Volcan Descabazado

At Talca we resupplied for our Volcano trip. Perhaps the funniest thing that has happened to us is that we had to go to a hardware store and buy a Chillean 240 volt wall plug and a length of household electrical wire so that i could build an adapter for our Canadian suited camera battery charger. The ferrateria was small crowded and had counter service only, but the older cabellero who helped us was patient amused and kind. Not only was our spanish poor but we also had to wrestle with terms and concepts which were way outside the box of conversational spanish! When we had accomplished our mission, Cheryl told the guy that we were the only two people in canada who actually spoke spanish....He congratulated us and wryly added that our spanish was also an idiomatica especialis!

This photo is of Volcan Descabazado which you reach by climbing up a forest for 1000 metres, dropping over a cliff for 1000 metres, walking down a river valley, up a lava blasted river valley, crossing both rivers 4 times, in icy fast moving water which was sometimes over our waist, and arriving at a small oasis which is fed by some hot streams which emerge from the side of the volcano. All of this is done at a temperature above 25 degrees, and only two of the 5 days includes any amount of shade. The rest is almost completely exposed to the sun, except when you huddle behind a rock or head out in the early mornings. Making it sound grim would be a lie though, as it was exceptionally beautiful. The second photo shows our temporary camp at the hotsprings, which fortunately were only tepid, as it would be a waste to have a hotspring on a hot day. It was great to have the tent fly to erect some shade, as the meadow would have been unbearable without some relief from the intensity of the sun. Having said that, spending too much time in the shade could also bring on a chill in the steady breeze/wind.

The hot springs were only at about 1800 metres and the summit of the Volcan is at 3900 metres so we rested and ate on this day, during the hottest part of the day, before heading up the slopes of the Volcano for our evening. We had hoped to camp high on the side to cut some time out of the next day, but, despite the lack of vegetation, navigation is not easy. Gullies start and stop randomly, carved and left by ancient erosional epochs, the lack of vegetation hides the scale of things and it is difficult to estimate distance and height, and we ended up on the wrong ridge for a while, requiring some serious descents and ascents on ash scree, which is somewhat akin to climbing a mountain of marbles! Here are two shots from our camp on the mountainside, with the summit above us.

At 6 the next morning, we made for the summit but our hearts were better than our legs and we could only manage to have an exceptional experience climbing to about 11,000 feet before we took some photos and headed back down to our camp and eventually the hotsprings for the night. Next morning, we managed to walk almost all the way out and include an exceptional ridgewalk on the edge of a massive lavafield, visit a beautiful cascade, and cross the rivers again, this time so cold that we were left absolutely STINGING WITH PAIN for quite a while after the hardest7deepest ones.

Rode into Talca with a busload of american mormon missionary students, caught the bus to Chillan, and realized that we had lost, in Talca, our warmest clothing bag...with some of our most expensive items(down vest, skirt, and the OR stuff sack itself). Although we tried unsuccessfully to track it down, it is now a lost cause. Spent the night in Chillan, and are now lounging in the mountains near Thermas de Chillan at the Hostel de las trancas. Tomorrow, we{ll go to the ski area and hike over the ridge to the Agua Calientes high on the flanks(2000 metres) of Volcan Chillan! But for now....time to read a book.