Volcano boarding!!!!!!

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  Pucon, Chile
Friday, February 24, 2006

We left Santiago behind on a night bus to Pucon. Ten hours later at 8am we found ourselves in the beautifully spectacular snow village of Pucon. We went and checked ourselves into our Hostel and fell asleep until around 1pm. We must have been tired. When we awoke we immediately arranged to hike Volcan Villarrica. This volcano is massive and dominates the horizon over Pucon (see photos for proof). The man at our hostel immediately called a Guide company down the road and they were over in a flash. We decided to go with this company, Ocho, as they seemed like cool younger guys who had started their own business less than a month ago. We went to their shop and got fitted out with all the latest gear; boots, crampons, helmets, snow clothes, an ice axe and gaiters. We also noticed in the shop that they had a few snow boards lying around so we enquired about them too. Our guide Gustavo told us that people don´t usually snow board down the volcano in summer time but he could see no reason why it wasn´t possible

01. Volcan Villarrica.......wow

. So for no extra cost he threw in board, boots and bindings. Now we were really excited. We were dropped off at a chair lift where we ascended to an altitude of about 1,800m. By the time we reached the summit we would be standing at 2,800m. The next three hours involved a lot of zigzagging through the snow which was quite often pretty steep. This was mine and Ryans first real experience with ´mountain climbing´ so we really had no idea what to expect. We certainly didn´t think it would be as difficult as it was. I guess we learnt that we´ve got a long way to go before we´re fit enough to tackle the Inca Trail!!!
Anyway we struggled on up the hill together and after about three hours we reached the summit. The sense of achievement was overwhelming and the view from the top was breath taking. We could see Pucon and various other little villages surrounding the volcano as well as various other volcanos and lakes. We walked about half way round the crater to the highest point and looked down into the beasts belly. Unfortunately there was too much smoke to see much, but that didn´t bother me much as it was giving me the heebygeebies being that close to the mouth of a fairly active volcano. The sense of achievement was quickly replaced by a sense of excitement in regards to how we were going to get down the volcano. There were probably about fifty or so other people climbing the mountain that day but no one else was skiing or snow boarding. Just me and Ryan. We only had one chance at it so we had to make it good. We took loads of photos, as you´ll see, and we even did some recording of each other boarding down. The snow was great and we were just so stoked to be doing something so unexpected. Never again will I be likely to hike an active volcano and snow board down it with one other mate. Priceless!!!! Hope you are all well and hope to hear from you all soon.

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02. Here´s Ryan at an old lift station	03. Ryan and others taking a well needed rest	04. Ryan and the crew trekking...almost there!!!!	05. Me having fun on the volcano
06. At the summit	07. A different Volcano	08. As close to the edge as I was willing to get!!	09. Not a bad view from the top!!!
10. ¨I think we should go this way!¨	11. Que pasa ese???	12. Que pasa with you, ese??	13. Unfortunately you can´t board all the way down

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