SKIING OSORNO VOLCANO

Kevin reports:
August 20 to 22
From Pucon we could not find any mountain activities south on public transportation, a common problem when you dont have a car, but we took a series of buses for 5 hours south, to puerto montt and then puerto varas, a town on the west end of huge lago Llanquihue. Arriving at night, we got a taxi to drive us to a couple of hostels and we chose the best one, Casa Azul, for $32 a night. I had to figure out a way to get into the Andes (not Mikeys or Jimmys), so considered renting a car. That night the hostel dogs barked most of the night, and the cars were noisy driving by, bothering only me and not Amber.

The next morning I got up early to run, but it was too cold and windy, so I walked to the tourist office and had them call a mountain hut on the volcano Osorno, and by chance the owner was a few blocks away and came over to talk to me. He was driving up to the hut and agreed to drive us. What luck! Amber and I got packed and went back to the tourist office where we hung out for a few hours waiting for our ride (it was in a heated room right on the lake). Amber went to look at the big German built church in town, and was practising her sign language as she walked, and a deaf Chilean was walking by and saw her, he signed HI, and they had a conversation! That was cool. I bought a salmon leather key chain for $3.

Manuel drove us the 45 minutes to the bottom of the volcano, and then a third of the way up to the Teski Refugio. It was in the snow and the 4 wheel drive was sliding all over the place. It was still cloudy, we hadn´t seen the sun since we arrived in Chile a week earlier. But the refuge was great, just like a swiss alps mountain hut, with dorms, a big living room with fireplace, but also tv, music, internet, though no hot water. It was $32 with breakfast. There were 8 French people age 50 plus who had hired a bus and drivers to drive them to a bunch of volcanos to climb around chile. They were using mountaineering skis to go up and down. There were also 3 Italians walking up and snowboarding down. We had picked up some skis and boots for $42 on the way up as we were going to ski at the ´resort´next to the hut, with 2 lifts. They cooked us a great meal for $20.

REFUGIO TESKI ON OSORNO VOLCANO AT DAWN BEFORE SKIING

The next morning was perfectly clear, sunny with no clouds! We were so excited! We were skiing the Osorno Volcano! Amber and I walked up to the lifts and got tickets for $60. The first lift was pretty flat, but what views! We overlooked the huge lake, with Calbuco Volcano across from us and the Andes all around us. We could not believe our good luck. Then we headed up the 2nd lift and found the worst skiing snow ever. At first it was icy, which was actually good because you can turn on ice, but mostly it was crud, almost impossible to turn on. You would ski these long traverses then do a butt turn, or step turn if you could, then traverse back. But the views and sun made it great.

WALKING UP TO THE LIFTS FROM THE REFUGE TESKI

LONG TRAVERSES BECAUSE THE SNOW WAS CRUD MAKING IT HARD TO TURN

VOLCANO CABULCO IN THE BACKGROUND, A RARE SUNNY WINTER DAY IN CHILE

Later that day we had a true adventure. At the top of 2 I noticed two snowboarders going up and left, disappearing around a hill. From there you could do a long traverse back to the main ski run. I asked the lift operator if we could ski over there and he said Si, con cuidado (with carefulness), so off we went. We came around the bend and found ourselves with more awesome views, the only ones around, going ´backcountry skiing´. There were seracs that I got some great pictures of Amber skiing above, taken from below (I was thinking Berni will kill me when she sees that picture). There was no wind, no noise, we were on our own on a Chilean volcano, could not see anyone, just the lake and the mountains and the volacanos. It was just a power spot to the max. We did not have to turn, just traversed for over an hour to get back to the regular ski runs. For me it was the highlight of the whole trip to be up there with Amber, who was doing a great job skiing.

AMBER SKIING TO THE LEFT OF CHAIR 2 AROUND THE HILL TO ADVENTURE

See the next post by Amber for pictures from this part of the mountain.

Back in the hostel the sun set and created beautiful red colors over the lake and volcano across from us. We had another great dinner and basked in the beauty of the place.

THE NEXT MORNING THIS WAS OUR VIEW FROM THE REFUGE!