woman (whose name escapes me now) from Puerto Varras. She was an Italian living in Brazil. Youngish. We'll call her Bella (Bella from Brazil).

We took off and 5 minutes later Lorena turned into another farm accommodation place to pick up the remaining climbers, Alex and his girlfriend, we'll call her Maya (it was something like that anyway). So just some context. I had been up since 5.00 making sure I had my gear. I had done practice runs the night before and timed myself to make sure I'd be at the farm gate at the right time. I'd been communicating with Lorena to ensure she knew where to pick me up so I wouldn't make anyone late. So far everything had operated to clockwork precision.

Alex and Maya had a different approach. We waited in their driveway, engine running, while Lorena texted and WhatsApped them to let them know we were here. After a few minutes Alex strolled out and said Maya was still asleep but shouldn't be long, she'd just need to have a shower. So we waited in the driveway, engine running. After about 20 minutes we heard a hairdryer and not long after they both emerged onto their verandah, sorting their stuff for the day, putting their shoes on, packing their backpacks and generally farting around with frequent trips back inside. THEN THEY MADE THEMSELVES A COFFEE and came out and sipped that on the veranda taking in the view of the volcanoes and chatting to each other. At one stage Bella mumbled to Lorena 'Brazillians?' and Lorena laughed and said 'Yup'.

Finally, and I mean probably 30 minutes later, they strolled casually over to the car, checking that they had everything in their backpacks, running back in for something, then getting into the car and introducing themselves. They were friendly and nice, and easily forgiveable. They were Israelis living in Brazil, and as they later confided, they weren't married, they were meant to be, but 'the war' had intervened, and they and their families felt it was no time for a celebration.

Soooo. Off we went. Mount Osorno was now looming over the lake, and we stopped for a classic volcano-across-the-lake photo, then drove through the small town of Ensenada at the entrance to the 'Petrohue' national park. We began to ascend through thick bushland, much of it in bloom with deceptively golden flowers very similar to wattle. The road wound around and at each turn we caught glimpses of the volcano through the trees. It was increasingly massive.

Finally we arrived at a car park and office, at the foot of the chairlift, where we had to register for the National Park. Apparently numbers are kept to manageable levels, especially for the trekking, and we were among the lucky few that day. Lorena gave us a briefing and issued us with crampons (for climbing in snow) and leg protectors (to keep snow out of our socks). She also gave us a bag containing a packed lunch, 3 tangerines and chocolate bars.

We began our trek. The first goal was to reach the snowline, no small feat in itself as the incline was quite acute and the soil was pebbly, a kind of crunchy basalt - dark black mostly but also slightly red. It was easy to slip and to twist your ankle. Lorena set the pace, and it was quite slow; this will be a cinch I thought.

After about 30 minutes we reached snow. It was icy and shallow at this stage, barely covering the surface, but enough to make things slippery. We trudged on, step by step, lost in our own thoughts. Bella made slight self-motivating groans as the trek steepened. A &M stopped regularly for photos of each other, and I became their photographer here and there.

Pretty soon we had some elevation and the scenery was going from impressive to stunning. Lorena explained which of the peaks were in Chile, which in Argentina. She also explained the snowline on the peaks around us and how it has retreated in recent years, along with the glacier on Mount Osorno (pronounced 'glasha' in spanish) and how the snow disappears entirely from Mount Osorno completely over Summer now, which it usen't do. She also pointed out the volcano that erupted in 2015, and showed us the river of lava it had created down to the lake.

We pushed on and step by step, about an hour later, reached a hut at the top of the chairlift. We had been walking quite a while to get to this point, so we had a break and ate our lunch, took some pics and met Bella's husband who had a sore foot and had come up on the chairlift to meet us then go back. Everyone spoke in Spanish, so I sorted my photos and took some more.

After lunch we tied on our crampons. The next stage would involve zig-zagging steeply uphill through deep snow and ice, so crampons were essential for grip. We also put on ankle guards to stop snow filling our shoes.

Then off we set. At first I was fine; I followed the leader, stepping into the deep footprints she was leaving in the snow. After 15 minutes or so, however, the incline got steeper, and I started to lose confidence, particularly transferring from zigs to zags. There was an enormous gaping chasm developing below us with each step, and it occurred to me maybe this wasn't the best idea for someone challenged by heights. I looked up; there was an almost vertical climb ahead and the end just wasn't in sight, it seemed to extend forever. Lorena probably sensed the growing concern and said there was a rock ahead that we could all sit on and take a break. By now my legs were tremoring from the exertion, so the rock couldn't have come up at a better time. There was enough room for all of us on the rock, so we all sat there, studiously not looking down. Alex played a bit with snowballs, watching them speed down the mountain and after a while I joined in. The snowballs rumbled down for a good 3 minutes before disappearing from sight into the mists.

Pointing skyward, Lorena said the next bit would be difficult and would take 45 minutes; they key was to take every step carefully and purposefully. From where we were sitting we couldn't even see the crest, but the climb looked forbiddingly steep. We did as we were told but after only 5 minutes in I started to lose my nerve. I was slipping a little in my crampons, it was icy and slippery and I was losing my centre of gravity in all the whiteness. A fall would be catastrophic. I asked Lorena if we could stop for a moment, and she asked why, I said because I'm scared. She told me to just keep following her steps, but by this stage I preferred to be on all fours, I just couldn't trust my balance. Then someone behind me said 'Try kicking the snow, your crampons will give you a better grip'. I did, and they were right. the crampons actually stuck into the ice way better. It took more energy to kick, but it gave me a little more confidence.

How I did it, I don't know. Every time I looked up the wall of snow and ice above me seemed higher and steeper, the chasm below more gaping. I began counting steps, thinking I reckon it'll be 500 steps till we break next, and with a combination of kicking and crawling I kept going. Eventually Lorena called out 'we're cresting the snowdrift', and sure enough we reached the top. The ordeal was over.

Of course, we were all thinking how the hell we were going to get down again. It was Maya who asked the question. Lorena just chuckled and said we'll be going down that way, and pointed to a much flatter ski run in the distance. It looked way easier; why couldn't we have come up that way I pondered.

By now however, it was dawning on us where we were. We were above the clouds, looking at absolutely epic views of the other volcanos in Southern Chile extending to peaks in the Andes in Argentina. Below us, the crater, with whisps of misty smoke rolling around the surface. The weather was still clear, there was no wind, the sky was blue, the lakes below glimmering; it was totally awesome. Mists rolled in and out, curling around the peaks, creating all kinds of drama. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

On the left is the snowdrift we climbed up to, climbing up on the steep, right hand side. If you look closely, you can see a person up there.

The summit from the chairlift station half way up

The epic view from the top

The epic view from the top (2)

The epic view from the top (3)

The view on the way down. The volcano in the distance is in Argentina.

Mt Osorno and the Argentinian mountain from the plane next day.

Getting the crampons on.

My support team. OK, not really. Just the others.

Mountain Climber

We were up there for almost an hour, taking photos and drinking in the scenery. While my focus was on the changing mists and the photo opportunities, Alex and Maya took 500 photos on Maya's phone of themselves being cute and got Lorena, Bella and I to take photos of them too, which we happily did. They were young, we weren't judging, all good fun. We could just make out a group of snowboarders and skiers up on the peak above us, and watched them ski down from the very top of the mountain. Lorena said she has been up there several times, and it is almost the same effort again to get there. The actual cone at the top looked massively steep.

Eventually we gathered our gear together and started descending; initially over some rogue basalt crumble below the snowdrift, then on to the ski run that would take us down. The incline was still quite steep in places, but it was powder snow, and if you fell, the snow quickly stopped you. There were no gaping chasms on this side.

In fact we discovered it was kind of fun to fall over, and if you sat down in a snowboard trail, you could actually ski on your bum, quite fast, and quite long distances. Bella was the first to try, and I was second, Alex third. We had descended quite fast, but Maya was left at the top and called out that she had fallen. So we all waited while Alex walked back up the slope to see if she was ok. Whatever had happened in a few moments Maya was skiing down on her bum, squealing with delight. Alex came down behind her. When he reached the bottom, Maya isaid she wanted to film Alex skiing down on his bum, so Alex walked back up to where he started and ski'd down again. It took a couple of takes, as it turned out.

There were heaps of other opportunities to bum-ski. We all partook in it and it saved a lot of time. We reached the base of the snowline in about an hour. I was exhausted, and ready to sit in a warm car and go home. But no. Lorena explained that we had to climb over a quite steep hill to get to the carpark. We trudged up the hill, hard work that was compensated by the fact we could see Mt Osorno's sister volcano in Argentina from the peak, another magnificent volcano that had been hidden from view on the climb.

While Bella and I took pics, a discussion seemed to be happening between Alex, Maya and Lorena and suddenly Alex and Maya headed back down the way we'd come. When we caught up with her, Lorena explained that in some of the later bum-skiing Maya had dropped her phone. Alex and Maya were going back up the mountain to retrace their steps and see if they could find it. My indulgence for this couple began to evaporate. We already had another 30 minutes of steep walking to get back to the carpark, and it had been a huge day; I was ready to go home, I could see the 'retracing' taking hours. Half an hour passed, an hour passed.

Finally they showed up. They hadn't found the phone, and understandably they were upset. They apologised for making us wait, but by this time we all just wanted to get home. We all shared our photos with them to help compensate for the loss.

I got home around 7.30pm. Lorena dropped me where she'd picked me up, and I walked down from the farm entrance, through the forest and back to my lodgings by the barn. I cooked myself a pork chop, ate it then packed up, because I would be leaving el chucao early in the morning. It had been another huge day; I had conquered a volcano.