Volcan Villarrica

If you decide to hike Volcan Villarrica make sure to bring your board/skis! Most people who make the 9,431 ft ascent slide down on sleds, but riding down was absolutely the highlight of our visit to Pucon! It was awesome. There is nothing like climbing up ice and snow for 5 hours to look into a smoking volcanic crater and then ride down on untouched snow.

At the top I (Amanda) also rode down on of the steepest slopes of my snowboarding career. It was scary, my heart was racing, and at the bottom I felt like a badass. It’s such a natural high.

A little more about the volcano from Wikapedia: Villarrica is one of Chile’s most active volcanoes, rising above the lake and town of the same name. The volcano is also known as Rucapillán, a Mapuche word meaning “House of the Pillán”. It is the westernmost of three large stratovolcanoes that trend perpendicular to the Andean chain along the Gastre Fault. Villarrica, along with Quetrupillán and the Chilean portion of Lanín, are protected within Villarrica National Park.

Villarrica, with its lava of basaltic-andesitic composition, is one of only five volcanoes worldwide known to have an active lava lake within its crater. The volcano usually generates strombolian eruptions, with ejection of incandescent pyroclasts and lava flows. Melting of snow and glacier ice as well as rainfalls often cause massive lahars (mud and debris flows), such as during the eruptions of 1964 and 1971.

Snowboarding Down